Microsoft AI App Modernization

💭 Charter Engage: Know IT Podcast Series – Microsoft AI App Modernization

Charter's podcast episode titled Microsoft AI App Modernization’ delves into ways that Microsoft’s suite of tools, that capitalize on the capabilities of AI and other solutions, is utilized by firms like Charter to provide specialized IT resources and guidance to companies wishing to modernize their Apps efficiently. 

Get to know our contributors: Shawn Ovenden, Charter’s Director, App Innovation; Chris Shurville, our Senior Solution Architect; and Mark George, Charter’s Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets as they lead a candid discussion on:

·       The Definition of App Modernization; 

·       Four Main Approaches to App Modernization; 

·       Low-Code/ No-Code meets Pro-Code; 

·       The Microsoft Power Platform; 

·       Predictive Analytics; 

·       The Microsoft Ecosystem; 

·       Microsoft Power Platform Conference 2023 Takeaways; 

·       Charter’s Differentiator - the Developer’s Finishing Touch; 

·       ChatGPT and Copilot; 

·       AI's Effects on Daily Life; 

·       Fear of AI; and

·       Charter’s Microsoft Innovation Go-to-Market Strategy.

“I think the common challenge that all our clients have - everybody is on a digital transformation journey, and everybody has a backlog of innovation or Apps that they can’t get to. And so, all clients to an organization are open to a discussion on these topics… Ultimately, we want to be leaders and help our clients through the journey to get to a world where they can start to shrink that backlog of innovation and make true, measurable business value.” – Shawn Ovenden, Charter, Director, App Innovation

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Transcript

Charter Engage: Know IT Podcast – 

Microsoft AI App Modernization

[Recorded simultaneously in Victoria, BC, and Calgary, AB]

October 30th, 2023

Presenters: (in order of Appearance)

·       Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

·       Shawn Ovenden, Charter, Director, App Innovation

·       Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

[00:13] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Welcome to the latest episode of Charter Engage Know IT. I'm your host, Mark George, the Director of Energy, Resources and Industrial Markets. The fundamental premise for today's podcast Is that digital transformation is fueled by modern Applications. We believe that the real measurable value in moving to a cloud infrastructure is realized in that App modernization. 

We've gathered our team of experts today to define these terms in more detail, discuss the benefits of App modernization, and show you how Charter can help build a roadmap and then collaborate with you to execute a plan. 

For over 25 years, Charter has built a very successful business as a reseller of networking, IT, security, and collaboration products and services. Last year, we made the strategic decision to invest and build a much broader solutions integration business, including building specialty professional service practices such as Application Development, App Innovation, Business Architecture, Cybersecurity, Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC), and Staff Augmentation. To do this, Charter will take responsibility for customers achieving their business outcomes, leveraging best-in-class technology and a comprehensive portfolio of professional services to integrate and to optimize across the traditional IT and OT infrastructures. To put these comprehensive solutions together, Charter will partner with third parties to help our clients achieve their digital transformation and business objectives. 

For our regular listeners, you know that we spent the last few months in our podcast series exploring topics such as how we work with industry partners to secure connected workers; leveraging design thinking to build business transformation road maps; and more recently, how to move beyond using spreadsheets to make more informed decisions. We're now rolling out a podcast series that highlights the broad range of advisory services that Charter offers our clients as part of our solution integration business and it allows us to feature our practice leaders and members of their team. 

Today, we're going to focus on our Microsoft innovation business. I’m pleased to introduce the members of the Charter team, that are here with us today. Shawn Ovenden is the Director of the Microsoft Innovation Team. Shawn brings many years of experience in Application innovation, most notably within the Microsoft ecosystem. As Charter continues its exciting evolution into a full-service digital transformation solution provider, Shawn, and our growing team, are here to assist our clients in solving their most significant business challenges. He remains dedicated to advancing the Charter narrative related to digital transformation and the contributions made through our expanding Microsoft practice. 

