Maintaining performance and productivity with Power Platform
Whether they’re self-selected, HR mandated, passed on by old leadership or insisted on by the CIO, the tools we use every day shape our productivity. As financial service firms big and small actively search for balance in a COVID-19 environment, it’s become more important than ever that those resources are accessible, integrated, and cloud-connected if we’re to maintain our typical levels of performance.
Suddenly, department heads are debating whether to use their afternoon to step outside for the first time in three days or to finish their market assessment. Account managers are pulling double duty servicing their clients and educating their children. Yet, as our days in quarantine continue to grow, the organizations that will best navigate this new normal will be the ones that maximize their teams’ productive hours when they have them.
Protecting peak performance
As the stresses of social isolation continue to impact the workplace, protecting our windows of peak performance becomes more critical than ever. The ability to automate a variety of different functions inside Power Platform—including internal and external datasets—maximizes productive hours and unites separate data streams into a single location. Without this administrative burden, we can focus more on the things that absolutely matter—be they our mental health, an algebra lesson, or a strategic client relationship.
When it comes to maximizing productivity in a pandemic, eliminating tedium extends beyond automating datasets and into how we optimize our time. Between analytics tools, communication platforms, research hubs, and other resources, we all rely on dozens of apps and tools to get the job done. By uniting our daily tools under Power Platform, each of these resources is shared and searchable. Now, instead of jumping between an ERP, Excel, Github, and Trello to find a data point, the Power Virtual Assistant will search every input and come back to you with an answer.
United as one
By aligning datasets and workflows through the Power Platform, teams and organizations have a single, secure source of truth to help limit the spread of misinformation and reduce the opportunities for security compromises. This helps drastically decrease the time it takes users to find critical information.
Power Platform delivers robust governance features that allow system administrators to regulate the level of access and control each user has within the environment. These risk controls help ensure that the right individuals have the right access to keep the platform operating smoothly, without sacrificing accessibility or stifling innovation.
Self-service problem solving
Power Apps operates at the core of the Power Platform to help non-IT professionals create no-code or low-code solutions. By lowering the barrier to entry for developing their own applications, remote workers outside the development teams can create dynamic solutions for unanticipated challenges faster and more efficiently. In an environment with new challenges every day, the ability for self-service application development opens the opportunity for colleagues to problem solve in real-time without on-premise tools or IT support.
At Microsoft, we’re actively pursuing new ways to leverage Power Platform to help individuals and organizations better adapt to these circumstances. From crisis communication templates to an active COVID-19 Testing Portal, the combination of Power BI, Power Apps, Power Virtual Agent, and Power Automate provides an accessible solution for driving performance across time-poor digital teams.
We hope you’re managing these new circumstances to the best of your capabilities. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we continue to explore the mindsets and cultures where Power Platform can thrive and the opportunities that abound for financial service teams interested in the experience. If you’d like to explore how Power Platform can help empower and embolden your organization, reach out to me on LinkedIn or you can learn more about Power Platform here.
