This article was originally written by Avanade alum Frank Catone.

The post-pandemic economic recovery is on, seemingly overnight, and with it comes the pressure for enterprises to develop and execute a winning strategy for automation. Companies must accelerate their plans for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and its AI-infused sibling Intelligent Automation (IA). But how to move not just quickly but also successfully to take advantage of the moment?

IT leadership must address the fact that to date, RPA has lacked the ability to scale; that valuable resources have been invested in disparate proof-of-concept projects without coordinated deployment; and that there has been too much platform uncertainty.

With its recent entrant into the enterprise automation market, Microsoft’s constantly evolving Power Platform, including Power Automate offers a complete solution for Intelligent Automation that addresses the issue of scale, offers consistent governance across the enterprise, and migrates prior disparate automations to a cohesive, single platform.

The power of the right platform: Three key elements
Forrester recently proposed that scaling automation requires a new operating model with three elements necessary for achieving success at scale: the right technology ecosystem, the right domain experts, and the right automation governance. These elements describe the complete solution which Microsoft and Avanade have now assembled, with the help of partners like Blueprint Software Systems.

1. The right technology
The right IA technology ecosystem fuses Artificial Intelligence, Robotic Process Automation and Digital Process Automation (DPA) and includes not only the functional software but the infrastructure, integration, security, and service ops to run it effectively at scale. If you want true enterprise-grade scalability for the broadest range of users, look to the brand best known for delivering scalable solutions: Microsoft.

Intelligent Automation from Microsoft is a fusion of Artificial Intelligence, Workflow, Integration, API Automation and Robotic Process Automation bundled together in the comprehensive Power Platform. It’s equally the workflow designer and orchestrator, fueling intelligent automation across diverse interfaces through a single, end-to-end platform. Running on Azure, Microsoft’s Power Platform provides automation, intelligence and orchestration.

Microsoft is also focused on ensuring that switching automation platforms to the right ecosystem – especially for companies already committed to Microsoft solutions – need not be a capital-intensive event. Avanade, Blueprint Software Systems, and Microsoft have collaborated on an automation migration tool to help convert a company’s existing automations, such as those built on Automation Anywhere, to Power Automate for 50-75% of the cost of manual migrations. Blueprint’s automation migration tool coupled with Avanade’s global Power Platform Hub migration services are an “easy button” for porting previous automations to Microsoft Intelligent Automation platform and providing automation at scale.

2. The right domain experts
As Forrester points out, the right hands to help are critical for success in automation endeavors. Avanade provides a thorough complement to a company’s IA domain knowledge. Avanade’s global team includes 4,200-plus automation experts, 1,000 data engineers, 400 AI practitioners, 300 cognitive service experts, and more certified Azure professionals than any other Microsoft partner. We’ve completed 6,000-plus automations for over 350 clients. Avanade domain experts are not only technically savvy but also skilled at process ownership, design, testing, maintenance, compliance, and change management.

3. The right governance
Citizen development and the expanding field of automation apps require a carefully balanced governance approach incorporating strategy, planning, architecture, and project support across the enterprise. Microsoft’s Power Platform Center of Excellence Starter Kit delivers a baseline set of automation and tooling to monitor, govern, coordinate, and nurture the deployment of Power Platform. Avanade has deep experience adapting the Starter Kit for specific business situations and surrounding it with strategy, structure, standards, and success metrics.

Reap automation benefits
Overall, we’ve seen tremendous momentum in the market with automation and the potential impacts for our clients. Automations that augment and empower humans rather than demotivating or replacing them further organizational flexibility in a world where in person work environments are changing. Leveraging platform advancements to support AI & Citizen Developer proliferation and scale your ability to intersect business processes and drive automation. Microsoft has certainly disrupted the automation market and now is the time to ask if you are getting maximum value from your current automation investments. Refresh your automation approach and let us show you how our automation migration jump start kit can lower you overall total cost of ownership and set you on a path to achieving intelligent automation ROI in months.

Find out how to get the most out of your automation tool investment.