The Microsoft Power Platform allows an organization's entire workforce to participate in digital transformation through both citizen developers and professional developers building applications. It consists of five components - Power Apps, Dataverse, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power Virtual Agents. While empowering innovation, IT must still maintain control by establishing governance through a Center of Excellence to ensure compliance, security, and that changes are implemented consistently according to standard processes. The Power Platform accelerates digital transformation by enabling anyone to quickly develop and deploy digital solutions that automate processes and create efficiencies.

1. WHITEPAPER
Microsoft Power Platform: the accelerator of
your digital transformation
BUILD DATA-DRIVEN SOLUTIONS QUICKLY

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1. Executive Summary
1.1 What can you do with the Microsoft Power Platform?
1.2 The Power Journey in practice
1.3 Maintain control without undermining innovation
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2. The development of the Microsoft Power Platform
3. What does the Microsoft Power Platform consist of?
3.1 The Microsoft Power Platform as glue
3.2 The twofold role of IT
3.3 Power Apps
3.4 Dataverse
3.5 Power Automate
3.6 Power BI
3.7 Power Virtual Agents
4. What can you do with the Microsoft Power Platform?
4.1 Make changes quickly and generate actionable insights
4.2 Create autonomous business
4.3 Develop powerful chatbots in an instant

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5. The Power Journey in practice
5.1 Power Journey I: Optimizing processes
5.2 Power Journey II: Unlocking legacy data
5.3 Power Journey III: Modernizing the application landscape
5.4 Power Journey IV: Automating time-consuming manual processes with Robotic Process Automation
6. Maintain control without undermining innovation
6.1 Center of Excellence
7. Bespoke work from Macaw
8. Ready to get started?
8.1 App in a Day
8.2 Get started with RPA
8.3 Build a chatbot in a day
8.4 A look behind the scenes at other organizations
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There is a high demand for business applications that make
efficient working and rapid changes possible. In practice, this is
still quite a challenge in organizational terms. Microsoft’s Power
Platform offers a platform with which your entire organization
can get started with digital transformation: both colleagues with
little IT knowledge (‘citizen developers’) and your professional
developers. Anyone can develop applications!
The platform consists of five components:
Power Apps. For quick and easy construction of data-driven
applications, helping your employees to achieve better results.
Dataverse. This is the data layer, forming the connection with,
for example, Dynamics 365 and numerous external business
applications such as Salesforce, SAP and Oracle.
Power Automate. Power Automate helps your employees to be
more efficient by allowing applications to communicate with each
other and automating manual processes.
Power BI. All data that come together in the Power Platform can
be converted into interactive dashboards and reports with the help
of Power BI.
Power Virtual Agents. With Power Virtual Agents, all your
employees can easily develop powerful chatbots themselves and
then optimize them on an ongoing basis.
1. Executive Summary
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1.3 Maintain control without undermining
innovation
Given the importance of security and compliance, it’s
essential for your IT department to get and maintain
a grip on the Microsoft Power Platform. It does this
by gaining a say in how the platform is used, by
determining the rules of the game on the platform, by
making sure that everything is secure and monitored,
and by ensuring that all processes on the platform
are set up so as to facilitate your business processes
optimally.
It’s therefore advisable to offer the Microsoft Power
Platform to the end user in a well thought-out
manner and, for example, to also consider a Center
of Excellence (CoE). A CoE is a coordinating unit
within the organization that ensures that changes are
implemented consistently and properly by means
of standard processes and skilled personnel. Only
agile organizations can respond quickly to changes
in the market. With that in mind, Microsoft has
introduced the Power Platform. With the Microsoft
Power Platform, all your employees can develop and
deploy digital solutions safely and independently:
from colleagues with little IT expertise through to
professional developers. This significantly speeds up
the digital transformation within your business and
stimulates innovativeness within your organization:
after all, who knows better what your employees
need than your employees themselves?
At the same time, a thorough roll-out of the platform
ensures that the IT department gains and maintains
a grip on the platform. As an organization, you will
then continue to comply with the strict requirements
regarding data security and with laws and regulations
such as GDPR.
1.1 What can you do with the Microsoft Power
Platform?
The Microsoft Power Platform gives you a single platform
with which you can analyze data, develop data-driven
solutions and automate processes. The platform enables
you to really get your digital transformation going – and
that’s good for your entire organization, not least because
cumbersome manual processes are now automated
and user-friendly tools enable employees to work more
efficiently. The platform also takes the pressure off your IT
department. For example, all employees are now able to
organize their work processes more efficiently. IT can get
back to focusing on complex and business-critical IT issues
where its specific knowledge is desperately needed.
1.2 The Power Journey in practice
There are a number of steps between introducing the
Microsoft Power Platform and creating added value for the
end user. You start by inspiring your business and getting
your employees on board; you can then facilitate change
through a separate business and technology track.

