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Compact 2021 4 15
Swatantra Kumar, M.Tech,
PGDAC, BE
is senior manager at KPMG.
Seven layers of governing Power Platform,
not only at scale but also at speed
Governance of
Power Platform
– as enabler,
not as gatekeeper
In today’s digital age, organizations are under immense pressure to define, ideate, build and deliver
services at consistently shortening time to market. With a demanding market, an unpredictable and
slowing economy, and a global shortage of skilled labor, low-code platforms are increasingly seen
as a boon for enterprises aiming to fuel digital transformation by building new apps, modernizing
application landscapes, or automating processes quicker and more efficiently. Low-code/no-code
(LCNC) tools have seen steady growth due to their effectiveness in addressing some of the
challenges in technology – primarily for digitizing workflows, enhancing user experiences,
promoting internal efficiency, and their ability to quickly fill the workforce gap. Low-code
application platforms are emerging as a key accelerator for app development and delivery. However,
there are still challenges ahead due to a vacuum of battle-tested IT governance for low-code
platforms. This article covers our view on the governance of one of the leading LCNC tools, Power
Platform, and why it is important while planning, securing, deploying, and supporting applications
built on the platform.
Governance of Power Platform – as enabler, not as gatekeeper
16
LOW-CODE – INTRODUCTION, DEMAND
AND MARKET
The pandemic has brought about years of change in the
way organizations across sectors and regions do busi-
ness. A study by McKinsey revealed that companies have
accelerated digitization by three to four years ([LaBe20])
in just a few months’ time of the pandemic. It even found
that the share of digital or digitally enabled products has
accelerated even more. The study calls out that filling
the gaps for technology talent is one of the major chal-
lenges companies are facing and will continue to face:
“Respondents from the companies that have executed
successful responses to the crisis report a range of
technology capabilities that others don’t – most notably,
filling gaps for technology talent during the crisis, the use of
more advanced technologies, and speed in experimenting and
innovating.”
This raises the immediate question of where you can
find the technology talent needed to provide this
increasing volume of applications in a world where
talent shortage is already a problem.
Low-code/no-code platforms can help. One part of the answer
is that everybody in an organization is empowered to
build applications, using low-code/no-code, without the
need for IT centralized delivery. For example, in a study
conducted by Forrester (depicted in Figure 1) for Micro-
soft’s LCNC tool, Power Platform, app development costs
were reduced by 74% and application management and
maintenance costs by 38% ([Forr20]). Gartner states that
by 2025, 70% of new applications developed by enter-
prises will use low-code or no-code technologies, coming
from less than 25% in 2020.
According to Gartner, low-code application
platforms are defined as software that enables
rapid development and deployment of custom
applications by abstracting and minimizing
traditional-coding, in order to develop a complete
application consisting of user interfaces,
business logic, workflow, and data services. It
also provides reasonable tools to properly secure
and govern these platforms ([Wong21]).
Low-code platforms change the game for building
solutions in an enterprise. The focus shifts from IT-­
owned projects, to democratized implementation of
apps – driven by business, domain experts, and non-IT
people. Traditionally, applications were left to the IT
departments to be developed, maintained, and sup-
ported. As a result, a large backlog of IT projects exists,
neglecting many smaller but still valuable business
cases due to time, cost, and resource restrictions. This
results in both frustration and un-leveraged business
value.
With the low-code platforms, the IT department is no
longer in a central position as an implementing and
operating authority. It is, together with the whole organ-
ization, the enabler for the digital savvy business users,
the Citizen Developers (CD).
Given the capabilities the low-code platforms are bring-
ing to the ecosystem, it is becoming the solution of
choice for Line of Business leaders including CIOs, and
CTOs to fill immediate gaps in the workforce, develop-
ment capacity and tackle IT challenges to ensure busi-
ness continuity.
Figure 1. Power Platform extends your development potential.
1,000+
Transformation scenarios
identified but untouched
The average cost to develop an
app is 74% less with Power
Platform than with traditional
coding methods.
Required
skills
and
resources
Impact to the business
Power Platform low-code develeopment is ideal for projects
constrained by limited developer resources
17
Compact 2022 4 Digital Trends & Compliance
Figure 2. Low-code trends & indicators.
CHALLENGERS LEADERS
NICHE PLAYERS
COMPLETENESS OF VISION As of August 2021 © Gartner, Inc
VISIONARIES
ABILITY
TO
EXECUTE
Kintone
Quickbase
Creatio
Pega
Appian
OutSystems
Mendix
Oracle
Newgen
Microsoft
Salesforce
ServiceNow
65% application development will
be done in low code by 2024
Accessibility
Of organizations struggle to
find technical talent to build
applications
Gartner
86%
Trends &
Indicators
Gen Z+ Millennials
resulting in a
changing workforce
43%
New apps will be built in
the next 5 years – more
than all apps built in the
past 40 years
500M
Low code apps projected
by market in 2023
$51b
X4
RPA projected market
by 2024 By 2023, the Citizen
Developer population in
large companies will be at
least 4 times larger than
Pro Developers
$6b
DPA projected
market by 2024 $13.4b
BI projected market
by 2024 $8b
Take a look at the key industry trends, and indicators
vis-à-vis low-code/no-code (LCNC):
• Forrester research said that the total spending on
the low-code market will reach $21.2 billion by 2022
([Forr20]).
• According to Business Wire, the future is low-code or
no-code with an expected growth rate of 44.4% by
2022 to $27.23 billion (up from $4.32 billion in 2017)
([Busi18]).
• The digital world expects over 500 million apps and
digital services to be built and deployed by the end
of 2023, according to IDC FutureScape. That is more
than all of the software solutions created in the last
four decades ([IDC22]).
• A report by Gartner forecasts that by 2024, low-code
adoption will be so widespread that 75% of the soft-
ware solutions built around the world will be made
with the help of such tools ([Gart21]).
The imposing numbers and claims in Figure 2 show the
trends that the LCNC industry is expanding at a fast pace.
Be it Digital Process Automation (DPA), Robotic Process
Automation (RPA), Business Process Automation (BPA),
Business Intelligence (BI), or, application development,
the LCNC market and demand for the tools are growing
in all these segments with very positive growth outlook.
Rising low-code platforms are driving about 50% annual
growth in a market populated by dozens of vendors.