I'd also like to welcome Chris Shurville. Chris is a Senior Solution Architect for Applications and our AI Lead. With over 15 years of experience, Chris is an accomplished Solution Architect, renowned for his expertise in Microsoft Applications, especially SharePoint. In his previous role, he established Microsoft 365 Managed Services in Canada, excelling in contract management, technical support, and client relationship building. At Charter, as a Senior Solution Architect, Chris’ focus centres on Microsoft AI and modern Applications within the Microsoft 365 environment - to assist our clients with Application modernization and daily support. 

As you can get from their resumes, both of our guests have decades of experience working in the Microsoft ecosystem and have contributed to the development and tremendously successful growth of Charter’s Application Services business. 

So, let's start with a definition. App modernization is the process of updating and improving legacy Applications to meet the changing needs of businesses and users. It involves using modern development practices, tools, and technologies to transform existing Applications into more efficient, scalable, and secure solutions that can be easily managed and updated. 

So, Shawn, please kick off our discussion today by providing our listening audience with, perhaps, an outline of the four main Approaches that you see to App modernization. 

Four Main Approaches to App Modernization:

[05:45] Shawn Ovenden, Charter, Director, App Innovation

Thank you, Mark. That's a great question. That’s at the heart of what most of our clients are challenged with and thinking about. First off, you hit on some key points on what constitutes a cloud-native or modern App and you talked about scalability, security. There's also the ability, flexibility to be able to dial up and dial down performance as you need to. So, without a doubt all cloud native Applications perform well. 

So, you know, once we know that's the gold standard that we're shooting for this cloud-native concept for all Applications, organizations find themselves with a growing backlog, a backlog of Apps that are getting in the way of achieving digital transformation goals. And so, we like to categorize these in four different threads, if you will. 

One would be re-platforming. So re-platforming is quite simply taking an old legacy Application (for some organizations, years and years ago, they may have built a custom CRM system as an example), and take that and just move it into the cloud - doing exactly what it did before you moved it into the cloud. So that's number one.

Number two would be refactoring. Refactoring is giving some tweaks and some changes to the Application once it's moved to the cloud. So, one of the nice things you can do when you get everything into the cloud is security and identity management. So, “Who has access to what resource?” And so, you can take this legacy App, you can move it to the cloud, and you can bolt in some security, (again refactoring) some security to be able to extend the functionality of the App in the cloud. 

Number three, rebuilding. So quite often, especially in the case of, kind of, age-old Applications, there's really an Appetite for rebuilding wholesale. So, what you don't lose is the knowledge that you've gained about that Application or set of Applications. But you take that Application, and you rebuild it from scratch. Now, if you're doing it from scratch, chances are you’re not going to use the same tools, which would make sense, that you used 20 years ago. And so, this is where we get into more the Low-Code/ No-Code (LCNC), [1] or what we like to say at Charter “Low-Code meets Pro-Code.” The Power Platform, in the Microsoft ecosystem, to be able to rebuild those Apps with entirely new functionality, that is mobile-friendly, secure, scalable - everything we talked about earlier. 

And number four would be replacing. In the case of the customer relationship management Applications, [that] I talked about earlier, that might be a good candidate to entirely kind of cut your losses and move to an out-of-box solution such as Dynamics 365. It's going to have way more functionality and on a cost-per-user basis, it's going to be a fraction of the price that you would expect to see with a homegrown Application. So those are the four. 

And Chris anything to add? I know you've seen quite a bit in terms of the migration. Anything to add to what I highlighted?

A Look at App Modernization:

[09:17] Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

No, I think you touched on it really well, Shawn. I think it's with the customer base that we have, and where I was coming from too was mainly, you know, they got so used to a certain Application that becomes so ingrained in their thought process. Like InfoPath [2] was an example of one that, you know, people and folks are moving away from, but it became so ingrained in their models, as well as things like Nintex workflows [3] where they really only started using that technology and started using it for everything. So, they were shoving, you know, all of their issues into that one box, and now with the Power Platform, [4] or I should say they were trying to solve everything in that 1 box, like forcing the tool to do something that it may or may not be really good at. 

And I think with the Power Platform and the App modernization [5] really opens up the doors, to what can be done and, even through not being forced on a particular third-party licensing model, as well. Well, It’s something, I don't want to call anyone out here, but there are Applications where they, kind of, get you with their licensing model. So being able to App modernize through the Microsoft ecosystem, is pretty exciting stuff right now. 