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To be able to work efficiently and change quickly, you
often need new business applications within your
organization. In practice, it’s often quite a challenge
to convince the IT department of the usefulness of
such applications, as it already has its hands full with
the current systems and applications. As a result, the
wishes of the business are placed on a long to-do list
and things start to slow down.
However, the need for business applications remains
high, creating a dilemma for the IT department:
standard applications often fail to fully meet the
needs of the business, but developing tailor-made
applications costs a lot of money, time and resources.
In between, however, there is a world of potential
business applications which, until recently, was
underexploited. The Microsoft Power Platform
changes that. With a no-code/low-code platform,
anyone – the IT department or colleagues with less IT
knowledge (‘citizen developers’) can develop and roll
out solutions.
2. The development of the
Microsoft Power Platform
Citizen developers: leading the way in
Low-code/no-code
In the past you had colleagues who knew
all the ins and outs of Excel and developed
formulas and crosstabs themselves – and
before they knew it became the go-to guy for
the entire department. Nowadays you have
citizen developers: employees who see a way
to make their work more efficient and who
build a handy app for the purpose themselves
using low-code/no-code tools. They’re the kind
of people who equip their houses with home
automation, so that the lighting only switches
on when you’re in the room, for example. The
citizen developer is someone who’s always
thinking about how things can be done in a
way that’s smarter and faster. This is important
now that we live in an era when change is the
only constant, self-motivation is highly prized
and digitisation has to be part of the life-blood
of every organisation.

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Put briefly, the Microsoft Power Platform enables
the entire organization to get started with digital
transformation. For instance, by developing
applications that allow employees to work more
efficiently by automating certain repetitive tasks – yet
without writing a single line of code. Anyone familiar
with Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel can get started
with digital alternatives using the Microsoft Power
Platform!
The platform consists of five components: Power
Apps, Dataverse, Power Automate, Power BI and
Power Virtual Agents. Dataverse is the data layer,
forming the connection with, for example, Dynamics
365 and numerous external business applications
such as Salesforce, SAP and Oracle.
3. What does the Microsoft Power Platform consist of?
3.1 The Microsoft Power Platform as glue
The Microsoft Power Platform acts like glue, bringing
together a fragmented application landscape. With its
help, you can link systems to each other and access and
combine data from different sources, enriching your
data landscape and creating new insights.
3.2 The twofold role of IT
The role of IT in this is twofold. First, management: the
Microsoft Power Platform will only add value if your
employees can get started with it quickly and safely.
Compliance and governance are matters that IT should
never, ever lose sight of. Second, IT must also give the
business space: only then will you really be able to create an
innovation platform.

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3.3 Power Apps
With Power Apps you can easily and quickly build data-
driven applications to help the business achieve better
results. You can read more about this in Chapter 3.
3.4 Dataverse
Dataverse is the layer where all the data come together.
Its basis is the tried and tested structure of Microsoft
Dynamics. With the help of connectors, data are
extracted from external applications and then reappear
in the Power App or Apps. Arti icial intelligence and
machine learning also make it possible to generate
immediately usable insights.
3.3 Power Automate
Power Automate helps your organization in three ways:
by automating work processes, by allowing
applications to communicate with each other and by
means of RPA, or Robotic Process Automation. This
enables
the business to focus on valuable work rather than
repetitive, time-consuming tasks that add little value.
3.4 Power BI
All data that come together in the Power Platform can
be converted into interactive dashboards and reports
with the help of Power BI. This gives you real-time
access to reliable data and an at-a-glance view of the
processes taking place in your Power Apps.
3.5 Power Virtual Agents
With Power Virtual Agents, all your employees can
easily develop powerful chatbots themselves and then
continuously optimize them.
Automate your app
Analyze data to improve and
expand business processes
Interact with SAP data through
AI-infused chat experiences
Monitor and improve chat experiences
using data-driven insights

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Citizen developers aren’t the only ones that can
accelerate innovation and automate processes
with the help of the Microsoft Power Platform.
The platform also forms an excellent basis
for professional developers to develop more
complex applications and roll them out within
the organization.
IT developers’ custom code can also be used on
Microsoft Power Platform! All these possibilities
mean you can respond much faster as an
organization to employee and customer needs.
4. What can you do with the Microsoft
Power Platform?
4.1 Make changes quickly and generate
actionable insights
As well as making the business more agile, the
Microsoft Power Platform replaces and speeds
up many work processes. The no-code/low-code
platform thus offers a great variety of
advantages. Research by Forrester (in late 2019)
suggests that the Microsoft Power Platform
delivers a 362% ROI increase (see Figure 2). Major
steps forward can be taken, especially with
processes that usually take place on paper, by
emails or in complex Excel spreadsheets. All data
now come together on the
Microsoft Power Platform and are immediately available
for sophisticated purposes such as artificial intelligence
and machine learning.
As well as speeding up processes, the Microsoft Power
Platform thus also produces concrete actionable insights.
Moreover, the data loss previously associated with the use
of all kinds of Excel spreadsheets also becomes a thing of
the past.

