Simon Gottschlag: 0:01

Welcome back to"For a Cloudy Day", the podcast where we talk about the cloud technology industry with insights from experts. I'm your host, Simon Gottschlag, CTO of Co-native the home of cloud specialists. In today's episode, we're diving into the world of low code and no code platforms. How they are shaping the global market, how Sweden fits into this landscape, and what it means for professional developers. Joining me is Robin Iwarzon, Principal Cloud Solution Specialist at Asurgent, a leading cloud service provider in Sweden. Robin, it's great to have you on the show. Could you start by sharing a bit about your role at Asurgent and your experience working with Microsoft 365 and Power Platform?

Robin Iwarzon: 0:50

Sure! Thanks for having me. Robin Iwarzon, working at a cloud specialist firm called Asurgent, specialized in Microsoft technology. I'm a cloud solution specialist and architect when needed, but I tend to stay within the specialist boundaries. My core expertise lies within the Microsoft 365 adoption services. That's where I think it's the funnest as well. But more and more, I explore the worlds of low code, no code, and especially within Microsoft Power Platform, part of the business application offer they have, so to say.

Simon Gottschlag: 1:30

Let's start with a broad overview. How is the global market for low code and no code platforms evolving? And how does Sweden's adoption and innovation in this area compare to the global landscape?

Robin Iwarzon: 1:43

I think it's booming, especially globally, the low code, no code sphere has grown, exponentially over the last couple of years. There are a lot of different platforms and suppliers to this. We are especially focused, as I said, in the Microsoft sphere and the Power Platform sphere. Globally, I think it has grown even more than we can see in Sweden and in the Nordic regions, we can really hear about success projects and solutions created naturally at a globally wide. I hope we will get there as well, in Sweden and Nordics within soon. But especially since the Generative AI boom, we have seen a lot more order flows coming our way, within the platform. It's a very nice trend going on and I hope to see a lot more of it in the soon future.

Simon Gottschlag: 2:30

What factors do you think are hindering the adoption of these platforms in Sweden compared to globally?

Robin Iwarzon: 2:38

I think, my prediction is mainly that it's licensed based. There are a lot of different functions and components you can use within these low code platforms and especially within Power Platform. If you choose to pay the extra sum and get the premium licenses, you can basically connect to whatever data source you desire. It can be on-prem. It can be another external source. It can be more within Azure. But if you do not and stay within your enterprise licenses, for example, you're basically bound to use those within Microsoft 365. So I think globally they have adopted this methodology of actually paying the premium licenses and they have started to get one, two, three, maybe 10 different solutions out there. And then naturally the cost goes down since it's a per user license. In Sweden and Nordics, we still tend to look at those initial costs to get into the cycle, and then the main project that looks at it needs to take that first step, and the first step is always expensive.

Simon Gottschlag: 3:43

Licensing can often be a complex issue with low code platforms, especially in the context of enterprise solutions. What are some key licensing considerations that businesses should be aware of when adopting low code tools like Microsoft's Power Platform?

Robin Iwarzon: 4:00

So the licensing is something that we tend to bring up quite often, and it's also a complicated matter since Microsoft adjusted every so often right now, it's mainly a premium per user license, meaning that every user that touch a function that touch premium functionality needs to be licensed to be compliant around it. We have started to see more and more pay as you go. It's a concept where you basically only pay if a user use a premium solution. They can be licensed and be ready to use it, but if they don't touch it within the month, let's say you don't pay for that user. And I think that concept makes it easier to get in there because you can have a company of around 700 people and let's say you need a license for everyone because they could potentially use a solution, but then it ends up being maybe 250 power users in there. And that would be a hefty sum to pay every month for something that's not used. So the pay-as-you-go will be a, an important factor, I think. But then when you finally find use cases and you can motivate the licenses, on these per users you will start seeing the effect as well, since it's only a sum per user.

Simon Gottschlag: 5:21

When we talk about pay-as-you-go, does that mean that if someone creates a solution and only two users use this solution, then you only have to pay two licenses.

Robin Iwarzon: 5:36

If they touch that solution would be the more accurate phrase to it. As soon as they actually open it up, they need to pay for those two, but if one of those users for one month do not touch it, they do not have to pay the fee for that specific user.

