As a Microsoft solution provider, we frequently prescribe Microsoft-based solutions for our customers. From Dynamics 365 business systems to custom solutions built on Azure and the Microsoft Power Platform, we’re always looking for creative ways to apply technology innovations to solve real-world business problems.

However, like the proverbial plumber with the leaky faucets at home, we’ve sometimes failed to address digital transformation issues within our own business. These shortcomings came into sharp relief at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic where, like many IT consulting shops, we encountered a huge spike in customer demand. As our business has continued to grow, we’ve found ourselves experiencing many of the same types of challenges we see daily with our customers: the need for tighter integration/automation, a single source of truth when it comes to reporting, optimized and repeatable business processes, and so forth.

So, in late 2021, we decided to do something about it. In October, we launched an internal project called Project BowTIE which was focused on digitally transforming every aspect of our business — from day-to-day financial operations to human resources and customer relationship management and beyond. Although our team has worked on much larger projects for Fortune 500 customers from around the world, there’s nothing quite like turning the magnifying glass on yourself and “eating your own dog food”.

Now that we’re live with Phase 1 of the project, I thought I would share some lessons learned from our experiences on the project. While these journeys are never easy, my hope is that you will be able to draw some inspiration from our experiences.

Building a Digital Core

Like many growing businesses, we had implemented a number of best-of-breeds SMB software packages over the years to run different parts of the business. While each of these SaaS solutions may have solved a particular problem for us at the time, we kept finding ourselves outgrowing these solutions. Therefore, with Project BowTIE, we felt it was extremely important to standardize around a common platform that we could grow with over time. For us, that platform was Dynamics 365 and Dataverse.

Although we had been using Dynamics 365 as our CRM solution, we had not yet taken the plunge and used it to run other parts of our business. By simply adopting other modules of Dynamics 365, we now have (seamless) access to all the enterprise-grade ERP and CRM functionality that we will ever need. Plus, with Dataverse and the Power Platform, our team has access to all the tools they need to customize and extend the solution to address ever-changing business requirements. Among other things, this includes the availability of REST APIs (OData v4) to unlock secure access to our core system from any type of application imaginable.

In terms of functionality, adopting the latest version of Dynamics 365 Project Operations was a real game-changer for us. It fundamentally changed the way that we manage projects: from orchestrating up-front sales activities to project delivery and even billing. Using Power BI, we were then able to consolidate all this information into reports and dashboards that allow us to analyze and measure performance like never before. Although we had been using Power BI for analytics for some time, consolidating data into Dataverse definitely lowered the barrier for self-service analytics for our more non-technical resources.

Low-Code Acceleration

As IT consultants working on projects, it’s easy sometimes to lose sight of the fact that many of our project stakeholders have to make huge sacrifices to find the time to work on internal improvement projects. After all, it’s rare that such team members ever get to clear their schedule to focus on one project. This was definitely the case with Project BowTIE.

When we originally began building out the project backlog, we found ourselves racking up a lot of story points. Throughout the course of the project though, we were amazed at the amount of velocity we were able to attain using low-code tools such as Power Automate, Logic Apps, and Power Apps. For example, in terms of consolidation/integration, we had data from many disparate data sources going back to 2006. Using Azure Logic Apps and Power Query, we were able to migrate this data over in a third of the time we had originally estimated. We observed similar productivity boosts in other areas by leveraging pre-existing connectors and APIs.

While necessity may be the mother of invention, there’s no doubt that we would not have been able to approach the levels of productivity we were able to reach on Project BowTIE without access to low-code tools like the Power Platform. Even though we use it every day on customer projects, the entire team was blown away by how far we were able to push the platform.

The Power of Integration

One of the major benefits of building on a digital core like Dynamics 365 is that it’s insanely easy to build workflows and automations on top of it using Power Automate and Azure Logic Apps. Here, the team identified many low-hanging fruit opportunities to streamline routine business process flows. Some of these fell into the traditional RPA camp where we were automating repetitive accounting tasks, etc. However, the team was also able to re-imagine more unstructured business processes such as contract processing with digital signatures, customer invoice processing/verification, project status reporting, and even HR approval tasks.

In addition to the behind-the-scenes integration flows, the team also worked to better unify front office and back-office operations. For example, whenever a project is initiated in Dynamics 365 Project Operations, team members are automatically invited to a corresponding team site in Microsoft Teams. They’re also added to a project in Azure DevOps where individual tasks and issues are tracked centrally alongside the corresponding code repositories. The objective here is to deliver work into the hands of the right people at the right time — regardless of where they are. Plus, by mixing in other Microsoft 365 services such as Exchange/Outlook, we were able to synchronize calendars and ensure that important milestones aren’t missed.

This even extended to our new public website which is now hosted on Azure Static Web Apps. Using Azure Functions, we were able to integrate marketing features in Dynamics 365 directly into the website to unlock automations related to marketing lists and lead management.

Ideas Are Everywhere

One of the most rewarding aspects of the project was the amount of creativity we observed across the entire business. As an IT consulting shop, we obviously have a lot of software developers running around here hatching new ideas. However, in the case of Project BowTIE, innovation ideas were coming from everywhere. Using the fusion team concept, we were able to introduce our non-technical resources to citizen development for the first time and the results were impressive. On the IT side of the house, we found ourselves being challenged with new ideas on how things could work and ways we could continue to push the system in new directions.

Next Steps

As the saying goes, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. If we learned anything with Project BowTIE, it’s that digital transformation projects are a marathon, not a sprint. Indeed, one of our biggest challenges with this project was managing scope. Having lots of great ideas is always a good problem to have, but it takes discipline to properly manage a backlog of ideas. For Phase 2 of the project, we plan on expanding our footprint with Dynamics 365 Project Operations — specifically as it relates to flexible resource scheduling. We’re also in the process of standing up a customer self-service portal using Power Apps Portals and Power Virtual Agents.

Obviously, building the business case for something like this is never easy, but the non-IT part of me can definitely say that it was (and continues to be) well worth the investment. Looking back, our biggest regret is that we didn’t embark on this journey sooner. The good news is that these days it’s easier than ever to find a comfortable pace for innovation and settle in for the ride.

If you have questions about our journey or have similar stories to tell from your business, we would love to get your input. We’re also always looking for guests to come on our Switched On Podcast to tell their story. Looking forward to hearing from you!