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4.2 Create autonomous business
Because the Microsoft Power Platform facilitates and optimizes internal processes, it gives your
employees more autonomy, with innovations such as a customized mobile CRM application to
support your sales employees. The no-code/low-code platform makes many activities more
enjoyable, effective and efficient. It helps employees to achieve their full potential in the areas
of communication, collaboration and knowledge-sharing, and as a result, they are better able to
respond to your customers’ changing needs.
4.3 Develop powerful chatbots in an instant
Rapid development of effective chatbots that can have conversations with employees and customers
is another area where the Microsoft Power Platform can facilitate your organization. Using the Power
Virtual Agents component, all your employees can easily develop powerful chatbots that answer
pressing questions from customers (for example about opening hours and tracking), but also address
issues from your organization itself (for example to do with holiday requests and health and safety
issues). You can read more about this here!
BNG Bank builds robust Power App for recording risks
BNG Bank may want to offer its employees the opportunity in the future to develop
applications themselves and increase productivity in this way. With traditional
programming environments, this is time-consuming and expensive. The bank developed
a pilot application together with Macaw to manage risks, mitigating measures and the
monitoring of the measures. The use of Power Apps led to a much shorter turnaround
time than with the traditional method, lower costs and a robust app. Like to know how
BNG Bank uses it to accelerate, digitise and reduce the chance of human errors in its
business processes?
Read case study

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There are a number of steps between introducing
the Microsoft Power Platform and creating added
value for the business. You start by inspiring your
business and getting your employees on board;
you can then facilitate change through a separate
business and technology track. Fortunately, you
don’t have to do this alone: Macaw will assist you
on your Power Journey!
We are one of Microsoft’s preferred Power
Platform partners worldwide and are regarded
as a market maker in the Netherlands. And with
good reason, because we’ve helped countless
customers in recent years to move from ‘inspire’
to ‘business value’. Here is a selection of our
practical case studies:
5. The Power Journey in practice
5.1 Power Journey I:
Optimizing processes
An example of an organization that makes smart use
of the Microsoft Power Platform is steel producer
Tata Steel. The company produces and processes a
total of seven million tons of steel every year. A lot of
work pressure had arisen around all these operations,
because many of the administrative processes were
time-consuming and inefficient. Contractors can
now apply for all their work permits –about 80,000 of
them per year! – in a single application, developed on
the Microsoft Power Platform. In three months and
with just 2.5 FTEs, the user-friendly app was up and
running.
Digitisation at Tata Steel: 80,000 work permits in one app
For all work carried out on the Tata Steel site, contractors need a work permit. In total, that means
around 80,000 permits have to be issued every year! All these work permits must be stored so that
they are retrievable at any time. The Power Platform offered the solution to optimise and digitise
parts of the process. A smart business app was created for the purpose using the platform. Macaw
delivered the app in just three months, and it now saves end users a lot of time. What’s more, Tata
Steel is well prepared for future developments thanks to its use of the Power Platform. Would you
like to know more? Read case study

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5.2 Power Journey II:
Unlocking legacy data
There may well be old applications running within
your organization that are not yet easy to replace. To
facilitate your business, you can make such legacy
data accessible to Dataverse and use them from there
on the Microsoft Power Platform. This will ensure that
your employees have insight into all data, even when
they are on the move. For example, they can look up
information about a past customer – because the data
are still usable, including for your sales employees.
5.3 Power Journey III:
Modernizing the application landscape
An organization normally makes use of many different
business applications, which become outdated
over time without the employees noticing. As a
result, applications remain in use, but are no longer
really being managed. Shadow IT may then start
appearing over time. With the help of the Microsoft
Power Platform you can modernize your application
landscape: old solutions can be discarded and up-
to-date, easy-to-manage applications brought in to
replace them.
5.4 Power Journey IV:
Automating time-consuming manual
processes with robotic process automation
Repetitive manual tasks are something that every
employee encounters. With robotic process automation
(RPA) via Power Automate you can put an end to these
time-consuming activities that add little or no value for
and to your organization. By implementing automated
workflows easily and scalably, you can automate
manual processes within legacy applications and give
your organization’s efficiency a significant boost!
BAM plans office capacity worldwide
with the Desk Planner App
BAM Group was looking for a way to design
its new hot-desking system safely. With the
Desk Planner App, which was launched in just
three days, BAM employees can now quickly
and safely reserve a place in the office. Parking
spaces and catering are also coordinated with
the app. Compliance with applicable national
and regional guidelines at all times is also
ensured. Would you like to know more?
Read case study

