One of our core values at KCIC is “We Find a Way” — our clients present us with complex challenges that we deploy technology to solve. We are excited to tap a new suite of tools from Microsoft’s Power Platform to continue developing creative and cutting-edge solutions for the companies with whom we partner.

The Power Platform is a suite of business tools designed, in part, to help business analysts more effectively use technology in business processes and data analysis. We have integrated the data visualization software in the Power Platform (Power BI) into our Ligado Platform. Using Power BI within Ligado will enable our clients to see their data in new ways and enhance their ability to identify trends and make data-driven decisions.

In July, I was fortunate to attend the Microsoft Business Applications Summit in Seattle to learn more about the Power Platform and Power BI’s impressive capabilities. I also learned more about other tools in the Power Platform, including PowerApps and Microsoft Flow – tools that KCIC is using to further improve how we work internally. PowerApps makes application-building accessible to business analysts with limited coding experience, while Flow allows businesses to automate and streamline workflows. One of the over-arching themes of the summit was turning business processes into applications. At KCIC, we are working on integrating these exciting tools into our workflows, in our effort to continually increase our efficiency.

We are also passionate about helping our clients do the same. In his opening keynote at the summit, James Phillips, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Business Applications Group, said the rapidly expanding access to vast amounts of data throughout the business world is fueling a digital transformation. He noted that data allows businesses to “mine for intelligence” and use that intelligence to change processes and make better decisions. This is borne out by findings of Harvard Business School professors Marco Iansiti and Karim Lakhani in the Microsoft-funded white paper "The Digital Business Divide", which was mentioned at several of the sessions I attended during the summit.

“Digital leaders” — companies that effectively use data — experience 18% higher gross margins on average than “digital laggards”. 

In their study, Iansati and Lakhani found that companies they term “digital leaders” (companies that effectively use data) experience 18% higher gross margins on average than “digital laggards”. At KCIC, we pride ourselves on using cutting-edge technology to better serve our clients. We utilize technology to speed up processes, manage and analyze data, identify trends, and help our clients make data-driven decisions. In other words, we help our clients become digital leaders!

I look forward to sharing what I’ve learned with my KCIC colleagues and starting to build visually compelling, dynamic reports for our clients. With the integration of Power BI and Ligado, we can help you use data more effectively to make better decisions about how to deploy resources to manage product liabilities.