Simon Gottschlag: 5:52

There's often a debate between pro code and low code approaches. From your perspective, how do these two methodologies complement each other in modern IT environments, and where do you see the most significant advantages or challenges

Robin Iwarzon: 6:09

I think in the low code sphere the time to market is really aggressive. We don't talk about projects being 400-500 hours and needing this pre study. We can do a lot faster than that. And we can push it within months, maybe even weeks. Then, of course, you need some kind of governance plan and lifecycle management and everything that's included in the real delivery around it. But the time to market to actually start seeing that return on investment, is what I think is really attractive, and also low code no code is starting to be so available to what they call citizen developers, so me and everybody in the organization that don't have the head for"real" coding and trying to figure out what to solve all this,"red errors", we can see, basically in a more visual graphical plane, results right away, that could inspire us to create more. And we can see how would this work in a solution or application automation without having to write thousands of lines of codes. So I think that's the main advantage with low code. But also, as that square gets more advanced, it's bridging to the pro code or pro developer teams. And what I always tell our code experts are that if they choose, they can just utilize all this functionality as well. And that's the main difference between us. We can't go to their square and swim there and utilize all their tools, but they could, not just as easily, but they can definitely dip in to our square and use like all the powers here. So I think in the future, and maybe even in five years, we will see a lot of mixture between this, I don't think we will see two camps, basically. I think we will see technology being utilized where the best fits, so to say. That's my vision for it, and I also think there will be a lot of non IT personnel basically being developers within this, maybe not doing all these hardcore functions, but doing the business needs and functions and entry level parts of the solution.

Simon Gottschlag: 8:17

Are there specific use cases or scenarios where one clearly outshines the other?

Robin Iwarzon: 8:25

In general, I think you get the most of basically if you have a bigger system that you use just small parts of, but those small parts have become business critical. That's where you can utilize low code or develop in general to take out those functions and build your own product around it and then also shape it and develop a bit further into what you actually need. So you don't need this mega program or functionality when you only utilize some parts of it. And that's also one of our best or most successful use cases. Basically customer specified solution or developed solution where they could use the functionality in the original service or program and just take that out, build on it, keep using it, develop it for their needs. I think it was some time ago now, but I think the cost for it within one year of licensing money, had developed their own solution that they can then live on and just pay the license fee for the power platform and the normal governance you need. So they really found a unique use case there and made it work within their organization.

Simon Gottschlag: 9:38

So what you're saying is that, you can, a lot of times go from starting with low code or no code and then migrate or move away parts of that no code low code solution into perhaps pro code when needed. So you can build your proof of concept or your MVP in the power platform and when it becomes necessary, you can actually move some of those parts into another solution.

Robin Iwarzon: 10:09

Exactly, you could utilize basically the platform that best fits the need, low code and no code can be extremely fast to building this proof of concept. Do you see it? Okay. Our idea or our concept around this will work. But we might need some also pro development to get some functions in place. And it's also getting more available now before you couldn't open up these apps and flows in, let's say visual studio. Now we actually can do it. It's way past my knowledge out there, but it's once again, connects the pro developer team to actually integrate and work with the low code solution. I think they, their preferences are not there yet, but I think they will change their mind in the so future. So let's see how it develops. And I would say, especially within the generative AI sphere and Microsoft Copilot, you see a lot of mixed projects where you can have the frontend in low code and all the basic functionality there, and then you go to a backend built by pro code or functionality within the backend that you just borrow into the low code solution.

Simon Gottschlag: 11:12

At Asurgent, how have you been leveraging low code platforms to deliver solutions for your clients? Can you share a success story where low code made a significant impact on a project or organization?

Robin Iwarzon: 11:27

Yeah, so it could be good to know that I started my low code journey maybe four years ago. And that's where I got the inspiration from my previous employer, that it could be so easy to create something that made value in the organization, business value, and that's what we have done, kept on building on within Asurgent to find these cornerstones of solution that can actually drive a business value at a kind of fast pace and lower price at least. And one of those success stories, a Medical client, in a clinic, as we basically helped them break out from a bigger system, and then create a specialized solution for them to digitally on-board personnel into the clinics that help they coordinate all their work and assignments, to get it just like they wanted. More efficiently than they have before. So I say that is probably the biggest success story, but then the most common solution that we actually sell or implement at partners and customers are provisioning solutions. But when you create something at mass, it could be a Microsoft Teams team, it could be a SharePoint site, it could just be a regular Office 365 group, but if you don't have any structure around their naming conventions and so on. It will get a mess and it will get a mess quite quickly. And the Microsoft 365 platform is built around collaboration and empowering the user to create what they need to do this. And I know for myself that when you're using something, you just want to get started and get going. So you maybe don't have all that consideration with labeling and naming convention. The solution that we sell is basically creating Microsoft teams, SharePoint site, Viva engage communities and so forth. And helping the user to do all the necessary stuff with setting a name that makes sense for themselves and description and members and classification and so on, without having thousands of questions, and we do a lot of baking in the backend so they pick the resources they need, then we provision it more safely and structured. So fits and makes the IT people a little bit happier at least.