The Microsoft Power Platform has some unique selling
point(s) USPs that give them a favorable position over
other leaders in the Gartner magic quadrant for low-code
applications. Given the vital importance of maintaining
a single source of truth in enterprises, Power Platform
brings the business process on a single platform allow-
ing the full cyclical approach to Analyze (Power BI),
Automate (Power Automate), Act (Power BI), Assist
(Power Virtual Agents) and Assemble (Power Apps)
enabling end-to-end capabilities that work together and
integrate seamlessly with the Microsoft ecosystem,
eliminating the need and dependency on multiple
separate software tools. The cherry on the cake is its
seamless integration with Azure Active Directory for a
comprehensive, integrated security and a single-sign-on
approach throughout your systems.
Power Platform is designated for a wide range of users and
use cases. It opens up the approach of building applica-
tions of varying complexity, ranging from simple per-
sonal productivity to more complex use cases by bringing
together teams from different areas for the purpose of
bringing apps to life faster, also known as the “Fusion
Teams” (see Figure 3) approach. A fusion team comprises:
Figure 3. Fusion teams – low-code is a team sport.
Citizen Developers participate
directly in the development to
shorten cycles
Citizens register their apps
and participate in training
IT governs citizen
activity and nurtures
the community
IT grants access to resources
for more advanced developers
Coders manage source
control and app lifecycles
Coders do the “hard
parts”, from data
integration to custom
UX controls
Low-
Code
Business
IT
Developers
Governance of Power Platform – as enabler, not as gatekeeper
18
• Code-first developers (also referred to as professional
developers), who can extend or build upon the plat-
form using traditional code first within IT depart-
ments.
• Citizen Developers, who can build solutions without
writing code and, most importantly, know their
requirements. Operating within the business, they
are experts in their domain and do not require a deep
knowledge of IT.
• And finally, IT professionals, who can operate as the
administrator or in the governance team.
GOVERNANCE OF THE POWER PLATFORM
The confluence of rising IT needs, coupled with the
scarcity of developers and seamless integration with the
Microsoft ecosystem of products has driven an increas-
ing desire and need for Power Platform. However, there
are some challenges that need to be addressed to estab-
lish solid confidence in adopting any low-code platform
in the organization. The most common inhibitors to
adoption that are observed are:
• Security risks regarding Shadow IT
• Business-managed IT (BMIT)
• Data security concerning connectors,
• App or flow ownership managed by the business
• Maintaining environment health
• Information security & risk management
• Compliances issues
• Monitoring and tracking of apps and flows, etc.
To address these concerns and to leverage the full poten-
tial of the platform for the benefit of an organization, it is
imperative to establish a successful governance frame-
work.
Digital governance is the key mechanism organizations
use to ensure that software development aligns with
strategic objectives, business goals, commercials, data
protection, maintaining compliance standards, and
protecting the chain of value creation, value delivery,
and value capture. It encompasses the norms and stand-
ards that shape the regulation regarding the develop-
ment and use of technologies by offering a formal
Power Platform and why you should consider it
The Microsoft Power Platform is a low-code platform with a unique suite of business services that
democratizes and unifies data spanning across SharePoint, Excel, Exchange, OneDrive, Office 365 apps,
Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and standalone apps. It is named a leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™
for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms. Power Platform ties together some best-in-class services:
Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and Power Pages.
Power BI is the self-service business analytics tool that helps you discover and explore
insights from your data and enables to make informed, confident business decisions.
Power Apps is a LCNC app development platform that allows to turn ideas into solutions
by enabling to build custom apps that solve business challenges.
Power Automate, formerly known as Microsoft Flow is a component that gives the
ability to business users to automate workflows that orchestrate across services using
connectors within the organizations, without writing any code for the same.
Power Virtual Agents is an intelligent chatbot development platform empowering
business users to easily create powerful AI-driven chatbots to engage conversationally
with your customers and employees using a guided, no-code graphical interface without
any coding.
Power Pages provides a low-code way to create, host and manage process-driven secure
websites, enabling organizations delivering vital information and services to customers
and external users.
19
Compact 2022 4 Digital Trends & Compliance
framework for achieving measurable progress while
safeguarding the value flow.
While governance is important to ensure that problems
are anticipated and solved early, to leverage the full
potential of the Power Platform, it is important to strike
a balance between the organization’s needs in terms of
security, compliance, and regulations (such as GDPR,
etc.), yet at the same time giving teams enough freedom
to innovate and create value for themselves and the
enterprise.
The Microsoft Power Platform provides the necessary
means to strike that balance: “long-leashing” your
organization, but still enabling central governance. The
central effort of CIOs and Risk departments to mitigate
risks is initially contrary to the idea of the autonomy
that Microsoft Power Platform requires. Governance is
distinguished into the following divisions:
• Proactive governance
• Reactive governance
Proactive governance deals with the central requirements
that are defined within the platform (the so-called
guardrails), ideally before it is rolled out. This includes
security requirements, environment and licensing
strategies, cost implications, roles, and responsibilities.
Being proactive, can and should be done upfront to
ensure the first level of governance and security.
Reactive governance describes continuous monitoring and
alerting based on standardized yet specific indicators to
enable a clearer view of the Power Platform. It is used to
assess adoption KPIs, as well as to respond quickly where
necessary.
A comprehensive governance concept is fundamental to
every technology and software platform. This is espe-
cially true for low-code platforms due to their democra-
tized nature. Figure 4 covers the seven layers or areas as
advised by Microsoft ([Pich19]) to get started, while
considering using, adopting, deploying, managing
Power Platform and its governance. The beauty is that
each of these layers is independently manageable and
gives the flexibility to choose the layers in any order.
Each of these layers concerns the proactive or reactive
governance or both approaches. It’s important to men-
tion that the governance is not a one-off exercise, it
needs to be constantly reviewed and refined based on the
evolving needs of the organization itself, but also given
new functionality is provided by Microsoft regularly.
Platform Overview – environment, apps,
platform
Power Platform provides an easy interface for business
users to create apps and flows while simultaneously
providing robust tools for pro developers, making it
possible to integrate innovative solutions across Azure,
Dynamics 365, and standalone applications. A common
issue that arises is the ownership status of these apps
and flows. If a user creates an app and then leaves the
organization, the app is left without an owner, and is
unable to be edited or shared. Without governance, this
problem too often becomes apparent after the fact.
You should have product discovery periodically to under-
stand the status and origin of apps and flows in your
environments. Having a Strategy & Vision defined is
fundamental for any further efforts in the Power Plat-
form. For instance, as a part of the strategy, consider
identifying such artifacts that are orphaned or unused,
and then act according to governance policy, e.g., archiv-
ing orphaned apps or changing the app ownership. The
Power Platform Center of Excellence starter kit provides
functionalities to identify such objects and reassign the
orphaned apps by changing the app ownership or
archiving the unused apps.
The same applies to the platform evaluation as the Power
Platform is constantly evolving, and new features must
be continuously evaluated to determine how they can be
used meaningfully by the organization.
