What your Business Can Achieve with Power Platform
Recognised by Gartner as a leading enterprise low-code application platform (LCAP) Microsoft’s Power Platform transforms how businesses leverage low-code to drive solution development. In today’s article, Prateek Desai, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Practice Director at Storm, discusses what Power Platform can do for your business.
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According to Forrester, the low-code and digital process automation market saw a growth rate of approximately 21% since 2019, highlighting the strength of low-code development platforms, such as Power Platform, in solution development. In fact, Forrester also reports that 87% of enterprise developers now use low-code development platforms for at least some of their development work. LCAPs like Power Platform allow businesses to drive productivity and streamline operations by creating innovative, scalable solutions quickly and with ease.
But What is Power Platform?
Power Platform is Microsoft’s low-code solution platform comprised of 5 different elements, each providing businesses a way to develop and implement custom solutions to help combat their specific challenges with the power of low-code and AI-assistant, Copilot. The core components of Power Platform are Power Apps, Power Pages, Copilot Studio, Power Automate and Power BI. Each offering a user-friendly interface that enables solution development without the need to write even a single line of code, the elements of Power Platform enable users to create custom applications, webpages, workflow automations, data reports and dashboards and even custom AI-powered copilots to meet their unique needs. Power Platform accelerates the rate of solution development so organisations can implement the tools they need quickly and efficiently, allowing them to adapt easily to business challenges and remain agile. Below we discuss some of the key ways the elements of Power Platform can benefit businesses.
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Power Apps
Power Apps allows businesses to build custom applications connected to their core business data through seamless integration with systems like Dynamics 365, Business Central and Power Platform. Organisations can create apps tailored to tackle a vast range of business needs, including the examples below.
Employee onboarding app – Streamline HR processes by storing the company’s important policy documents and tracking the onboarding of new employees.
Health and safety app – Track and manage site inspections with images and details to centralise inspection data.
Employee helpdesk app – Accelerate the resolution of employee queries with an app to connect end-users and support teams.
Annual leave app – Simplify the management of employee annual leave requests with an app that allows employees to submit requests and automatically route them to their managers for approval.
Power Pages
Easily design internal or external facing webpages with pre-designed templates that can be customised as needed. With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, users can simplify design, development and publishing of web pages. You can even further enhance the capabilities of the page with the integration of advanced tools like Azure DevOps. Create a self-service customer support page to provide access to support resources, FAQs and even submit queries. Add an online forum section to your site to help boost community engagement, or even a webpage where customers can book appointments without needing to make a phone call.
Power BI
With low-code data visualisation tool, Power BI, users can create detailed dashboards and reports to display important data and KPI’s from core business systems like customer relationship management (CRM) systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. This means businesses can easily analyse and display important data and unlock hidden insights, enhancing reporting and driving data-driven decision-making.
Power Automate
Power Automate is a low-code automation tool that enables businesses to automate repetitive tasks and processes such as data entry, sending notifications, reporting, tracking inventory, approving expenses, posting on social media, processing invoices, routing documents, scheduling emails and more. Power Automate alleviates pressure on your teams and reduces the manual workload so workers can focus on more complex, value-added tasks.
Copilot Studio
Copilot Studio (formerly Power Virtual Agents) is a platform that allows organisations to build their own tailored AI-driven copilots to meet their specific requirements. By combining the power of low-code and AI, businesses can create their own independent agents to carry out specific tasks within different business systems. Essentially, Copilot Studio facilitates the automation of more complex tasks and actions such as dealing with customer service queries, sales support, internal IT support tickets, generating documents, managing compliance tasks and more. Copilot Studio allows your business to tailor how it uses AI, so you can get the most from your copilot.
If you would like to learn more about Microsoft’s Power Platform, get in touch with one of our solution specialists today.
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