[10:28] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

So that's a great jumping-off point, Chris, to a topic that Shawn touched on when he was talking about the four main approaches to App modernization. He introduced the term “Low-Code No-Code.” [It] doesn't matter where you go today, you hear that term. Can you help us better understand why an organization might use the Microsoft Power Platform to be able to create custom Applications or to automate workflows? 

Microsoft Power Platform:

[10:59] Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

I mean, let's just go back to Low-Code for a second, here, and use me as the prime example because Shawn knows I'm not a developer. So, this really opened up my world. We laughed because as we were, Shawn and I, we can touch on this later, we were out at a Power Platform Conference this year in Vegas, [6] and with my knowledge being more so on the infrastructure side and Application troubleshooting, be it SharePoint, or whatever that looks like. I'm not a developer, so being able to see what you can achieve in a Low-Code situation, specifically through let's say Copilot [7] or in the Power Platform, I turned to Shawn and said “I'm going to change my role to Senior Developer going forward because what I can achieve in the Power Platform using Low-Code/ No-Code is just incredible. I wouldn’t have thought this five years ago, that I would be looked at as someone who could go in and solution something through Power Automate, [8] or build something through a Canvas, or Model-Driven App [9] that really is a professional-looking solution, and then have it exposed through either Power Pages, [10] or something of that nature. It's something that, it's really opened up the world for folks like me to be able to build on, and then you can use that infrastructure knowledge in the background to really secure it, make it accessible, and do some pretty special things with it.

[12:21] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

So, I'm assuming that the Power Platform is integrated with some of the other Microsoft products. And I've got to believe that with all the talk about Artificial Intelligence and data analytics, that there's some enhanced capability, or a user’s ability to be able to do predictive analytics because they're staying in the Microsoft world. Is that, in fact, the case? 

Predictive Analytics:

[12:52] Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

Yes, I mean there's a couple of things to that. So, the predictive analytics is another model that you can leverage from an AI engine. You know, there's a whole bunch of stuff that you can do. For example, Shawn and I have been working on a few different things here, but you're leveraging what's called “AI Builder Models,” [11] and that's artificial intelligence. But there's different ways of leveraging them. So, there's different models, there’s custom models you can create. There's also out-of-the-box ones. There’s also ones that you can leverage. When you say AI, we don't need to just speak about Power Platform AI Builder, you can talk about Azure, you know Cognitive Services, [12] as an example, and get a little bit more in-depth. 

So, from my standpoint, it's an endless world of what you can do with AI out-of-the-box. It's just, you know, Microsoft is just one of those areas that have really honed in on it well, because traditionally, most people are using Microsoft in their enterprise, [13] as example Outlook, [14] SharePoint, you know, whether it was Power Platform, let's just even go back and say Microsoft Access. [15] You can now take that data and leverage it in the data ecosystem very professionally using Low-Code/ No-Code solutions in the Power Platform and then leverage, and what I say, tie in AI models from, like, a Power Automate, as an example, that then manipulate that data to do something custom to what you’re trying to achieve in your business.

[14:13] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Well, and my suspicion again, and you confirmed this, is that people just generally don't care where they now access an App from, whether it's from their desktop, or from their mobile phone. There must be a significant advantage to having all of this in the Microsoft ecosystem as you go to think about your business transformation and your model App modernization processes. 

Microsoft Ecosystem:

[14:47] Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

There's no doubt about it. I mean, I think the familiarity with Microsoft alone is helpful. Then you tie in the licensing, you’re probably already halfway there, half the time, with the licensing, whether you have an E3, [16] E5, [17] whatever your licensing model is at your company, you could probably leverage a lot of what is available out-of-box with a, you know, with that license model. 

So, there’s things that you're paying for, as an example, that you may not be using. So, you know, we go in and look at what they are not using and see how we can help with that - and then try to reflect what other changes net positive we can make through AI or automation, really. 