Figure 4. Kick-start low-code journey with the 7 layers
(source: Microsoft).
Platform Overview
Platform Architecture
Secure
Monitor
Alert & Act
Deploy
Education & Support
Governance of Power Platform – as enabler, not as gatekeeper
20
Figure 5. Example environment strategy diagram (source: Microsoft).
Critical project
Individual project
Personal productivity apps
SG = Security Group
Everyone
is a maker
Only one user
has access
Dev team SG
are makers
Business unit
dev SG (A)
are makers
Project dev
SG (B)
are makers
Testing SG
are users
only
Testing SG
(A) are users
only
End user SG
AND dev team
are users
All end users,
projects and
business units
(A & B)
are users only
Testing SG
(B) are users
only
Default
Developer
Critical
Project
Dev
Business
Unit
Dev
Critical
Project
Prod
Shared
Pord
Critical
Project
Test
Shared
Test
Important
Project
Dev
Communicate with everyone that
Default is not for development of
critical apps.
Developer environments are completely
locked for any other user except the user
who subscribed to the community plan.
Applications can be moved out of the
environment if needed.
Dedicated dev/test/prod environments
for each critical application. Developers
have Environment Maker access in the
dev environment, but only user access in
test and prod. End users only have end
user access to the production solution
so no one can modify the applicatoins.
Shared test/prod environments for
important but medium complex apps can be
shared between multiple projects or
business units.
Individual projects and business units
should always have their own development
environment to protect data. End users only
have basic user access to solutions and
data in production environments.
Figure 5 exemplifies such an environment strategy as
published by Microsoft ([Mora19]). There are multiple
types of environments that all have different purposes,
such as:
• Default – This environment is the standard out-
of-the-box environment. Each tenant has a default
environment and should be used for personal produc-
tivity only and should not be used for critical busi-
ness applications. It is recommended to rename this
environment accordingly to reflect the purpose.
• Developer – These environments are intended only
for use by the owner, which makes it perfect for the
development teams to work in isolation on an appli-
cation.
• Sandbox – These environments are non-production
environments, which should be used for development
and testing your development before moving into a
production environment.
Platform architecture
You must know your environment to govern it better. A
Power Platform environment is a space to store, manage,
and share your organization’s data, apps, chatbots, and
flows, and is tied to a geographic location. Environments
serve as a container that administrators can use to
manage apps, flows, connections, and other assets, along
with permissions to allow organization members to use
the resources. Therefore, start by understanding, and
developing an environment strategy.
An environment strategy primarily entails environment
provisioning, managing access rights and other layers of
data security, and effectively organizing underlying
resources in a way that supports productive develop-
ment in your organization.
21
Compact 2022 4 Digital Trends & Compliance
• Production – This is your environment where your
solutions will be accessed by end users. It is advised
that the development team does not have any admin
access to this environment, and it is purely the IT
team that deploys the solutions to this environment.
Furthermore, assign your admins the Power Platform
service admin role, which grants full access to Power
Apps, Power Automate & Power BI. Restrict the creation
of net-new trial and production environments to
admins. Next, establish the environment management
policy, and processes to request the creation of environ-
ments, and request access. Clear roles and responsibili-
ties across the organization on support, and ownership.
Defining the tiered application models along with
specific lifecycles of apps support.
Besides the environment, understand your organiza-
tion’s tenants to govern it better. A tenant refers to the
container in which all your different environments sit.
Check the tenant settings and harden them as per your
organization’s requirements.
Next to it are connectors and on-premise data gateways,
which have a crucial role while interacting with differ-
ent systems. Connectors are essentially proxy wrappers
around the application programming interfaces (APIs)
provided by services that allow apps and flows to easily
interact with the service. On-premise data gateways
enables Power Apps and Power Automate to reach back
to on-premises resources to support hybrid integration
scenarios. The gateway leverages Azure Service Bus relay
technology to securely allow access to on-premises
resources. Inside the tenant, within each database
environment – there are data connectors and controls.
These need to be secured with the right roles and per-
missions to ensure the users have access only to the tools
and environments they need.
Secure
A major benefit of Power Platform and its integration into
the Microsoft ecosystem is that users are automatically
authenticated. It is the key that enables proper govern-
ance of the Power Platform. Every action maker, and
Citizen Developers make, happens with an authenticated
account. This means that they cannot go beyond their
granted permissions on SharePoint, Teams, Dataverse
(formerly, CDS, Common Data Service), or any other
system where data interacts. Defining security is funda-
mental to the implementation of the Power Platform
within an enterprise. It contains necessary decisions on:
• Azure AD conditional access at the Tenant level .
• Setting up data loss prevention policies at the Environ-
ment level designed to enforce rules for accessibility of
connectors and access to business data.
• Establishing resource permissions for apps, flows,
and custom connectors at the Resource level.
• Assign Dataverse security roles.
• Defining Cross-tenant inbound and outbound security
and compliance concepts, detailing access from and
to the data sources.
These belong to the proactive governance area; it is
important to have these defined and implemented
properly before the rollout of the platform.
Monitor
Monitor is the reactive area of the governance approach.
It is important to monitor who is accessing your apps
and flows and how these are being used to ensure secu-
rity policies are effective. The Security & Compliance
Center can be used to review out-of-box activity logs and
analytics. Configure audit logs and make use of APIs to
access logs and leverage management connectors for
powerful reporting.
Alert & Act
Alert & Act too are the reactive area of the governance
approach. It is advised to automate your audit and alert
process using Power Automate. It deals with ongoing
monitoring of standard and specific KPIs of your apps
and flows across the enterprise to gain meaningful
insights into adoption. This greatly helps in discovering
any risks early in the process, identifying and empower-
ing champions, welcoming new makers, and fostering
the best practices.
With the digital innovation and enablement, the Power
Platform brings to the organization – both the IT and
risk management functions are quickly overwhelmed
by the number of apps that are built. It is no longer about
one app at a time that undergoes a development lifecy-
cle. Therefore, it is important to automate the policies
outlined, have alerting mechanisms in place, necessary
actions defined and applied to remediate the potential
risks with the growing number of apps. As an example,
create workflows using management connectors that
either permit or restrict behavior based on your organi-
zation’s Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies.
Governance of Power Platform – as enabler, not as gatekeeper
22
Deploy
The application lifecycle includes governance, develop-
ment, and maintenance. In Power Platform, with Appli-
cation Lifecycle Management (ALM), you get a bird’s eye
view of your projects including requirements manage-
ment, resource management, nurturing and system
administration such as data security, user access, change
tracking, review, audit, deployment control, and rollback
in a way that other approaches fail to deliver. You get
increased visibility into workflow, enhanced compli-
ance, faster deployments, and higher quality products.
