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Workflow automation is essential for businesses looking to improve operational efficiency and streamline processes. According to McKinsey, 30% of business leaders report reduced costs as a direct result of automation.
Microsoft Power Automate is a go-to solution within the workflow automation space. 93% of FORTUNE 500 companies use Power Automate given its integration with familiar Microsoft 365 tools and a wide range of third-party applications and services. Workflow automation also transforms Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs). According to a McKinsey report, SMBs that embrace automation report a 65% success rate.
What is Power Automate?
Microsoft Power Automate is an end-to-end, low-code cloud automation service within the Microsoft Power Platform that helps organizations create automated workflows across various apps and services. With its user-friendly interface, businesses can easily build different types of flows (instant, scheduled, automated, and more) to streamline tasks, save time, and boost overall productivity. Power Automate can seamlessly connect with Microsoft 365 applications, connect other popular applications, and offers AI capabilities.
How Does Power Automate Work?
- Trigger: A trigger is a specific event that initiates a Power Automate workflow. Example: Receiving an email is a trigger.
- Action: A task or step the workflow performs in response to the trigger. Example: When the “receiving an email” trigger occurs, the action could be sending a notification on Teams.
- Connector: Connectors are the bridge between Power Automate and the various apps and services it interacts with. While pre-built connectors exist for popular tools like Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Dropbox, and many others, custom connectors can also be built to expand automation capabilities.
- Customer Onboarding: When a new customer signs up, Power Automate can trigger a welcome email sequence, automatically capture information, and alert relevant team members for further onboarding steps.
- Surveys: Power Automate can simplify the process of gathering customer feedback. It can automatically send out surveys the moment a customer service case is marked as resolved, store the responses in a centralized location, and help analyze results.
Case Study: Automating Surveys
A Belgian NGO focused on combating the effects of poverty on education partnered with Eleviant CTG to streamline its school survey process using Power Automate. This replaces their previous manual system of using Excel for data collection. Surveys to schools are now triggered automatically as scheduled, and the NGO can also choose to send them manually.
The Result: The survey responses are stored in a centralized location, enabling better analysis and allowing the NGO to make informed decisions.
- Sales Lead Management: Power Automate can integrate with your business applications to automatically send follow-up emails to new leads, schedule sales calls based on lead priority, and assign leads to appropriate sales representatives.
- Expense Reporting: Power Automate can simplify expense reporting by automatically collecting data from receipts, calculating totals, and initiating the approval process.
- HR Processes Automation: Power Automate can automate tasks like scheduling interviews, sending emails to candidates, onboarding tasks, and scheduling orientation sessions for new hires.
Case Study: Streamlining Interview Management
We streamlined our interview process at Eleviant CTG by implementing a Power Automate workflow. Department heads could initiate the flow by submitting job requirements through a form. Upon approval by HR, the system will automatically schedule the interview for the candidate and notify interviewers via Teams. This process ensures interviewers are promptly informed of their scheduled interviews. After each round, the interviewer gives feedback through a form, triggering notifications for the next interviewer and HR. The HR is automatically notified of status updates, so they can quickly act.
The Result: The automation significantly reduced administrative overhead, improved communication, and created a more efficient, candidate-friendly interview experience.
- Project Management: Power Automate can streamline project management by automatically creating tasks within project management tools. Power Automate can then assign those tasks to team members based on their roles in the system, and automatically send progress updates to keep everyone informed.
- Inventory Management: Power Automate can simplify inventory management by automating tracking stock levels, generating reorder notifications when inventory falls below a certain threshold, and updating inventory records across systems in real-time.
Case Study: Optimizing Inventory Management
A petrochemical company faced the challenge of a time-consuming and error-prone inventory management process. Through a solution designed by Eleviant CTG, they implemented Power Automate to automate inventory barcode label generation, pre-filling inventory data into templates, and optimizing their entire inventory tracking workflow, including establishing restock triggers based on inventory thresholds.
The Result: The solution reduced manual labor, eliminated errors, and enhanced real-time inventory visibility across the company.
- Insurance Policy and Claims Management: Power Automate can automate repetitive tasks like form population, and customer information updates. It triggers timely notifications for claim follow-ups and renewals and can even be used to receive e-signatures from customers for quicker onboarding.
Why Consider an External Team for Power Automate Implementations
With Power Automate’s low-code environment, organizations can create their own custom workflows. Even so, here are some reasons to consider working with an expert external team:
- Specialized Expertise: External teams possess in-depth knowledge of Power Automate’s advanced features, integration capabilities, and security best practices, ensuring your workflows are well-designed, efficient, and secure.
- Time Savings: External teams often implement automation quickly, freeing up your internal IT resources for other priorities while allowing you to reap the benefits of automation sooner.
- Best Practices and Knowledge Transfer: External teams often have experience implementing Power Automate in various industries. They can bring valuable insights and tailor it to your specific use cases.
- Scalability Support: As your organization grows and automation needs increase, an external team can analyze your business processes to uncover areas where automation can streamline operations, save time, and reduce costs.
Conclusion
Power Automate offers a powerful way to streamline operations, however, maximizing its potential requires careful planning, a deep understanding of its capabilities, and implementation that aligns with your long-term goals. If you want tangible results from automation, talk to our experts to implement and optimize Power Automate for greater efficiency gains.
