Power Platform | Build your SAP Powerhouse

Assuming you’re using both SAP- and Microsoft Technology. Your digital transformation journey is ongoing and you’re just about reimagine your next level of transformation – have you considered Power Platform being part of it?

In a recent design thinking workshop we challenged ourselves taking processes to the next level and try imagining how both technologies could come together in action, benefit from and even taking each other to the next level. Obviously, as in design thinking mode, our mission was not about creating a specific app, process or implement a solution. The challenge was around what would be the next level of better interacting as a team, so far using different technologies. So we started by interviewing both parties from SAP- as well as from Microsoft Technology side and collected insights that we then used to setup a customer journey map.

With the insights collected and our customer journey map outlining the as-is situation we came up pretty fast with a SWAT analysis that later on we used to draw above visual as the new to-be situation and overall goal to aim for.

But we didn’t stop there and challenged us again using SCAMPER methodology to go beyond and look after things we might overlooked, but those should be considered for a better overall solution. As an example: SAP Fiori users shouldn’t be blocked or forced to use a different technology for accessing apps. Neither should Microsoft Teams user being forced to learn SAP GUI to collaborate with SAP teams. We discussed replacing vs. additional toolset vs. embedded experience. We looked after quick wins and finally we decided to go with these

connectivity options to build a POC. Not only that we spend just a view hours to come up with the first results, we also used Power Platform components to collect feedback and improve our POC solution by asking our spare-partners interviewed earlier on what impact this new setup would have. We embedded Power Apps inside SAP Fiori, made it a no-brainer to use as the look and feel stayed the same. And we enabled Microsoft Teams user to collaborate on SAP data inside and outside Teams.

The overwhelming positive feedback in a way of asking „Please, can we have this setup better tomorrow?“ we surprised everyone with the fact of transforming the POC into live scenarios in less than 2 days.

All this couldn’t be done with SAP already in place, Microsoft Technologies in-house and a strong commitment by the Exec Sponsor for running such design thinking workshop. But with all that spirit and taking things to the next level, we additionally setup a possible solution map that outlines other opportunities to focus on and building a SAP powerhouse together with Microsoft’s Power Platform.

If you are interested in more details, I recommend reading this article that was recently published on Power Automate Blog and even allows for a download of a guide to inspire yours for a possible next design thinking workshop in your company.

If you’re interested in learning more on SAP and Power Platform together in action, I recommend watching and following this YouTube channel.

Until then…