Boost efficiency and increase ROI with next-level process automation
Automating processes doesn’t just save time and cut costs—it can revolutionize how your business operates. With the right automation solution, you can unlock new levels of operational efficiency, boost employee productivity, and drive business growth.
This post highlights key findings from a 2024 Forrester Consulting Total Economic ImpactTM study commissioned by Microsoft, demonstrating how real customers significantly reduced operational costs while increasing productivity and innovation with Microsoft Power Automate.
The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Power Automate
See cost savings and business benefits enabled by Power Automate.
By consolidating automation onto a single platform, reducing licensing costs, and streamlining management, customers achieved an estimated USD9.5 million in cost savings over their legacy systems. The Forrester study also found that a composite organization based on interviewed customers saw a considerable three-year return on investment (ROI) of 248% and a payback period of less than six months—accruing to a net present value (NPV) of USD39.85 million.
Read on to see how our customers are leveraging low-code automation to reimagine their business and sharpen their edge in a highly competitive landscape.
Drive efficiency to save time and cost
Prior to adopting Power Automate, customers struggled with complex, hard-to-use automation tools that made integration with existing data and systems cumbersome and costly. To add to it, scaling adoption of these tools and ensuring governance was also a top priority.
Power Automate addresses these challenges by combining cloud automation, UI (user interface) automation, and AI into a single cloud-based solution, empowering modern businesses to streamline everything from simple tasks to more advanced workflows.
The Forrester study found that employees involved in high-volume, repetitive tasks like data entry, invoicing, or document gathering saw the most significant impact from robotic process automation (RPA) in Power Automate—saving 200 hours per year. When scaled across departmental processes, it can yield substantial results. For example, a pharmaceutical organization interviewed for the study reported saving 11,000 hours by running 72 RPA automations for document processing.
It was also found that developers saved 20% in automation development time by simplifying integration and reducing the need for complex coding. Intuitive user interfaces streamlined workflow creation and maintenance, while low-code technologies made it easy to integrate AI functions into RPA workflows. As a limited and highly valuable resource, professional developers use Power Automate to accelerate deployment and reinvest their time into more strategic and innovative projects that drive business growth.
“We are using AI Builder and I think that is the advantage of Power Automate. You can use the connector-based functions that are super easy to code and then marry in the Power Automate desktop interface to do some of the other functions…Compared to when we started doing RPA [with our previous solution], the time it takes the team to automate a process is around a fifth.”
Automation Leader, Financial services firm
Foster a culture of innovation to drive continuous improvement
Even with advanced automation, development resources are frequently prioritized on the most mission-critical enterprise processes, leaving significant potential value untapped in individual, team, and departmental automation. These underserved areas present a tremendous opportunity for time and cost savings.
High-impact use cases for automation typically center around core business processes, driving the bulk of time savings. However, by expanding the footprint of RPA to cover a broader range of use cases, organizations can unlock additional value. According to the study, this expansion can deliver the composite organization 40% more value from medium-impact use-cases, translating to 120,000 hours of time saved by year three, up from 72,000 hours in year one.
Power Automate empowers non-technical users to engage in process improvement through AI-powered, low-code tools, including easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality, desktop recording, and out-of-the-box connectors for API integration. By democratizing automation, organizations enable employees—those closest to the business and customer challenges—to respond swiftly to new opportunities and challenges.
“We had 150 or 200 people in IT that could code, but now we have 1,000 developers with low-code. You can get more things done and it galvanizes the organization in saying ‘Hey, you’re empowered to solve your own problems. You don’t need to wait for other people, and you don’t need to rely on other departments.’”
Vice President, Entertainment
This can be achieved without compromising on the visibility and control. By combining intuitive, powerful automation tools with built-in security and governance, Power Automate ensures that IT teams are well-equipped to manage, monitor, and secure your valuable data and systems.
“[Microsoft Power Platform] gives us increased visibility into everything that people are doing within [Microsoft Power] Platform, allowing us to govern it in a way that we deem safe and appropriate.”
Director, Professional services
With a strong Center of Excellence led by IT, business leaders can expand adoption of automation while maintaining visibility and control. Organizations shared that empowering everyone to proactively solve issues fostered collaboration with IT teams. Instead of circumventing IT and using inefficient, unsanctioned tools, business users became valuable partners in the automation journey, contributing to more efficient and secure processes.
Extend automation with Microsoft Power Apps to scale impact
Many processes require communication and collaboration across multiple stakeholders, including front-line workers who initiate or participate in critical processes from the field. When high levels of engagement are needed, customers found that integrating custom applications to workflows compounded the impact of RPA.
- Productivity lift: The hours saved per year for employees involved in high-impact automation use cases increased from 200 hours to 450 hours.
- Increased adoption: The percentage of total employees involved in automation use cases by year three increased from 25% to 66%. Of these employees, 20% were involved in high-impact use cases.
- Efficiency savings: Over the course of the three-year analysis, customers see time savings worth USD31.3 million from extended automation, in addition to the USD13.2 million of RPA time savings.
By using Power Apps and its native integration with Power Automate, customers built custom low-code apps that engage workers directly in their flow of work, with user experiences tailored to specific needs. Power Apps simplifies the creation of intuitive apps for mobile devices, websites, and Microsoft Teams, making it quick and easy. It enhances process automation by engaging users where they are and minimizing communication bottlenecks.
Unlock the full potential of your workforce
Investing in business transformation goes beyond upgrading tools. It’s about reimagining how technical and human resources can be deployed and managed to drive growth and outpace the competition.
The Forrester TEI study underscores how Power Automate helps organizations achieve operational excellence while lowering costs and improving return on investment. Embrace the future of automation with Power Automate and unlock the full potential of your workforce.
We invite you to read the Forrester Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Power Automate study and sign up for a custom business value assessment with your Microsoft Power Platform specialist.