Learn and facilitate the ALM toolset and best practices.
Solutions are the mechanism for implementing and
deploying ALM in Power Apps and Power Automate. A
solution is either managed or unmanaged. The begin-
ning state of solution is the unmanaged solution.
Unmanaged solutions are used in development environ-
ments while you make changes to your application.
Managed solutions are used to deploy to any environ-
ment that isn’t a development environment for that
solution. It is a finalized solution that can be distributed
and installed.
Educate & Support
An overarching aspect of managing Power Platform is
nurturing the continued growth and onboarding of
makers and driving your organization to adopt a digital
culture. A maker is someone who creates and enforces
business processes, structures the digital collection of
information, improves the efficiency of repeatable tasks,
and automates business processes. Evangelism, commu-
nity, and training are proven ways to create awareness of
the platform’s capability and provide support within an
organization. At the same time, it is an integral part for
people in an organization to understand concerns, and
regulations that they need to respect. Therefore, it is
vital to provide well explained, persona-based entry
points into the Power Platform. That can be done
through central communication, as well as providing
specific information to new makers to ensure they have
the resources they need to be productive and successful
with these tools. To enable people, clear and concise
communication is crucial.
EXPERIENCE FROM THE PRACTICE
When approached by organizations who struggle with
leveraging the full potential of the Power Platform
within their organization, the following patterns are
usually observed:
• The adoption of the Power Platform is either minimal
or cannot be assessed at all. Key indicators are not
regularly reviewed.
• The fear of security breaches or of not being compli-
ant with regulations results in a reduced, half-hearted
implementation of the Power Platform.
• Regular review and adjustment of the strategy &
vision, governance, and assessment of new features of
the Power Platform are not conducted.
• Transparent internal communication that provides
guidance and information on guardrails and assists
Citizen Developers is missing.
• The need for proactive governance is usually known
but is only partially implemented and followed.
Based on our experience, organizations are mostly aware
of proactive governance requirements. Along with IT,
Security, and Risk departments, they usually have
restricted access according to best practices before
rolling out the platform. One common mistake is that
the IT department continues to be put in control of app
requests and creation.
Low-code platforms, therefore, require a clear commit-
ment and investment from the whole organization,
ensuring that the topics described above are not only
implemented “once” and therefore half-heartedly, but
also continue to be developed further. This is the only
way to keep leveraging the full value of the use cases
over time.
ESTABLISH A CENTER OF EXCELLENCE
To improve business agility, and productivity in a
governed, secure, auditable, and manageable way, while
being compliant with regulatory requirements as well as
reducing costs, and empowering makers, organizations
should establish a Center of Excellence (CoE). A CoE helps
organizations focus and align their resources and exper-
tise regarding a specific capability to accomplish and
sustain performance and value. CoE is designed to drive
innovation and improvement, and as a central function
it can break down geographic and organizational silos.
In our view, a Center of Excellence encompasses the
below key areas in the context of Power Platform.
• Vision & Strategy
• Administration & Governance
• Business Value & Onboarding
• Nurture, Change & Adoption
• Automation
We advise businesses to start with a set of workshops to
identify the current state and maturity level of the
Power Platform within their organization. Post assess-
ment – set the target level and define how to go further
on the CoE journey, in a phased approach to realize the
value sooner. Our consulting approach covers all the key
23
Compact 2022 4
areas and aims to increase the maturity level of each of
them separately.
Administration & Governance is one of the key areas in the
Power Platform journey. Depending on the size of your
organization, consider installing the Power Platform
Center of Excellence Starter Kit (Starter Kit) instead of
starting from scratch. The Starter Kit should not be misun-
derstood by CoE. The Power Platform Center of Excellence
Starter Kit is a collection of the below set of components,
tools, and templatized best practices designed with the
Administration & Governance area in mind.
a. Core components – Catalog tenant resources, DLP
Strategy & Visibility, Change app ownership
b. Compliance components – Sample App audit process,
Archive unused apps, Act based on certain connector
usage
c. Nurture components – Onboard new makers, provide
training and share best practices, and encourage
adoption
The Power Platform Center of Excellence starter kit acts
as a foundation element and kick-starts the Power
Platform admin & governance journey. There are a few
caveats to be mindful of:
• It needs to be separately installed and maintained.
• The kit itself is not supported by Microsoft.
• Multi-tenant setups need to be planned thoroughly
with the starter kit.
• It is a generic template that might not match every
organization’s requirements.
Therefore, it is recommended that once the starter kit is
installed and configured within your environment you
should consider extending and personalizing it to fit
your organization’s requirements as defined by CoE.
CONCLUSION
With each passing day, the boundaries between business
and IT are blurring at an accelerated rate. Business users,
in many cases without formal programming experience,
but with the help of low-code/no-code platforms, are
building applications with increasing frequency. This
growth can have an impact on organizations – both
positive and negative. In the absence of proper govern-
ance, this can lead to a large number of unmonitored
applications operating across an organization, poten-
tially compromising data, security, risk, and compliance.
Solid governance serves as a firm foundation to enable a
safe and secure backbone for the digital journey, and to
drive innovation and improvement.
References
[Busi18] Business Wire (2018, January 16). $27.2 Billion
Global Low-Code Development Platform Market 2017-2022 by
Component, Deployment Mode, Organization Size, and Vertical.
Retrieved from: https://www.businesswire.com/news/
home/20180116006370/en/27.2-Billion-Global-Low-Code-
Development-Platform-Market
[Forr20] Forrester (2020). The Total Economic Impact™ of Power
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[Gart21] Gartner (2021, February 16). Gartner Forecasts
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transformed-­business-forever
[Mora19] Moran, D. (2019, October 30). Establishing an
Environment Strategy for Microsoft Power Platform. Microsoft.
Retrieved from: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-au/
blog/establishing-an-environment-strategy-for-microsoft-­
power-platform/
[Pich19] Pichler, M. (2019, December 19). Update to the Power
Apps and Power Automate Administration and Governance
Whitepaper is now available. Microsoft. Retrieved from:
https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/update-to-
the-power-apps-and-power-automate-­administration-and-
governance-whitepaper-is-now-available/
[Wong21] Wong, J. et al. (2021, September 20). Magic Quadrant
for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms. Gartner.
