The concept of “digital transformation” is nothing new. For years now, organisations of all sizes have been gradually shifting into a more “digitised” future to boost productivity, efficiency, and operational results. It’s no secret that the right technology can make a huge difference to the performance of your business, whether you’re transitioning into the cloud, or embracing automation.
However, previously “laid back” approaches to digital transformation have begun to dissipate in recent years, thanks in large part to the pandemic. According to McKinsey, the pandemic “accelerated” digital transformation initiatives and technology adoption by several years. Today, embracing new technology isn’t just an option; it’s a table stakes requirement.
The only problem is many digital transformation projects still come with hefty investment and resource requirements – making them inaccessible to certain brands. Fortunately, there is an easier way to kickstart your strategy for growth, without spending a fortune.
Here’s how you can leverage your existing Microsoft licenses to pave the way for digital transformation.
Making the Most of the Microsoft Ecosystem
One of the reasons why Microsoft has become such a powerful technology vendor in recent years is its inherent flexibility. The Microsoft ecosystem is naturally robust, scalable, and extensible. This means you can start with a simple investment, and gradually increase your purchase of new and innovative products as your business grows.
Microsoft deliberately creates flexible licenses and platforms to help companies scale and evolve at their own pace. For instance, investing in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem provides users with a comprehensive foundation where they can begin to build out their business needs for everything from cloud storage and computing to collaboration and communication.
Users can start with the Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan for accessing crucial services like Word, SharePoint, Excel, and Exchange, and access up to 1TB of cloud storage at the same time. As your company grows, you can expand your ecosystem to include more Microsoft apps, premium security features, Azure Information Protection, and tools like “InTune”.
Because Microsoft’s solutions all work seamlessly with each other, you can reduce the need to pay for developers to integrate various tools into the same platform. Plus, you get the benefit of an environment your company’s employees are already comfortable and familiar with whenever you choose to add new features to your roadmap.
Leverage Internal Innovation with Power Platform
Perhaps one of the most valuable tools companies can use when they’re taking advantage of their existing Microsoft licenses for digital transformation is the “Power Platform”. Microsoft Power Platform can also be accessed from within your Microsoft 365 plan, giving you the freedom to experiment with new digital transformation initiatives in a simple, connected environment.
Companies can build an end-to-end solution capable of integrating the benefits of Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and the Power Platform for automation and app creation all in the same package. Microsoft’s Power Platform is a low-cost and high-return solution for digital transformation, which replaces the need for complex programming and developer knowledge, with low-code functionality.
The series of tools built into the Power Platform allow organisations to minimise costs and generate agile transformation opportunities through:
- Power BI for data insights: Power BI allows companies to build their business and digital transformation initiatives around valuable insights. The solution pulls information from multiple apps and tools to create visual dashboards and graphs. This ensures companies can put data-driven insights into the hands of every business employee.
- Power Apps for Business Applications: Power Apps allows companies to build custom business applications and tools perfectly suited to the needs of their workforce. These apps can be accessed throughout the entire Microsoft 365 ecosystem, to help with sending notifications, completing tasks, and empowering employees.
- Power Pages for online growth: With Power Pages, companies can leverage their existing investment in the Microsoft environment to build low-code business websites. These pages can be used to deliver self-service solutions to customers, reduce the strain on employees, and develop powerful knowledgebase environments.
- Power Automate for workflows: With Power Automate built into Microsoft apps like Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, companies can streamline workflows and improve team productivity. The templates available to guide automations ensure everyone in your team (even those with limited technical knowledge) can build their own workflows.
- Power Virtual Agents for staff augmentation: Rather than paying for a developer and new technology to develop chatbots from scratch, you can use your existing Microsoft environment to design and test your own bots. There’s no coding required, and plenty of templates for creating conversational solutions for customers and employees.
Expand Your Opportunities with Microsoft Partners
Outside of upgrading and extending your initial Microsoft licenses for the purpose of digital transformation, or using Power Automate to implement disruptive new strategies, there’s another way you can use your Microsoft investment to facilitate growth.
Investing in the Microsoft landscape at any level not only gives you access to a huge range of powerful tools from Microsoft. It also ensures you can begin to access the benefits offered by Microsoft’s robust partner ecosystem.
The partner ecosystem developed by Microsoft makes it easy to take any digital transformation strategy to the next level, by building on your existing licenses. You can use your Microsoft Teams license with a certified Microsoft Partner like Resonate to transform your collaboration environment into a tool for unified communications and contact centre conversations.
Resonate can also work with you to build apps and tools through Microsoft Power Platform so you can automate crucial customer service interactions, enhance business productivity, and complete crucial tasks at speed.
Leveraging the Partner Network created by Microsoft means you can combine all the benefits you’re already getting from your Microsoft investment, with the specialist skills and expertise of another dedicated technology leader or service provider.
Make the Most of Microsoft for your Digital Transformation
As a powerful, extensible, and flexible platform, Microsoft has everything today’s businesses need to digitally transform their communications, processes, and workflows. The key to making the most of this ecosystem is ensuring you have the right support to put your digital transformation initiatives into place.
Reach out to Resonate today to find out how we can help you generate more value from your existing Microsoft licenses and investments.