Simon Gottschlag: 13:40

Looking forward, where do you see the low code no code movement heading in Sweden? Are there any emerging trends or technologies that you believe will influence its growth and adoption?

Robin Iwarzon: 13:53

I think we're on a good trend lately. We've seen the inflow of requests increase. We're of course happy and pleased with that. It's been a trend that I tried to predict a couple of years ago, took a little bit more time than I thought it would, so it's a welcome trend, and I also think it's nice to see colleagues working within infrastructure, both internal and external colleagues who start utilizing the platform and figuring out that it could be just a basic flow or a basic app, a basic automation, but they find the components and save time, basically, and that I think will expand and explode as soon as people realize that the tools are there and at least the standard connectors and standard functionality are included, so far, in the enterprise licenses and it's available. Then it's of course, a matter of governance and the platform owners need to be there, need to understand this growth, but we see when the boom happens, it really happens and it spreads across the organization, because everybody wants to save time, and everybody has an idea around it. And I also think as I was into before the generative AI and everything in the AI sphere is gonna rocket ship. This, it has become so easy to deploy something that took a lot of hours before. So now even us in the locals were struggled to keep up with the push and organization need and request for this, and now what we see, we have all these examples in OpenAI and ChatGPT and people without IT knowledge at all utilize their services and get amazing results. But the expectations also go up. They expect that it should just be this easy. So we need to bridge that and then we can rocket ship together.

Simon Gottschlag: 15:39

How is Asurgent preparing for these future trends, and what advice would you give to companies considering a shift toward low code development?

Robin Iwarzon: 15:51

First of all, we are hiring more and more personnel around it to be, to not give the poor answer that we can't take a request right now. We have been preparing a lot for this and finally it happens, so it feels amazing. And then we are searching and doing our best effort to structure up everything, once again, so we can utilize and revamp and just make sure that the things that we build can live up to the expectations. So we can reuse where we can, but also recreate and be inspired by previous solutions. We can just keep on building better components better solution, and just delivering a better results around it. And I think for those wanting to dip into the low code no code sphere, start easy, don't try to build this mega app or big mega solution. Find a use case that within your organization would save you a lot of time. It could be as easy as input data into some kind of unstructured data source and use PowerBI to utilize and transform data and visualize it. So find these small use cases. Don't try to build something mega cool your first attempt.

Simon Gottschlag: 17:03

Start small and build something from there.

Robin Iwarzon: 17:08

Exactly.

Simon Gottschlag: 17:10

Thanks for those insights, Robin. To recap, we've explored the global and Swedish landscapes of low code, discussed the balance between pro code and low code, and touched on critical licensing considerations. Robin, before we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts or advice for our listeners who are either currently using low code platforms or are considering them for future projects?

Robin Iwarzon: 17:37

Yeah, I think we touched a lot around the licenses and how to get involved with it. Often you start and then you get stuck and then you lose your interest in it. There are amazing forums around this that actually Microsoft built so that it's their forums, but empowered by all the users and creators out there. Often you're not the first to build your solution or that kind of type of solution somebody figured it out and then you can take some part of it and just maximize it for you. So don't be shy on actually going out there and reading and trying to figure out what has already been done, so you don't smack your head into the wall trying to solve something that's already there. Utilize the forums and then just empower yourself.

Simon Gottschlag: 18:17

Thank you, Robin! And thanks to everyone for tuning in to For a Cloudy Day. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with your network. To our listeners, we'd love to hear from you. Are there other topics you'd like us to explore in future episodes? Or perhaps you know someone or even yourself who would make a great guest on the show? Reach out to us through our social media channels and let us know.