Retrieved from: https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-
275QSBDL&ct=210813&st=sb
About the author
Swatantra Kumar MTech, PGDAC, BE is senior manager
at KPMG. He has over a decade of experience in software
development & delivery, application performance, and
solution architecture design. Swatantra has been involved
in digital transformation, DevOps, IT strategy, SaaS & cloud
consulting for various organizations in the BFSI and SMEs
sector, and carried out numerous assignments with a wide
range of clients around the globe helping them meet the
challenges of the ever-changing IT landscape. Swatantra
heads the solution design and development function and is
responsible for citizen development proposition, low-code
services, and Trust by Design framework.
23
Digital Trends & Compliance

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Governance of Power Platform – As enabler, not as gatekeeper

  • 1. Compact 2021 4 15 Swatantra Kumar, M.Tech, PGDAC, BE is senior manager at KPMG. Seven layers of governing Power Platform, not only at scale but also at speed Governance of Power Platform – as enabler, not as gatekeeper In today’s digital age, organizations are under immense pressure to define, ideate, build and deliver services at consistently shortening time to market. With a demanding market, an unpredictable and slowing economy, and a global shortage of skilled labor, low-code platforms are increasingly seen as a boon for enterprises aiming to fuel digital transformation by building new apps, modernizing application landscapes, or automating processes quicker and more efficiently. Low-code/no-code (LCNC) tools have seen steady growth due to their effectiveness in addressing some of the challenges in technology – primarily for digitizing workflows, enhancing user experiences, promoting internal efficiency, and their ability to quickly fill the workforce gap. Low-code application platforms are emerging as a key accelerator for app development and delivery. However, there are still challenges ahead due to a vacuum of battle-tested IT governance for low-code platforms. This article covers our view on the governance of one of the leading LCNC tools, Power Platform, and why it is important while planning, securing, deploying, and supporting applications built on the platform.
  • 2. Governance of Power Platform – as enabler, not as gatekeeper 16 LOW-CODE – INTRODUCTION, DEMAND AND MARKET The pandemic has brought about years of change in the way organizations across sectors and regions do busi- ness. A study by McKinsey revealed that companies have accelerated digitization by three to four years ([LaBe20]) in just a few months’ time of the pandemic. It even found that the share of digital or digitally enabled products has accelerated even more. The study calls out that filling the gaps for technology talent is one of the major chal- lenges companies are facing and will continue to face: “Respondents from the companies that have executed successful responses to the crisis report a range of technology capabilities that others don’t – most notably, filling gaps for technology talent during the crisis, the use of more advanced technologies, and speed in experimenting and innovating.” This raises the immediate question of where you can find the technology talent needed to provide this increasing volume of applications in a world where talent shortage is already a problem. Low-code/no-code platforms can help. One part of the answer is that everybody in an organization is empowered to build applications, using low-code/no-code, without the need for IT centralized delivery. For example, in a study conducted by Forrester (depicted in Figure 1) for Micro- soft’s LCNC tool, Power Platform, app development costs were reduced by 74% and application management and maintenance costs by 38% ([Forr20]). Gartner states that by 2025, 70% of new applications developed by enter- prises will use low-code or no-code technologies, coming from less than 25% in 2020. According to Gartner, low-code application platforms are defined as software that enables rapid development and deployment of custom applications by abstracting and minimizing traditional-coding, in order to develop a complete application consisting of user interfaces, business logic, workflow, and data services. It also provides reasonable tools to properly secure and govern these platforms ([Wong21]). Low-code platforms change the game for building solutions in an enterprise. The focus shifts from IT-­ owned projects, to democratized implementation of apps – driven by business, domain experts, and non-IT people. Traditionally, applications were left to the IT departments to be developed, maintained, and sup- ported. As a result, a large backlog of IT projects exists, neglecting many smaller but still valuable business cases due to time, cost, and resource restrictions. This results in both frustration and un-leveraged business value. With the low-code platforms, the IT department is no longer in a central position as an implementing and operating authority. It is, together with the whole organ- ization, the enabler for the digital savvy business users, the Citizen Developers (CD). Given the capabilities the low-code platforms are bring- ing to the ecosystem, it is becoming the solution of choice for Line of Business leaders including CIOs, and CTOs to fill immediate gaps in the workforce, develop- ment capacity and tackle IT challenges to ensure busi- ness continuity. Figure 1. Power Platform extends your development potential. 1,000+ Transformation scenarios identified but untouched The average cost to develop an app is 74% less with Power Platform than with traditional coding methods. Required skills and resources Impact to the business Power Platform low-code develeopment is ideal for projects constrained by limited developer resources
  • 3. 17 Compact 2022 4 Digital Trends & Compliance Figure 2. Low-code trends & indicators. CHALLENGERS LEADERS NICHE PLAYERS COMPLETENESS OF VISION As of August 2021 © Gartner, Inc VISIONARIES ABILITY TO EXECUTE Kintone Quickbase Creatio Pega Appian OutSystems Mendix Oracle Newgen Microsoft Salesforce ServiceNow 65% application development will be done in low code by 2024 Accessibility Of organizations struggle to find technical talent to build applications Gartner 86% Trends & Indicators Gen Z+ Millennials resulting in a changing workforce 43% New apps will be built in the next 5 years – more than all apps built in the past 40 years 500M Low code apps projected by market in 2023 $51b X4 RPA projected market by 2024 By 2023, the Citizen Developer population in large companies will be at least 4 times larger than Pro Developers $6b DPA projected market by 2024 $13.4b BI projected market by 2024 $8b Take a look at the key industry trends, and indicators vis-à-vis low-code/no-code (LCNC): • Forrester research said that the total spending on the low-code market will reach $21.2 billion by 2022 ([Forr20]). • According to Business Wire, the future is low-code or no-code with an expected growth rate of 44.4% by 2022 to $27.23 billion (up from $4.32 billion in 2017) ([Busi18]). • The digital world expects over 500 million apps and digital services to be built and deployed by the end of 2023, according to IDC FutureScape. That is more than all of the software solutions created in the last four decades ([IDC22]). • A report by Gartner forecasts that by 2024, low-code adoption will be so widespread that 75% of the soft- ware solutions built around the world will be made with the help of such tools ([Gart21]). The imposing numbers and claims in Figure 2 show the trends that the LCNC industry is expanding at a fast pace. Be it Digital Process Automation (DPA), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Business Process Automation (BPA), Business Intelligence (BI), or, application development, the LCNC market and demand for the tools are growing in all these segments with very positive growth outlook. Rising low-code platforms are driving about 50% annual growth in a market populated by dozens of vendors. The Microsoft Power Platform has some unique selling point(s) USPs that give them a favorable position over other leaders in the Gartner magic quadrant for low-code applications. Given the vital