The Future of Business Applications and The Power of Data and Analytics, James Phillips, President Digital Transformation Platform, Microsoft

Data is like gold in today’s world, and for James Phillips, the President of Business Applications at Microsoft, data is the one true north he will follow until the end. At Microsoft, James leads a global team of thousands of developers who are using data to build all of Microsoft’s business operations and then operate the infrastructure underneath them. And the applications that the Microsoft team has built have helped some of the largest companies in the world put the pedal to the metal when it comes to digital transformation. On this episode of Future of Tech, James details how the Microsoft Dynamics 365 family of products was built to operate together, and what kind of agility and options the Power Platform gives app developers to turn their business applications into key components of the company.  James also defines what a modern application is to a business today, and he explains why data is the foundation upon which all business decisions and applications should be built. Enjoy! 

Main Takeaways:

• The Modern Application: People ask what is a modern application? The answer is something driven by data that a company uses to automate a process or workflow. Sometimes these applications are built internally, and sometimes they are an out-of-the-box solution, but either way, a modern application is built with data at the forefront, and with the ability to take in and scale according to new data.
• It’s Physics: Just like matter, data accumulates and the more you have the more you know. But the just like when matter accumulates, it creates more gravitational pull on other matter. Data does the same thing, and the more data you have, the more it compounds. So while you are learning more from everything you gather, you are also creating a problem of needing to store and access all of the data you accumulate, which is why developing an agile and effective platform is one of the most important things IT leaders are focused on.
• Takes One To Know One: The best technology leaders often wind up being technologists themselves. Understanding what’s under the hood is critical to leading a team of people who are tasked with turning technology and ideas into products and services. From there, you can identify the other technologists who are qualified to lead teams of their own and scale infinitely from there.

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