Microsoft Power Apps

Enabling Governed Citizen Development For A Global Bank

A leading UK bank partnered with Remarkable by Formulate to transform how its teams build and manage operational solutions; moving away from fragmented, spreadsheet-driven processes towards a secure, governed low-code ecosystem.

Sector

Enterprise | Financial Services

Technology

Microsoft Power Apps

Improving Productivity Whilst Strengthening Governance

As part of its broader digital transformation strategy, a leading UK bank recognised a growing gap between business demand and IT capacity. Over 300 colleagues across operations, change, analytics and frontline support functions were increasingly building their own tools and spreadsheets to solve immediate problems. While effective in the short term, these solutions were often created without the governance, compliance, scalability or security required in a regulated environment.

At the same time, the bank faced clear strategic priorities: reducing operational risk and improving productivity whilst strengthening governance across its core processes.

This presented a clear opportunity:

Unlock the speed and innovation of citizen development, while maintaining enterprise grade control.

A structured citizen development programme would enable the bank to:

—Reduce reliance on central IT for low complexity, business led solutions
—Strengthen data governance, compliance and auditability
—Improve operational agility across multiple business units
—Create a scalable foundation for continuous improvement

The Challenge

Unravelling The Reliance On Fragmented Solutions For Critical Processes

The bank's challenge was both familiar and increasingly critical. Across operations, change, analytics, and frontline support functions, more than 300 employees had developed their own tools to meet immediate business needs. Over time, this had resulted in the proliferation of more than 1,200 spreadsheets and standalone "native" applications, many of which operated outside formal IT oversight.

Employees

Spreadsheets and standalone applications

"To us the challenge was clear, we need to retain the agility and problem solving capability of business-led solutions by those closest to the problems, while introducing the governance, security, and scalability required in a regulated environment."

Owen Davies

Formulate Managing Director

While these solutions often began as quick fixes, they introduced significant and compounding risks:

—Uncontrolled data stored outside secure, compliant environments
—Misalignment with governance frameworks, making risk difficult to measure or manage
—Duplication of logic and data, leading to inconsistent outputs and reporting
—Local, untracked changes, creating version conflicts and lack of global visibility
—Limited auditability and unclear ownership, increasing regulatory exposure

In practice, critical processes were being supported by tools that lacked standardisation, resilience, and oversight. Data was not always secure or compliant and the absence of central control made it difficult to enforce consistent practices or respond effectively to risk.

At the same time, reliance on these fragmented solutions created inefficiencies. The outcome showed evident slowing down of operations, increasing dependency on manual intervention and consequently this placed additional strain on central IT teams.

The Solution

Delivering A Governed Citizen Development Programme

To address these challenges, we partnered with the bank to design and deliver a governed citizen development programme built on Microsoft Power Platform. With more than 300 colleagues identified across key business functions, the programme needed to rapidly build capability while engaging employees and embedding best practice in risk, compliance and data governance.

The Outcome

The bank successfully established a scalable, governed citizen development capability.

Teams moved away from fragmented, high-risk tools and towards secure, standardised solutions built on Power Platform.

Spreadsheets Replaced

Replacement of spreadsheet-based processes with governed applications

Automation

A growing community of confident "makers" delivering business-led innovation

Employee adoption rate

Beyond Training: Ensuring Sustained Adoption

A key differentiator of the programme was ongoing support beyond the classroom.

Rather than leaving participants to navigate implementation alone, Remarkable by Formulate provided hands-on guidance during early-stage solution development. This ensured:

—Consistent application of governance principles
—Reduced risk of stalled or abandoned solutions
—Faster transition from learning to delivery
—Stronger long-term adoption across teams

A Governance-First Approach

Remarkable by Formulate designed a training experience that balanced practical delivery with enterprise control, ensuring participants could innovate confidently within approved guardrails.

The programme focused on five core capability areas:

Dataverse: A Compliant Foundation

Establishing a governed, scalable data layer through structured data modelling, relationships and role-based access controls.

Power Apps: Replacing Spreadsheet Workflows

Removing reliance on fragmented spreadsheets whilst enabling teams to build intuitive applications that standardised processes and improved data capture.

Power Automate: Driving Operational Efficiency

Introducing automation for repetitive tasks, system integrations and approval workflows with built-in audit trails and governance.

Copilot Studio: Scaling Intelligent Assistance

Equipping teams to build conversational assistants that guide users, answer queries, and streamline internal processes within a controlled environment.

Power BI: Trusted, Governed Insights

Elevating reporting maturity through governed datasets, reusable semantic models and dashboards that replaced manual reporting packs.