Venkat Rao on Power Platform's impact

Note: This episode is sponsored by Avanade. Learn more about Power Platform at Avanade here. Venkat Rao, Power Platform go to market lead for North America at Avanade, joins us for a conversation following up on his recent five part article series on the Power Platform and its role in supporting the evolution of business applications. (Check out parts one, two, three, four, and five.) Enterprise-grade systems like Dynamics 365 applications are here to stay. But, Venkat believes, thanks to low-code tools, organizations can now expect to give more responsibility back to their workers as they plan the future of their enterprise investments. Much of Venkat's writing has dealt with newcomers to the Power Platform, and he explains that embracing the tools here requires the acceptance of concepts and practices like running a Center of Excellence. He also reflects on recent customer successes in areas like  managing the return to work, mixed reality, and initiatives to empower citizen developers. Show Notes: 1:30 - Making sense of Power Platform and how to approach it for the first time 5:00 - Thinking about low-code and no-code solutions as a technology segment 7:30 - The importance of considering complex software requirements when evaluating low-code solutions 9:30 - Venkat's evolving professional focus, from Dynamics CRM to Power Platform 14:30 - What it looks like to scale up Power Platform initiatives across an organization 18:00 - The frequent challenge of bringing a Power Apps deployment back under control after rapid spread 21:00 - The Power Platform Center of Excellence (CoE) starter kit - Venkat's views on its usefulness 24:30 - How organizations build upon the CoE starter kit 27:00 - How Power Platform and HoloLens 2 work together 33:30 - Is RPA mundane or amazing? 36:00 - Looking ahead: New technology Avanade clients are excited about