The 4 main benefits of Power Platform adoption for Janssen

Last October 20th, we were at Microsoft talking about the benefits that Power Platform, in harmony with Dynamics 365, brings to your business. In the context of these technologies, we have maintained the focus on empowering users and elevating business through a new approach. Power Platform – Microsoft’s low-code platform – is currently the most complete on the market. Using Power Platform in alliance with Dynamics 365 makes it possible to build and implement 100% personalised digital solutions, which will naturally help companies make more informed and swifter decisions.

At this event, we approached the Business Applications ecosystem via three distinct tracks: Dynamics 365, Power BI and Power Platform.

• The Dynamics 365 track focuses on “the importance of turning customers into fans”, quoting keynote speaker Francisco Costa, Partner & Enterprise Solutions Lead at Xpand IT. We’ve introduced how Dynamics 365 brings value to the customer journey, giving each customer a personalised experience and the business a solid, unified vision of information, thus unlocking the value of the data. We were in conversation with Paula Braz, Head of Marketing at Xpand IT, who helped us realise the challenges presented by adopting Dynamics 365 in marketing and with João Pratas, Business Applications Technical Specialist at Microsoft, who helped us understand the features of Dynamics 365 marketing through a use case.

• On the Power BI track, we focused on the importance of adopting Analytics and Azure (the Microsoft Cloud platform) to give businesses a 360° view of the customer and, as a result, better decision-making tools. Ricardo Pires, Partner & Business Intelligence Lead at Xpand IT, interviewed Luís Chaby, Azure Enterprise Sales Manager at Microsoft, in order to reflect on how market behaviour has changed since the adoption of Power BI and Microsoft Azure. Also, Vanessa Gomes, Data Analytics Engineer at Xpand IT, gave us a demo on how Power BI can be linked to Dynamics 365, in a data analytics context.

• On the Power Platform track, we have analysed how Power Apps and Power Automate empower the user. Rodrigo Umbelino, Enterprise Sales Executive at Microsoft, enriched us with real examples of the use of solutions currently available in Power Platform. The talk between Sérgio Viana, Partner & DX UX Lead at Xpand IT, and Pedro Santos, Digital Health & Solutions Manager at Janssen, highlighted the importance of looking at business digital transformation as a journey, rather than a string of unique projects, in order to be successful.

We are witnessing a need for growing digitalisation in the business scenario. According to Gartner, digital transformation is an organisational priority for 87% of senior executives. The ability to materialise digital transformation initiatives, however, is severely limited by the lack of a qualified workforce in the IT market. A potential solution? Citizen developers. According to Gartner’s definition, a citizen developer is “a person who creates application resources for their own or others’ consumption”. The motto “Turn everyone into a developer with no code” empowers anyone to make at least the first version of the code solution they need.

Low-code platforms empower everyone to go faster in a completely personalised way. The question then arises: how can they be applied to my business? What institutions can do with Power Platform depends on every business’s unique needs.

On the Power Platform track, we presented the case of Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson Group company and a world leader in research.
Janssen’s first contact with Xpand IT, at the beginning of the pandemic, was through an initiative called Power Engagement – essentially, it consisted of a hands-on session around the technologies followed by the identification of potential projects. In the first instance, the challenge goal was to design an application that would allow their employees to receive meals at home.

• App delivery

The challenge proposed to Xpand IT was very simple: a hassle-free application that would allow Janssen employees and their families, living in the Lisbon metropolitan area, to receive meals at home, using only their smartphones.

Through this app delivery, Janssen was able to keep its canteen activity at similar levels to how it was pre-pandemic. Its employees had the opportunity to choose meals according to the menus available for different days and different municipalities, in a fast, practical way.

• Simplify

According to Pedro Santos, Digital Health & Solutions Manager at Janssen, “Power Apps play a key role in providing an immediate response to issues raised by the company”. While Janssen’s digital transformation journey with Xpand IT began in response to internal processes, the partnership with Xpand IT was driven by an ongoing urge for innovation. As such, further processes that need improvement and can be optimised using Power Platform have been identified.

Still, in the pandemic context, and given the growing need for digitalisation, we developed the Simplify app. Using Power Apps with a simple connection to Adobe Sign, for example, Janssen eliminated collecting paper signatures from internal and external partners – a process that used to take about a month – making it virtually immediate. Given that Janssen partner payments used to be dependent on signature validation, and are now instantaneous, the average time to pay stakeholders has been reduced by around 22 days, allowing Janssen to gain substantial efficiency while simultaneously adding value to its business partners.

Thanks to the Power Platform application, Janssen was not only able to improve internal processes, but also to improve the experience of its clients and partners. All of this has enabled:

1. Customer focus;
2. Efficiency, by digitalising and automating processes;
3. A more sustainable agenda;
4. Automated processes, releasing employees for higher-value tasks.

Depending on your business solutions needs, Power Platform results in other benefits such as adopting a data-driven culture, based on Microsoft Power BI, that will analyse and add value to your data and give your customers a personalised experience, with 24/7 customer service, using Power Virtual Agents and Artificial Intelligence-based chatbots, so your business has an efficient workforce that is always available.

Xpand IT received Microsoft’s Partner of the Year Award in 2022 for the second year running. This recognition follows the distinction of Microsoft’s 2020 Partner of the Year for Power Apps & Data Analytics. Above all, these awards prove our expertise in working with these technologies.

At Xpand IT, we believe that trust and collaboration underpin good relationships. As shown in the above example of one of our partnerships, we can work with you and your company to realise your digital transformation needs. If you have already explored the possibilities that Power Platform can bring to your business and even discovered practical cases for its use, we are fully available to support you in your next steps. Get in touch to schedule a one-to-one conversation. Or alternatively, fill in the Power Platform Assessment we have prepared for you. This will give you unparalleled access to personalised resources and guidance from Xperts to implement this technology.