[15:22] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Well, Shawn, I think that's a natural segue, then, to the fact that you and Chris were recently at the Microsoft Power Platform Conference in Las Vegas. What were some of the things that stood out for you, some of the takeaways that you brought home, perhaps some of the things that you are already sharing with some of Charter’s clients, and ultimately, maybe some of the impressions that you took away? So, why don’t I leave it broad enough and you share some of your thoughts based on your experience in Las Vegas? 

Microsoft Power Platform Conference Takeaways:

[15:56] Shawn Ovenden, Charter, Director, App Innovation

Yeah, wow. First off, the energy. Chris and I were both involved in the SharePoint [18] days and, kind of, the heyday of the SharePoint days, when it was the superstar of the platforms in Microsoft. And the audience's energy was just electric. 

[It] kind of faded a little bit over the years, but we've seen the emergence of Power Platform. Now something interesting happened about a year ago with the release of ChatGPT. [19] And Microsoft saw that power and infused ChatGPT into virtually every product that they sell. And so, the combination of the natural evolution of the Power Platform and this new technology just lit the joint up, if I can use that term. 

One of the highlights was a session by the CEO of GitHub, [20] [Thomas Dohmke.] Now, as Chris talked about earlier, and I echo that, neither of us are developers. We’re solution architects, but we're not training developers. And here was a developer up on stage, the head of GitHub. And he told a great story. And the story was about an Application called “Snakes,” [21] that quite often they give as a challenge to entry-level university classes. And he, kind of, indicated that this game that sees a snake run around on the screen and eat up pixels and get longer and, you know, if you could imagine what that might look like, this particular game would take a student maybe 40 hours to learn. And so, 40 hours for a decent piece of technology, lightweight gaming, that's pretty good. You still need to know what you're doing. And then he said, if you know what you're doing, using current technology, you can do it in about four hours. So that’s interesting. So, I can go from 40 hours to four hours. Now, I add in AI, I add in GTP, and I can take my four hours down to 20 minutes. That’s 20 minutes [in which] he did a live demo, of building an App on stage, and the audience was wowed. 

And so, the promise that as a development community, and it's the loose definition of the development community, what’s there for the taking, Mark, is Apps that are 10 times quicker to develop. Think about the backlog of all our clients and the demands for digital transformation. The tools now enable us to go back in to where we were before and propose solutions that are 10 times more productive than we were able to generate. 

So, that is a true shift in the market, and, in the end, that was one of my biggest takeaways from Vegas.  

[19:11] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Chris, anything from your perspective that was a key takeaway?

[19:15] Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

I mean, there were a couple, but just to echo, or sorry, to go on top of that story, what was crazy about that to me, too, was this guy was really doing a live demo. And when I say he was doing a live demo, I mean, how many people were there, Shawn? 5,000 people in that one big stadium, something of that nature? He was going through and creating it from the start. It wasn't like the cooking show, when they, kind of, have it half-baked and say, “Now picture me finishing this, and here’s the end result.” He was making mistakes, Shawn, during his demo saying, actually, “Where am I missing this comma? Why is this not working? Oh, hold on, I know where.” And I couldn't believe that someone would take that risk at that stage, if you know what I mean.

Like, you’re talking about a Microsoft platform or Power Platform conference, where it seemed like you just said to someone, “I'll just, I’ll make a snake game. And just watch how quickly I can do it, without anyone really saying, “Yeah, are you sure? Like, are you good to go? Yeah, yeah, yeah.” And then he would go in and Copilot, and figure out, you know, “Where, what am I missing here?” And it would tell him in certain sections, “You're missing a comma. You’re missing a semi-colon.” He said, “Oh yeah, I am missing this.” Like he was either the best presenter I've ever seen, showcasing failures, or he was really doing it on the fly. So, that one resonated with both of us at the time. We were, kind of, continually looking back at each other going, like “this is crazy.” 

[20:34] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Well, and all three of us come from the world that any presentations and any demos must be canned. [22]

[20:37] Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

Totally.

[20:38] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Because you don't want anything to go wrong. And to be able to do that in real-time, that's absolutely mind-boggling. 