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One potential risk of allowing employees to build their own digital solutions is that you
will end up with a proliferation of applications. Given the need to maintain security and
comply with the many obligations to which organizations are subject under data privacy
legislation, it’s important for the IT department to have and maintain a solid grasp of the
Microsoft Power Platform. One way of doing this is by letting IT partly determine the rules
of the game and giving it the opportunity to constantly monitor what’s happening on
the platform. This is vital for security, especially if employees can decide for themselves
who they share the applications with. In the interests of compliance and governance, it is
therefore advisable to make the platform available to your employees in the right way. An
admin center – in the form of a Power App within the Microsoft Power Platform, naturally
– makes it possible to monitor the platform. In this way, IT can keep an eye on what’s
happening in your company in terms of digital transformation, without placing a brake on
innovation.
6. Maintain control without
undermining innovation
6.1 Center of Excellence
IT creates a place for innovation with the Microsoft Power Platform, but implementing
the right processes and measures is just as important. To ensure that your strategy
for your Microsoft Power Platform is (and remains) in line with your strategy for digital
transformation, you can create a Center of Excellence (CoE). With a CoE you both safeguard
governance and create a place where employees can come together to get started with
innovations with as few obstacles in their path as possible! In one of our webinars we tell you
all about the steps you can take to optimize your use of the Microsoft Power Platform, with
a focus on governance and monitoring. Watch the webinar here and learn about Heineken’s
approach to this.

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The key to digital transformation doesn’t lie
exclusively with IT. Maximum power to change
requires the possibility of innovation at all levels
of your business. Do you want to be and remain
agile as an organization? If so, some real challenges
await you. The Microsoft Power Platform helps
you to meet them. And with some bespoke work
from Macaw, an optimally connecting platform lies
within easy reach for your organization.
As an experienced Microsoft Gold Partner, Macaw has
extensive knowledge and experience of all aspects of
the Microsoft Power Platform. Our in-house experts
have already assisted countless customers, and
specialize in areas such as:
• Dynamics 365 (Dataverse and model-driven apps);
• System integration (Dataverse and connectors);
• Office 365 (canvas apps);
• Power BI;
• Power Automate;
• Power Virtual Agents.
The Desk Planner App at Royal BAM Group and the
Heineken Talent App are two great examples. Macaw
also has a lot of experience in setting up a Center of
Excellence (CoE). Do you want to offer a platform,
automate a complex process or enable integration
between different data sources? If so, Macaw can
support you with bespoke work, using the Microsoft
Power Platform. We’ll also help you understand the
platform and show you how to translate business
questions into functional applications.
7. Bespoke work from Macaw
Macaw and the Microsoft Power Platform
In-house specialists with extensive knowledge
and experience of the Microsoft Power Platform
Thorough knowledge of security and GDPR
Actively involved Microsoft partner with instant
knowledge of new developments
ISO27001-certified
Read more

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We’ve now told you what you need to know about
the Microsoft Power Platform: what it is exactly,
what your organization can use it for and what you
need to pay attention to. The important thing now is
to get started!
8. Ready to get started?
8.1 App in a Day
Get started with the Microsoft Power Platform! In
a challenging one-day training course, guided by
experts from Microsoft and Macaw, learn how to
create custom business applications without writing
a single line of code. Have a look for yourself!
8.2 Get started with RPA
Are you particularly keen to find out how to automate
all those time-consuming, repetitive, manual actions
that provide zero added value for your organization?
If so, the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in a Day
workshop is definitely for you. Learn step by step how
to automate an administrative job such as invoicing
as much as possible using the workflows of Power
Automate. You can read more about it here.
8.3 Build a chatbot in a day
Using Power Virtual Agents you can build a
functioning chatbot within a day without writing a
single line of code. During our workshop you’ll learn
all about developing no-code chatbots, and more
importantly you’ll get started with them yourself.
Register here for the Power Virtual Agents in a Day
workshop.
8.4 A look behind the scenes at other
organizations
Would you like to know how organizations such as
Tata Steel and BNG Bank use the Microsoft Power
Platform? If so, our on-demand events provided in
collaboration with Microsoft are well worth attending.
You can easily request access to them via this page.
More than 100 organizations have already
discovered the Power Platform during various
Macaw workshops. DEEN Supermarkets was
introduced to the Power Platform during
the App in A Day workshop. DEEN then built
not one, but two apps during App in A Week
to optimise its business operations! Read
more here about the PowerApps that DEEN
developed and the benefits they brought to
both customers and employees.

16. Curious about how your organization can get business value from the
Power Platform? In this webinar, our expert shows how organizations
use the Power Platform and the role it could play in your digital
transformation.
Like to know more
about the Power
Platform?
Macaw Nederland
Taurusavenue 16 E
2132 LS Hoofdorp
+31 (0) 23 206 0600
contact@macaw.nl
www.macaw.nl
Watch the webinar