importance of maintaining a single source of truth in enterprises, Power Platform brings the business process on a single platform allow- ing the full cyclical approach to Analyze (Power BI), Automate (Power Automate), Act (Power BI), Assist (Power Virtual Agents) and Assemble (Power Apps) enabling end-to-end capabilities that work together and integrate seamlessly with the Microsoft ecosystem, eliminating the need and dependency on multiple separate software tools. The cherry on the cake is its seamless integration with Azure Active Directory for a comprehensive, integrated security and a single-sign-on approach throughout your systems. Power Platform is designated for a wide range of users and use cases. It opens up the approach of building applica- tions of varying complexity, ranging from simple per- sonal productivity to more complex use cases by bringing together teams from different areas for the purpose of bringing apps to life faster, also known as the “Fusion Teams” (see Figure 3) approach. A fusion team comprises: Figure 3. Fusion teams – low-code is a team sport. Citizen Developers participate directly in the development to shorten cycles Citizens register their apps and participate in training IT governs citizen activity and nurtures the community IT grants access to resources for more advanced developers Coders manage source control and app lifecycles Coders do the “hard parts”, from data integration to custom UX controls Low- Code Business IT Developers
  • 4. Governance of Power Platform – as enabler, not as gatekeeper 18 • Code-first developers (also referred to as professional developers), who can extend or build upon the plat- form using traditional code first within IT depart- ments. • Citizen Developers, who can build solutions without writing code and, most importantly, know their requirements. Operating within the business, they are experts in their domain and do not require a deep knowledge of IT. • And finally, IT professionals, who can operate as the administrator or in the governance team. GOVERNANCE OF THE POWER PLATFORM The confluence of rising IT needs, coupled with the scarcity of developers and seamless integration with the Microsoft ecosystem of products has driven an increas- ing desire and need for Power Platform. However, there are some challenges that need to be addressed to estab- lish solid confidence in adopting any low-code platform in the organization. The most common inhibitors to adoption that are observed are: • Security risks regarding Shadow IT • Business-managed IT (BMIT) • Data security concerning connectors, • App or flow ownership managed by the business • Maintaining environment health • Information security & risk management • Compliances issues • Monitoring and tracking of apps and flows, etc. To address these concerns and to leverage the full poten- tial of the platform for the benefit of an organization, it is imperative to establish a successful governance frame- work. Digital governance is the key mechanism organizations use to ensure that software development aligns with strategic objectives, business goals, commercials, data protection, maintaining compliance standards, and protecting the chain of value creation, value delivery, and value capture. It encompasses the norms and stand- ards that shape the regulation regarding the develop- ment and use of technologies by offering a formal Power Platform and why you should consider it The Microsoft Power Platform is a low-code platform with a unique suite of business services that democratizes and unifies data spanning across SharePoint, Excel, Exchange, OneDrive, Office 365 apps, Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and standalone apps. It is named a leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms. Power Platform ties together some best-in-class services: Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and Power Pages. Power BI is the self-service business analytics tool that helps you discover and explore insights from your data and enables to make informed, confident business decisions. Power Apps is a LCNC app development platform that allows to turn ideas into solutions by enabling to build custom apps that solve business challenges. Power Automate, formerly known as Microsoft Flow is a component that gives the ability to business users to automate workflows that orchestrate across services using connectors within the organizations, without writing any code for the same. Power Virtual Agents is an intelligent chatbot development platform empowering business users to easily create powerful AI-driven chatbots to engage conversationally with your customers and employees using a guided, no-code graphical interface without any coding. Power Pages provides a low-code way to create, host and manage process-driven secure websites, enabling organizations delivering vital information and services to customers and external users.
  • 5. 19 Compact 2022 4 Digital Trends & Compliance framework for achieving measurable progress while safeguarding the value flow. While governance is important to ensure that problems are anticipated and solved early, to leverage the full potential of the Power Platform, it is important to strike a balance between the organization’s needs in terms of security, compliance, and regulations (such as GDPR, etc.), yet at the same time giving teams enough freedom to innovate and create value for themselves and the enterprise. The Microsoft Power Platform provides the necessary means to strike that balance: “long-leashing” your organization, but still enabling central governance. The central effort of CIOs and Risk departments to mitigate risks is initially contrary to the idea of the autonomy that Microsoft Power Platform requires. Governance is distinguished into the following divisions: • Proactive governance • Reactive governance Proactive governance deals with the central requirements that are defined within the platform (the so-called guardrails), ideally before it is rolled out. This includes security requirements, environment and licensing strategies, cost implications, roles, and responsibilities. Being proactive, can and should be done upfront to ensure the first level of governance and security. Reactive governance describes continuous monitoring and alerting based on standardized yet specific indicators to enable a clearer view of the Power Platform. It is used to assess adoption KPIs, as well as to respond quickly where necessary. A comprehensive governance concept is fundamental to every technology and software platform. This is espe- cially true for low-code platforms due to their democra- tized nature. Figure 4 covers the seven layers or areas as advised by Microsoft ([Pich19]) to get started, while considering using, adopting, deploying, managing Power Platform and its governance. The beauty is that each of these layers is independently manageable and gives the flexibility to choose the layers in any order. Each of these layers concerns the proactive or reactive governance or both approaches. It’s important to men- tion that the governance is not a one-off exercise, it needs to be constantly reviewed and refined based on the evolving needs of the organization itself, but also given new functionality is provided by Microsoft regularly. Platform Overview – environment, apps, platform Power Platform provides an easy interface for business users to create apps and flows while simultaneously providing robust tools for pro developers, making it possible to integrate innovative solutions across Azure, Dynamics 365, and standalone applications. A common issue that arises is the ownership status of these apps and flows. If a user creates an app and then leaves the organization, the app is left without an owner, and is unable to be edited or shared. Without governance, this problem too often becomes apparent after the fact. You should have product discovery periodically to under- stand the status and origin of apps and flows in your environments. Having a Strategy & Vision defined is fundamental for any further efforts in the Power Plat- form. For instance, as a part of the strategy, consider identifying such artifacts that are orphaned or unused, and then act according to governance policy, e.g., archiv- ing orphaned apps or changing the app ownership. The Power Platform Center of Excellence starter kit provides functionalities to identify such objects and reassign the orphaned apps by changing the app ownership or archiving the unused apps. The same applies to the platform evaluation as the Power Platform is constantly evolving, and new features must be continuously evaluated to determine how they can be used meaningfully by the organization. Figure 4. Kick-start low-code journey with the 7 layers (source: Microsoft). Platform Overview Platform Architecture Secure Monitor Alert & Act Deploy Education & Support