Charter’s Differentiator - Developer’s Finishing Touch:

[20:45] Shawn Ovenden, Charter, Director, App Innovation

I do want to add a key point, though. I mentioned it earlier, and that's Charter’s differentiator in the marketplace. There's Low-Code/ No-Code. We're more of the school of thought that says Low-Code meets Pro-Code. 

So, in the end, this gentleman was up on stage, he knew how to develop (so he could go 80% of the way using some of the modern tools.) You still need a little bit of that finishing. So, for truly enterprise Apps, we’re not here telling you (and, therefore, telling all our customers, you know, “All your dreams will be met with AI.”) You're going to get 10 times productivity, but then you're going to need that finishing touch that is the function of a professional developer. And we want to bring these two worlds together. 

[I] heard a great term at the session called “Fusion Teams.” [23] And that's a combination of business users, call it citizen developers, solution architects, like Chris and I; and then professional developers, like a Roy or a Tom, who can kind of compliment that team and deliver a holistic solution. Does that makes sense? 

[22:08] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Shawn, you’ve raised a great point because, ultimately, we spent the last 20 minutes talking about technology and we're not going to leave that topic for too long. But it's really important because our clients generally start this discussion by talking about, “I need to increase productivity. I need to save money. I need to improve decision-making. I need to enhance our customer experience, even the employee experience, or the supplier experience, [or the experience for] one of the stakeholders.” And then, ultimately, in any business transformation, you need to be agile, and stable. And those are the discussion points that, at least, in the discussions that I sit in, that customers raise that, then allow us to, kind of, seque into the AI predictive analytics topics that we're going to move back to right now.

So, Gartner has just released their top ten strategic technology trends for 2024. [24] Five of them tie directly to Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Applications. With the introduction of ChatGPT, it got to 100 million users in less than two months. It took Facebook 4-1/2 years; took Netflix 18 years to get to 100 million users. ChatGPT got there in two months. So, it, I guess goes without saying that ChatGPT has come on strong.

So, Shawn, is ChatGPT going to make a difference, or is this some overhyped techno trend? And because you guys were both at the Microsoft product conference, what's Microsoft's take on it? I hear them talk about Copilot. Let's spend a few minutes looking at ChatGPT and Copilot and your view of, “Is this a trend or not?”

ChatGPT and Copilot:

[24:18] Shawn Ovenden, Charter, Director, App Innovation

Remember back, Mark, in the late 90s? Think back to the first time that you saw a web browser. And you could click on something that would take you to, you know, maybe it was through the Yahoo engine, and it took you to a site of your favorite running shoes (or whatever happened to be that you were looking for in the world?) And it, kind of, got to us emotionally to be able to do that so easily. I think why ChatGPT has made such a difference is you can see that emotional impact on your first search, your first question that you make. Like any technology, you know, it's not in and of itself, it's not going to make a difference. So, ”Is it going to save money? Is it going to make money? Is it going to reduce risk? Is going to further my corporate mission?” There has to be context.

And what Microsoft's done is they've taken this technology that is an island and they’ve wired it into all the interactions that knowledge workers have with software. So, in their world, they branded it Copilot. Copilot is not one product, by the way. Copilot is a brand and a capability that gets wired everywhere. So, pretty soon we're going to have Copilot sitting beside us as we go through our emails and it's going to help us prioritize what we respond to; and how we respond to those emails. Copilot might, actually, write some of the responses. So, imagine going through your day and the first hour of your day getting through your inbox gets shortened down to 24 minutes. You know, is that a win or not? 

One simple example, right? Anytime you touch PowerPoint [25] or Word, [26] you'll have a Copilot assistant helping you to create content, refine content,[and] improve the quality, the look, [and] the consumability of content. So those are some of the easy wins that users are going to be able to see.

[26:31] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

So, Chris, obviously then as Copilot gets introduced, as Shawn said, it's a brand and set of capabilities - it's not a direct product. This is, obviously, starting to impact the daily habits or the daily lives, in fact, without getting too dramatic about it, of our clients. 

You work in the marketplace every day. What are some of the things you’re seeing where ChatGPT is being applied, or some of the other tools because we're certainly not promoting ChatGPT? Ultimately, what are some of the tools you're and, more importantly, the impact that it’s having on people’s lives?

