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Back in the mid-80’s, my mom brought an electric drip coffee maker up to our cabin in Minnesota. Before that, my family would use the mid-century kitchen staple: the stovetop percolator. Without getting into the details, making a decent cup of coffee in a percolator is time-consuming and requires monitoring.  Even then, the chances of burning the coffee, or making it too weak or too strong are high. An electric drip coffee maker is a huge improvement. Add coffee, add water and turn it on. Done.

My grandfather was skeptical, but he decided to try it. Then, one morning, at 5:00, he woke up my mom to say the coffee maker wasn’t working. He forgot to plug it in. However, after a little bit of training he got the hang of it and, wouldn’t you know it, he was a fan. The coffee maker removed several steps from the process, automated the brewing and created consistent results.

So why am I sharing this story about coffee makers? For years, we stuck with the same process to make coffee with varying degrees of success. Then, a new product came around to simplify the process and improve consistency. From a business operations perspective, that’s where Microsoft’s Power Platform steps in. With Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Pages, business users get the power (pun intended) to create custom applications, automate tedious tasks, analyze real-time data, and engage with customers—all with minimal coding.

This means teams can solve their own problems faster while IT focuses on keeping systems running smoothly. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. While these tools put power in business users’ hands, IT and partners can play a crucial role in getting the first apps into production.