  • 6. Governance of Power Platform – as enabler, not as gatekeeper 20 Figure 5. Example environment strategy diagram (source: Microsoft). Critical project Individual project Personal productivity apps SG = Security Group Everyone is a maker Only one user has access Dev team SG are makers Business unit dev SG (A) are makers Project dev SG (B) are makers Testing SG are users only Testing SG (A) are users only End user SG AND dev team are users All end users, projects and business units (A & B) are users only Testing SG (B) are users only Default Developer Critical Project Dev Business Unit Dev Critical Project Prod Shared Pord Critical Project Test Shared Test Important Project Dev Communicate with everyone that Default is not for development of critical apps. Developer environments are completely locked for any other user except the user who subscribed to the community plan. Applications can be moved out of the environment if needed. Dedicated dev/test/prod environments for each critical application. Developers have Environment Maker access in the dev environment, but only user access in test and prod. End users only have end user access to the production solution so no one can modify the applicatoins. Shared test/prod environments for important but medium complex apps can be shared between multiple projects or business units. Individual projects and business units should always have their own development environment to protect data. End users only have basic user access to solutions and data in production environments. Figure 5 exemplifies such an environment strategy as published by Microsoft ([Mora19]). There are multiple types of environments that all have different purposes, such as: • Default – This environment is the standard out- of-the-box environment. Each tenant has a default environment and should be used for personal produc- tivity only and should not be used for critical busi- ness applications. It is recommended to rename this environment accordingly to reflect the purpose. • Developer – These environments are intended only for use by the owner, which makes it perfect for the development teams to work in isolation on an appli- cation. • Sandbox – These environments are non-production environments, which should be used for development and testing your development before moving into a production environment. Platform architecture You must know your environment to govern it better. A Power Platform environment is a space to store, manage, and share your organization’s data, apps, chatbots, and flows, and is tied to a geographic location. Environments serve as a container that administrators can use to manage apps, flows, connections, and other assets, along with permissions to allow organization members to use the resources. Therefore, start by understanding, and developing an environment strategy. An environment strategy primarily entails environment provisioning, managing access rights and other layers of data security, and effectively organizing underlying resources in a way that supports productive develop- ment in your organization.
  • 7. 21 Compact 2022 4 Digital Trends & Compliance • Production – This is your environment where your solutions will be accessed by end users. It is advised that the development team does not have any admin access to this environment, and it is purely the IT team that deploys the solutions to this environment. Furthermore, assign your admins the Power Platform service admin role, which grants full access to Power Apps, Power Automate & Power BI. Restrict the creation of net-new trial and production environments to admins. Next, establish the environment management policy, and processes to request the creation of environ- ments, and request access. Clear roles and responsibili- ties across the organization on support, and ownership. Defining the tiered application models along with specific lifecycles of apps support. Besides the environment, understand your organiza- tion’s tenants to govern it better. A tenant refers to the container in which all your different environments sit. Check the tenant settings and harden them as per your organization’s requirements. Next to it are connectors and on-premise data gateways, which have a crucial role while interacting with differ- ent systems. Connectors are essentially proxy wrappers around the application programming interfaces (APIs) provided by services that allow apps and flows to easily interact with the service. On-premise data gateways enables Power Apps and Power Automate to reach back to on-premises resources to support hybrid integration scenarios. The gateway leverages Azure Service Bus relay technology to securely allow access to on-premises resources. Inside the tenant, within each database environment – there are data connectors and controls. These need to be secured with the right roles and per- missions to ensure the users have access only to the tools and environments they need. Secure A major benefit of Power Platform and its integration into the Microsoft ecosystem is that users are automatically authenticated. It is the key that enables proper govern- ance of the Power Platform. Every action maker, and Citizen Developers make, happens with an authenticated account. This means that they cannot go beyond their granted permissions on SharePoint, Teams, Dataverse (formerly, CDS, Common Data Service), or any other system where data interacts. Defining security is funda- mental to the implementation of the Power Platform within an enterprise. It contains necessary decisions on: • Azure AD conditional access at the Tenant level . • Setting up data loss prevention policies at the Environ- ment level designed to enforce rules for accessibility of connectors and access to business data. • Establishing resource permissions for apps, flows, and custom connectors at the Resource level. • Assign Dataverse security roles. • Defining Cross-tenant inbound and outbound security and compliance concepts, detailing access from and to the data sources. These belong to the proactive governance area; it is important to have these defined and implemented properly before the rollout of the platform. Monitor Monitor is the reactive area of the governance approach. It is important to monitor who is accessing your apps and flows and how these are being used to ensure secu- rity policies are effective. The Security & Compliance Center can be used to review out-of-box activity logs and analytics. Configure audit logs and make use of APIs to access logs and leverage management connectors for powerful reporting. Alert & Act Alert & Act too are the reactive area of the governance approach. It is advised to automate your audit and alert process using Power Automate. It deals with ongoing monitoring of standard and specific KPIs of your apps and flows across the enterprise to gain meaningful insights into adoption. This greatly helps in discovering any risks early in the process, identifying and empower- ing champions, welcoming new makers, and fostering the best practices. With the digital innovation and enablement, the Power Platform brings to the organization – both the IT and risk management functions are quickly overwhelmed by the number of apps that are built. It is no longer about one app at a time that undergoes a development lifecy- cle. Therefore, it is important to automate the policies outlined, have alerting mechanisms in place, necessary actions defined and applied to remediate the potential risks with the growing number of apps. As an example, create workflows using management connectors that either permit or restrict behavior based on your organi- zation’s Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies.