AI Tool’s Effects on Daily Life:

[27:20] Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

Yeah, so to your point, I think ChatGTP is the brand name, right? Like, everyone knows ChatGTP, everyone has the App, and it works phenomenally well. I think that was everyone’s introduction to generative AI, to a lot of degree, right? 

And I think, to Shawn's point, what Microsoft has done is to be able to apply that to a series of software, sorry, to a series of Applications, right. So, Copilot being one of their, you know, one of the answers to generative AI, in the sense of Copilot for Outlook, or Copilot for M365, or Copilot for Power Platform, so, that's where the Copilot, kind of, sits per application suite, right? 

And I think I look at it as, honestly, to Shawn’s point, when the Internet came out, I look at this as Internet 2.0. I really do. Because this is a completely different way to leverage the Internet to be helpful in your enterprise or your company. It's not just looking through emails. 

Like, you can build AI models to reflect what your business needs are, whether is Oil and Gas, or whether it’s healthcare. You can build things through a Power Automate and then apply an AI engine, be it, let's call it ChatGPT, but it would be via GPT AI open model in Azure, which is Microsoft, and you can then take a data set and manipulate it to do whatever you want. The output could be something as simple as what Shawn and I have worked on, which is automate a series of metadata tags. 

So, you know, we’ve showcased this before, but it's something that we wanted to just show how easy it was to set up where you're building a Power Automate workflow that then you upload a picture to, and it automatically creates tags within, you know, either the data verse, in our example, or you can do that in a column in SharePoint. And think about what the possibilities of that are - whether it's in that example only, or through something like a Well File, as an example, where you're looking at a Well File that's just a tiff document or a JPEG, and you can extract either information from it and put it into a series of different columns or whatever your, however, your output is going to look like. Think about how long that took to do beforehand. You needed somebody to sit there and either go through every document and manually, (which is prone to error) and go through and take a look at the picture, (that's just a dumb picture) and then take that data and put it somewhere. I mean, you’re talking about hours and hours out of someone’s day, right? 

So, I look at it as Internet 2.0 because of the way it's going to be influential and how we operate day-to-day, including, and to Shawn’s point, what we heard at the Power Platform Conference, and saw demos of, which is, once we get the Copilot for M365, it’s going to be able to take the data within your enterprise. (So, it’s not like ChatGTP, where people are worried about their enterprise security and stuff.) It’s going to be able to take your relevant data and then be able to help you even create an e-mail (and there's a setting that you can, actually, put in place to say, “Make it sound like me.”) And the generative AI, or the output of that e-mail, is going to go through how you typically write an e-mail and then generate it to make it sound like how you would write an e-mail - which is absolutely amazing to me.

[30:30] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Well, the art of the possible. The world that, Shawn, you and your team, live in must be so creative, so innovative, and the discussions that all of you must be having in the marketplace right now must be so leading edge that, ultimately, the capabilities that you bring to the table, our customers, must be able to see and truly value.

So, Shawn, staying with the AI discussion, one of the things that I'm seeing in the marketplace with the customers that I interact with is a fear of AI, [27] some of the uncertainties around it, and they just can't understand how they may apply it in their business. Can you develop that some more for our listening audience? 

Fear of AI:

[31:20] Shawn Ovenden, Charter, Director, App Innovation

Yeah, for sure, Mark. In fact, and Chris can back me up on this, because we have real-life experience with recent conversations with clients. There's a natural fear around quality. So, if you're going to have a computer write a bunch of content, can you trust it? Does it represent your personal views, if it's going to go under your name? So, there's the fear of quality. 

There’s also, interesting enough, the fear of, just, being rendered irrelevant, or losing your job. That came up in recent meetings. And, I think, as an organization we have to be sensitive that; we don't have magic answers; we can’t speak to, necessarily, how their jobs are going to change. But we want to be conscious of this particular topic. Anything to add there, Chris? 

