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Telefónica Tech
With the proper tools, and guidance, firms of all shapes and sizes can engineer their own bespoke software to suit their needs, writes David Small, CTO of Business Applications at Telefónica Tech
IT has been said that every company is now a technology business, no matter what product or service it provides, and those that embrace this fact are the ones that succeed and shape our world.
This may be overstating it a little, but the undeniable fact is that no company can make, deliver, or market its product efficiently and effectively anymore without technology.
And increasingly, those companies that harness the technical know-how of their people are the ones that really thrive.
This has been the driver of the recent phenomenon of the citizen developer. For those who don’t know, citizen development is a business process that encourages non-IT-trained employees to become software developers, using IT-sanctioned low-code/no-code (LCNC) platforms to create and improve business applications.
This approach to software development empowers employees – despite their lack of formal education in coding – to create and customise existing software programmes to suit a user's specific needs and improve operational efficiency within a company.
Low-code platforms typically allow business users without any knowledge of how coding works to address their own development needs.
This may be challenging for organisations who are new to the phenomenon, but with the right tools, processes, and governance, in place, it can be very effective. In today’s rapidly evolving technology landscape, we believe that the concept of citizen developers is revolutionising how organisations approach software development.
Telefónica Tech UK&I is actively supporting organisations in implementing this approach, particularly through what we term Fusion Teams. These teams consist of a combination of citizen developers and IT professionals who collaborate to accelerate digital transformation.
By leveraging the diverse skill sets of both technical and non-technical members, Fusion Teams drive innovation and efficiency.
Recent studies suggest an overwhelming 89% of CIOs and IT professionals affirm the effectiveness of a low-code approach in enhancing efficiency.
Looking ahead, Gartner predicts a significant shift in the landscape, anticipating that by 2026, developers outside formal IT departments will constitute a minimum of 80% of the user base for low-code development tools.
In our experience, the benefits of citizen developers in your organisation include:
■ Accelerated Innovation: Citizen developers can rapidly prototype and deploy solutions, leading to quicker innovation cycles.
■ Reduced IT Burden: With citizen developers taking on more development tasks, IT teams can focus on more complex, strategic initiatives.
■ Democratised Technology: Microsoft’s Low Code Power Platform democratises technology, making it accessible to a broader range of employees, thus fostering a more inclusive digital workplace.
■ Enhanced Collaboration: Fusion Teams facilitate better communication and collaboration between IT and other business units.
Telefónica Tech’s application experts are helping organisations roll out and customise technologies such as Microsoft’s Power Platform to make this a reality. Power Platform stands as a beacon in this transformative era.
It encompasses a suite of tools – Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages and Microsoft Copilot Studio (formerly Power Virtual Agents). These tools empower users to analyse data, build solutions, automate processes, and create virtual agents with minimal coding experience.
So what are the best practices for implementing Fusion Teams with Power Platform? They include:
■ Clear Governance: Establish clear guidelines and governance models to manage the balance between innovation and control. A Power Platform Centre of Excellence can help with setting the standards across multiple company divisions with separate Fusion Teams.
■ Training and Support: Invest in training resources to empower citizen developers and ensure they have the necessary support. Microsoft Learn free learning paths are generally the best asset for this with progress tracking and knowledge checks throughout.
■ Cultivate a Collaborative Culture: Encourage a culture of collaboration and continuous learning between IT professionals and citizen developers such as pair programming or peer review.
■ Monitor and Measure Success: Regularly monitor the performance and impact of solutions developed by Fusion Teams. The Power Platform Centre of Excellence starter kit can be installed to give a single view of all the business applications across Power Platform and Dynamics 365 environments.
Telefónica Tech UK&I is helping several organisations to successfully implement Fusion
Teams using Microsoft Power Platform. For instance, a Financial Services company that we work with used Power Platform to streamline broker onboarding and management, significantly reducing manual errors and improving efficiency.
With the citizen developers’ business knowledge, the low code platform accelerated the solution to meet the highest priority business problems and increase user adoption.
In our opinion, the collaboration and fusion of IT professionals and citizen developers through platforms like Microsoft Power Platform is an imperative in a rapidly changing digital world.
Careful planning, management, and governance are essential for success. With the assistance of application experts like Telefónica Tech, adopting a best practice blueprint is vital. This should be managed through a Centre of Excellence, ensuring the right balance between innovation and control, supported by appropriate training.
With a collaborative approach, organisations can look forward to a more democratised, efficient, and innovative future in software development, harnessing the collective strengths of diverse teams. As organisations continue to embrace this model, the potential for transformative change is boundless.
Telefónica Tech is the leading company in digital transformation. We hold a wide range of services and integrated technological solutions for Cyber Security, Cloud, IoT, Big Data, Business Applications and Blockchain.
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