  • 8. Governance of Power Platform – as enabler, not as gatekeeper 22 Deploy The application lifecycle includes governance, develop- ment, and maintenance. In Power Platform, with Appli- cation Lifecycle Management (ALM), you get a bird’s eye view of your projects including requirements manage- ment, resource management, nurturing and system administration such as data security, user access, change tracking, review, audit, deployment control, and rollback in a way that other approaches fail to deliver. You get increased visibility into workflow, enhanced compli- ance, faster deployments, and higher quality products. Learn and facilitate the ALM toolset and best practices. Solutions are the mechanism for implementing and deploying ALM in Power Apps and Power Automate. A solution is either managed or unmanaged. The begin- ning state of solution is the unmanaged solution. Unmanaged solutions are used in development environ- ments while you make changes to your application. Managed solutions are used to deploy to any environ- ment that isn’t a development environment for that solution. It is a finalized solution that can be distributed and installed. Educate & Support An overarching aspect of managing Power Platform is nurturing the continued growth and onboarding of makers and driving your organization to adopt a digital culture. A maker is someone who creates and enforces business processes, structures the digital collection of information, improves the efficiency of repeatable tasks, and automates business processes. Evangelism, commu- nity, and training are proven ways to create awareness of the platform’s capability and provide support within an organization. At the same time, it is an integral part for people in an organization to understand concerns, and regulations that they need to respect. Therefore, it is vital to provide well explained, persona-based entry points into the Power Platform. That can be done through central communication, as well as providing specific information to new makers to ensure they have the resources they need to be productive and successful with these tools. To enable people, clear and concise communication is crucial. EXPERIENCE FROM THE PRACTICE When approached by organizations who struggle with leveraging the full potential of the Power Platform within their organization, the following patterns are usually observed: • The adoption of the Power Platform is either minimal or cannot be assessed at all. Key indicators are not regularly reviewed. • The fear of security breaches or of not being compli- ant with regulations results in a reduced, half-hearted implementation of the Power Platform. • Regular review and adjustment of the strategy & vision, governance, and assessment of new features of the Power Platform are not conducted. • Transparent internal communication that provides guidance and information on guardrails and assists Citizen Developers is missing. • The need for proactive governance is usually known but is only partially implemented and followed. Based on our experience, organizations are mostly aware of proactive governance requirements. Along with IT, Security, and Risk departments, they usually have restricted access according to best practices before rolling out the platform. One common mistake is that the IT department continues to be put in control of app requests and creation. Low-code platforms, therefore, require a clear commit- ment and investment from the whole organization, ensuring that the topics described above are not only implemented “once” and therefore half-heartedly, but also continue to be developed further. This is the only way to keep leveraging the full value of the use cases over time. ESTABLISH A CENTER OF EXCELLENCE To improve business agility, and productivity in a governed, secure, auditable, and manageable way, while being compliant with regulatory requirements as well as reducing costs, and empowering makers, organizations should establish a Center of Excellence (CoE). A CoE helps organizations focus and align their resources and exper- tise regarding a specific capability to accomplish and sustain performance and value. CoE is designed to drive innovation and improvement, and as a central function it can break down geographic and organizational silos. In our view, a Center of Excellence encompasses the below key areas in the context of Power Platform. • Vision & Strategy • Administration & Governance • Business Value & Onboarding • Nurture, Change & Adoption • Automation We advise businesses to start with a set of workshops to identify the current state and maturity level of the Power Platform within their organization. Post assess- ment – set the target level and define how to go further on the CoE journey, in a phased approach to realize the value sooner. Our consulting approach covers all the key
  • 9. 23 Compact 2022 4 areas and aims to increase the maturity level of each of them separately. Administration & Governance is one of the key areas in the Power Platform journey. Depending on the size of your organization, consider installing the Power Platform Center of Excellence Starter Kit (Starter Kit) instead of starting from scratch. The Starter Kit should not be misun- derstood by CoE. The Power Platform Center of Excellence Starter Kit is a collection of the below set of components, tools, and templatized best practices designed with the Administration & Governance area in mind. a. Core components – Catalog tenant resources, DLP Strategy & Visibility, Change app ownership b. Compliance components – Sample App audit process, Archive unused apps, Act based on certain connector usage c. Nurture components – Onboard new makers, provide training and share best practices, and encourage adoption The Power Platform Center of Excellence starter kit acts as a foundation element and kick-starts the Power Platform admin & governance journey. There are a few caveats to be mindful of: • It needs to be separately installed and maintained. • The kit itself is not supported by Microsoft. • Multi-tenant setups need to be planned thoroughly with the starter kit. • It is a generic template that might not match every organization’s requirements. Therefore, it is recommended that once the starter kit is installed and configured within your environment you should consider extending and personalizing it to fit your organization’s requirements as defined by CoE. CONCLUSION With each passing day, the boundaries between business and IT are blurring at an accelerated rate. Business users, in many cases without formal programming experience, but with the help of low-code/no-code platforms, are building applications with increasing frequency. This growth can have an impact on organizations – both positive and negative. In the absence of proper govern- ance, this can lead to a large number of unmonitored applications operating across an organization, poten- tially compromising data, security, risk, and compliance. Solid governance serves as a firm foundation to enable a safe and secure backbone for the digital journey, and to drive innovation and improvement. References [Busi18] Business Wire (2018, January 16). $27.2 Billion Global Low-Code Development Platform Market 2017-2022 by Component, Deployment Mode, Organization Size, and Vertical. Retrieved from: https://www.businesswire.com/news/ home/20180116006370/en/27.2-Billion-Global-Low-Code- Development-Platform-Market [Forr20] Forrester (2020). The Total Economic Impact™ of Power Apps. Forrester TEI Report | Microsoft Power Apps. Retrieved from: https://info.microsoft.com/ww-Landing-Power-­Apps- Forrester-TEI-Report.html [Gart21] Gartner (2021, February 16). Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Low-Code Development Technologies Market to Grow 23% in 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.gartner.com/ en/newsroom/press-releases/2021-02-15-gartner-forecasts- worldwide-low-code-development-technologies-market-to- grow-23-percent-in-2021 [IDC22] IDC FutureScape (2022). IDC FutureScape: Worldwide IT Industry 2020 Predictions. Retrieved from: https://www.idc. com/research/viewtoc.jsp?containerId=US45599219 [LaBe20] LaBerge, L. et al. (2020, October 5). How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point – and transformed business forever. McKinsey. Retrieved from: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-­ corporate-finance/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-pushed- companies-over-the-technology-tipping-point-and- transformed-­business-forever [Mora19] Moran, D. (2019, October 30). Establishing an Environment Strategy for Microsoft Power Platform. Microsoft. Retrieved from: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-au/ blog/establishing-an-environment-strategy-for-microsoft-­ power-platform/ [Pich19] Pichler, M. (2019, December 19). Update to the Power Apps and Power Automate Administration and Governance Whitepaper is now available. Microsoft. Retrieved from: https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/update-to- the-power-apps-and-power-automate-­administration-and- governance-whitepaper-is-now-available/ [Wong21] Wong, J. et al. (2021, September 20). Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms. Gartner. Retrieved from: https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1- 275QSBDL&ct=210813&st=sb About the author Swatantra Kumar MTech, PGDAC, BE is senior manager at KPMG. He has over a decade of experience in software development & delivery, application performance, and solution architecture design. Swatantra has been involved in digital transformation, DevOps, IT strategy, SaaS & cloud consulting for various organizations in the BFSI and SMEs sector, and carried out numerous assignments with a wide range of clients around the globe helping them meet the challenges of the ever-changing IT landscape. Swatantra heads the solution design and development function and is responsible for citizen development proposition, low-code services, and Trust by Design framework. 23 Digital Trends & Compliance