One of the most preferred and used productivity suites is Office365 by Microsoft. It is mainly because of the convenience and advantages it offers to organisations of all sizes. Along with Dynamics 365, it provides organisations with everything from document management to CRM (customer relationship management), AI tools, and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).

However, for organisations aiming to achieve a higher level of success, the Microsoft Power Platform will provide a definite advantage. It is a suite of services specifically designed to enable the unification and democratisation of data. 

What is the Power Platform?

Microsoft’s Power Platform is essentially a collection or a suite of software applications focused on app connectivity, business intelligence, and even application development. The objective is to enhance the daily business operations and processes through data analysis, developing tailored applications, personalisation of dashboards, process automation without needing technical expertise, and generating insights. 4 main services comprise the platform:

Microsoft Power Bi – This service focuses on business analytics. It facilitates users to gain real-time insights from dynamic as well as non-dynamic data. It makes creating personalised reports and visualisations both on desktop and mobile possible.

A major advantage of PowerBi is that it can be embedded within Microsoft’s cloud-based service SharePoint. You do not need to be a SharePoint expert to integrate PowerBi with SharePoint. 

Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Flow) – This is a set of tools that allows users to automate business processes through Robotic Process Automation (RPA), templates, alerts, and triggers. Even a person who is not an expert can work with Automate without much difficulty. 

Microsoft PowerApps – It allows for the development of mobile-friendly applications without coding expertise. These ranges of applications live in other business applications such as Microsoft Teams+ and connect to numerous popular third-party systems. 

It is easy to use PowerApps within Teams to build custom workflows and MS Teams apps without any expertise or skills in coding. 

Microsoft Virtual Agents – This graphical interface allows users to create intelligent Chabot for interacting with customers. The AI capabilities assist organisations to create personalised bot conversations as well as automated questions to obtain data from customers to hasten issue resolution.

Benefits of Using Power Platform

One of the major benefits of the Microsoft Power Platform is that it does not require any form of Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert SharePoint or any special set of technical skills to use. However, there are other benefits, and some of them are:

• Provides Considerable Cost Savings

Power Automate and PowerApps are two services that can seriously reduce the costs associated with application development. The main reason being there is no need to have any coding skills or coding expertise to develop apps. 

• Supports Remote Working

Another benefit is that the suite supports remote working regardless of where the user may be. Due to the pandemic, most organisations had to adapt to functioning with their employees working from home. The ability to enable remote working has now become a necessity. The Platform allows teams to connect via desktop or cloud-based solutions using whatever device they may have to remain in touch. 

Using such a suite of services makes it easy to unify vast amounts of data and empower the organisation. The suite makes it possible for technical and non-technical users within the business to analyse data, create cutomised apps, and automate many business processes.