[32:15] Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

No, I think that's right. I think it's understanding how AI can help you and not take over the role. So, if there is something that is, you know, you've been struggling with, that something that AI can help with, it just boil it down to something very simple. Because if you're stuck on something, like a formula in Excel, what if somebody told you, “But this thing can do it in three seconds”? “You just have to tell it in a natural language what you're trying to do.” That would be extremely helpful for someone that's working in Excel day-to-day. Your job’s not going to go anywhere, it's just you’re going to be able to do things 10 times faster. 

[32:50] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Well, and Shawn, back to your point about this being, kind of, the equivalent of the Internet 2.0 or 100.0, it doesn’t really matter, at the end of the day, when the Internet was introduced, people were concerned. And didn't know how it would impact them. And now we can't live without it. 

So, I think it's a good explanation for our listening audience that fear is something, again, that is natural, but that companies and organizations like Charter can help them think through that - so that they are comfortable using some of the new tools, and new technologies that the market is bringing to the world today. 

Shawn, so now that we better understand the approaches to App modernization and, perhaps, some of the benefits of using the Microsoft Power Platform to develop new Applications, can you please provide some insights into the go-to-market strategy of the Charter Microsoft Innovation team?

Charter’s Microsoft Innovation Go-to-Market Strategy:

[33:55] Shawn Ovenden, Charter, Director, App Innovation

Yeah, happy to, Mark. Number one, it starts with a conversation. I think the common challenge that all our clients have - everybody is on a digital transformation journey, and everybody has a backlog of innovation or Apps that they can’t get to. And so, all clients to an organization are open to a discussion on these topics. 

So, our go-to-market starts with that. The evolution of that could be [Proof-of-Concepts] (POCs), pilots, [and] prototypes. It could be a centre of excellence around some of these Low-Code/ No-Code meets Pro-Code offerings. Ultimately, we want to be leaders and help our clients through the journey to get to a world where they can start to shrink that backlog of innovation and make true, measurable business value. 

[34:58] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Well, and as you said earlier on, one of the key Charter differentiators is the notion of Low-Code really is equivalent to Pro-Code. And, in the market strategy, I'm sure that is a common message, that you and your team get to share on a day-to-day basis as you work across the country. 

So, before we finish up, I thought I'd like to create a scenario for the two of you to comment on. I'm a client. I've got an Application to develop to support a new business that I'm building. How would the two of you work together to ensure that I have the best experience possible? Where would I start? When do I build versus when do I buy an Application off the shelf? How do you make me feel like I'm a real partner in this development process? And if you have any real-life examples, you're welcome to weave them in. Chris, do you want to start? 

Application Development Example:

[36:00] Chris Shurville, Charter, Senior Solution Architect

Sure. I think to Shawn's point, it starts with a conversation, right? So, it's trying to understand what you're trying to achieve. And you need to go into these conversations and remain agnostic to a certain degree. We are a Microsoft practice, here at Charter, and I fully believe that there is a capability within that ecosystem to do almost anything if given enough time and, say, licensing. You know, it's given enough time and knowledge you can create almost anything within that environment. 

But I would start by looking at what you're trying to achieve. What’s your business problem? And then, as I work through that with you, we would start to associate that with technologies that we're familiar with, you know. 

So again, we remain agnostic in the Microsoft practice. And I say that because that used to be a common issue that you’d see with Applications within the ecosystem - where people were forcing SharePoint, as an example, to do something that it may not have been excellent at. So, we would look at it and maybe say, you know, “This is not a Power Platform solution, this may be a SharePoint solution.” Or, “This is not a you know SharePoint solution, this is something that you could easily achieve within Azure,” or whatever this looks like. 

It doesn't really matter, but it's making sure that you're working with the client to ensure that you understand what they're trying to achieve, and then bringing the solutions forward that you feel are going to best achieve that output. 

[37:24] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Sean, do you want to add anything, because that's great practical advice, Chris. Shawn, do you want to add anything?

[37:29] Shawn Ovenden, Charter, Director, App Innovation

Yeah. We want to shy away of making technology decisions or recommendations for the sake of technology. In our best relationships, Mark, and you know this, are involved business sponsors and having business folks at the table discussing some of the trade-offs between options A, B, and C. One could be, you know, an A might be “do nothing - continue with the spreadsheet;” B might be “build a bit of a custom solution using Power Platform;” Option C might be “a full-on Dynamics 365 implementation.”

