We have all heard about Office365, have either had a chance to use it or may even be using it right now. As one of the most popular productivity suites on the market, its advantages and conveniences are widely known by small organisations to multinational corporations. For those who want to take their project and portfolio management activities to the next level, Microsoft Power Platform is a definite necessity within your tool box. So what is the Microsoft Power Platform and what kind of benefits do they bring to your organisation?
What is Microsoft Power Platform?
Microsoft Power Platform is a suite of business intelligence, app development and app connectivity software applications within Microsoft’s range of services. Their main goals is to optimise everyday business processes and operations by analysing data, personalizing dashboards, developing catered applications, responding to generated insights and automating processes with minimal hardcore technical expertise. The suite consists of four core services:
- Power BI: A business analytics service that specializes in analysing data, uncovering hidden insights, providing interactive data visualisations and connecting data sources.
- Power Automate (Flow): Service focused on boosting productivity by streamlining workflows, automating organisational processes and enhancing workflows with artificial intelligence.
- PowerApps: Service with a range of apps, services, data connectors and platforms that allow for quick and easy development of custom apps with little to no code expertise.
- Power Virtual Agents: Service that allows for easy development and management of powerful chatbots to engage with both customers and employees to take action on collected data.
Read more: Comprehensive Guide to Microsoft Power Platform
10 Key Benefits of Microsoft Power Platform for your Organisation
1. Gathers all your business activities on a single platform
Data is everything in the digital era, so making sure all your data is accurate and accessible in real-time is a critical necessity to prevent departmental silos and process bottlenecks. With the help of Microsoft Power Platform’s end-to-end capabilities, you can integrate all your Office365 applications with additional external data sources to allow for seamless management of enterprise data. This gives you a full 360 visibility of everything happening within your project portfolio.
2. Improves data accuracy and value
Microsoft PowerApps help generate custom apps that help organisations make form fields that are customized to their specific needs. With the help of Power Automate, we make sure that data flows seamlessly no matter the external data source or application. But gathering and accessing data is only the tip of the iceberg. The real value in data comes from being able to pull valuable insights and make data-based actions accordingly. Power BI makes all those important visualisations at a click of a button so organisations don’t miss out on any potential opportunities within their projects.
3. Streamlines process and improves overall business productivity
With Microsoft Power Platform, say goodbye to manual updating, repetitive tasks and paper-based practices. With the help of Power Automate, repetitive tasks can be digitized and automated, saving your team’s valuable time so they can focus on the genuine value-adding activities within their projects.
4. Brings extensive cost savings
A 2021 Forrester report showed that PowerApps and PowerAutomate reduced application development cost and development by 70%. A 2019 version of the report reveals that the easy customization of apps through PowerApps allows organisations to remove all extra service subscriptions such as vendor application subscriptions, saving organisations over 50% in licensing costs. Add on all the other time and resource savings through the intuitive platforms and data, Microsoft Power Platform brings a whole slew of cost savings across the entirety of your project portfolio.
5. Simplifies compliance management
The demand for increased accountability and compliance is set to grow as organisations become even more environmentally and socially conscious. But keeping up to date and ensuring every single process is followed can be a challenge. With Power Automate and PowerApps, organisations can guarantee these processes are being followed as they have full control over the data collection process and results. This makes proving compliance simplified and modifications can be easily made if compliance requirements change.
6. Streamlines reporting activities
I think it is valid to say that most of us hate reporting. It is time consuming and tedious work that takes up valuable resources. Research suggests that project professionals spend 1 or more days collating project reports annually. With the help of Power BI, all the necessary reporting, visualisation and dashboards can be generated at a click of a button. Even more, once all activities across the board are brought onto the Microsoft platform, reports can be filtered to consider specific input fields or specifications your team would need.
7. Facilitates remote working and multi-device functionality
2020 has shown us just how capable we are of working digitally and how important digital integration will be for future workflows. Many legacy applications do not have the capabilities to handle full web and mobile application integration. With Microsoft Power Platform, you can always connect with your remote team members through cloud-based systems, desktop apps, and more. No matter what devices you use, you’ll be able to tap into your project activities seamlessly.
8. Elevates your data security
Microsoft Power Platform’s integrative capacity allows for all your data to be stored in one highly-secured place, making it your organisation’s single source of truth. All of pmo365’s solutions are built in Microsoft’s IRAP certified Azure data centres. The Information Security Registered Assessors Program assessment ensures the highest standards of cyber and data security and maximizes the security of the likes of the Australia federal, state and local government data.
9. Enables easy adoption and maximization of capabilities
Traditionally, crafting enterprise business applications required a steep learning curve and massive investments in IT-savvy members of your team. This often meant the full capabilities of PPM systems were limited to a select few who could understand and utilize them. Microsoft Power Platform’s minimal to no-code approach makes it significantly easier for all team members to adopt and maximize the technology in their hands. From generating deep insights to deploying new optimized workflows, citizen developers can easily pull out the full potential of their service with minimal involvement from IT teams.
10.Takes advantage of the oncoming AI revolution
From machine learning to artificial neural networks, artificial intelligence technologies are set to bring about massive change to all industries, particularly the project management space. Microsoft Power Platform will allow you to tap into the full potential of AI from predictive analysis with Power BI, smartbots with Power Virtual Assistant, and robotic process automation with PowerAutomate.
Bring the bountiful benefits of Microsoft Power Platform to your organisation
Are you interested in bringing some of these benefits to your organisation? Make sure to chat with our PPM experts to see how we can bring your PPM activities to the next level. Still want to know more about Microsoft Power Platform and all of its potential? We’ve put together a handy comprehensive guide to Microsoft Power Platform to get you started!