So, we want to go in with open ears and open eyes, and with business sponsorship at the table, and help guide our clients to the most meaningful results possible. 

[38:21] Mark George, Charter, Director – Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets, Moderator

Well, obviously that must be another key Charter differentiator to take that kind of collaborative approach, that consultative approach, and somewhere down the road is the technology decision. Because clearly, what the customer is trying to achieve in their transformation activities, whether, per my example, building a new business expanding, to the U S, or creating a new division, when you understand that it sounds like you and your team, Shawn, then can sit down, and start to advise the client, and try and support them in a very collaborative manner, to get and make the best decisions along the roadmap route, so to speak. 

So, it's absolutely my pleasure, today, then to thank Shawn and Chris for the insights that you provided to our audience. I can see why you work so well together to help our clients accelerate their business transformation activities and to deliver real value through App modernization. 

If you've enjoyed today's podcast and want to learn more, make sure you tune in for our upcoming webinar, titled “Let AI Guide Your Microsoft App Modernization Journey,” to be aired on Tuesday, November the 14th at 1:00 PM Eastern Time, 10:00 AM Pacific. In that session, we're going to classify some of the common App modernization strategies; we’ll demonstrate how Microsoft's AI tools and services can compliment, and even guide, the transformation of your App portfolio. 

Thank you for investing the time to listen to our ongoing podcast series, “Charter. Engage, Know IT.” [28] We wish you a very productive day. 

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Presenters: (in order of appearance)

 |  Mark George, Director - Energy, Resources & Industrial Markets | Mark George is a proven business leader with global experience across multiple industries. He currently serves as the Director – Energy, Resources and Industrial Markets for Charter. Prior to that, he worked for five years as Managing Partner and Founder of EdgeMark Capital and Advisory Services Inc., a capital markets and financial advisory services firm.  Mark’s in-depth energy markets experience developed through leadership roles with Environmental Refueling Systems Inc. and with PricewaterhouseCoopers.  From 2000 to 2010, he served as the Founder and President of the Cielo group of companies, a fully integrated residential and commercial construction and real estate development company in Arizona. Mark has an intense interest in emerging technologies, having spent 15 years with Nortel, Bay Networks, DEC, and Honeywell in progressive sales, management, and executive roles throughout the Americas and Asia Pacific. Mark proudly serves on the boards of several privately held companies and not-for-profit organizations.  
 |  Shawn Ovenden, Director, App Innovation | Shawn brings many years of experience in application innovation, most notably in the Microsoft ecosystem. As Charter continues its exciting evolution becoming a full-service digital transformation solution provider, Shawn and our growing team are here to help our clients solve their most meaningful business challenges. He continues to make inroads into the Charter story surrounding digital transformation and the contributions made to it through our burgeoning Microsoft practice.    
 |  Chris Shurville Senior Solution Architect | With over 15 years of experience, Chris is an accomplished Solution Architect renowned for his expertise in Microsoft Applications, especially SharePoint. In his prior role, Chris spearheaded the establishment of Microsoft 365 managed services in Canada, excelling in contract management, technical support, and client relationship building. At Charter, as a Senior Solution Architect, Chris's focus centers on Microsoft AI and modern applications within Microsoft 365, including Power Platform and Power Apps, to assist clients with application modernization and daily support.
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About Us:

Charter [https://www.charter.ca/about], an award-winning IT solution and managed services provider, was founded in 1997 in Victoria, BC, Canada. We offer a comprehensive portfolio of innovative IT solutions, managed services, project delivery, and consulting services. Our mission is to align people, process, and technologies to build better organizations, enhance communication, boost operational performance, and modernize businesses. Our team of experts leverages a business architecture methodology and a human-centered design approach to drive successful digital transformations for our clients, unlocking new opportunities, generating value, and promoting growth. We provide knowledge and support that extends beyond our clients’ businesses, empowering them to focus on their core operations. Let Charter help drive your business outcomes Forward, Together.

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