Modernizing SAP: Power Platform as the Driver of Manufacturing Innovation
Extend, automate, and enhance your SAP environment for agile and scalable operations.
Your manufacturing operations demand agility and innovation.
While SAP provides a strong foundation for enterprise operations, its high level of sophistication and structure often hinders rapid adaptation to dynamic geopolitics, labor force fluctuations, and changing business needs.
That’s where Microsoft Power Platform comes in—giving manufacturers the ability to extend, automate, and enhance their SAP environments without a major overhaul.
Closing the Gaps with Microsoft Power Platform
Many manufacturers are looking for customization options that are most cost effective, efficient, and non-disruptive.
If you're looking to innovate or scale rapidly, the challenge becomes clear: how do you add agility to an ERP system built for stability?
Microsoft Power Platform offers a modular, low-code approach to digital transformation that complements SAP while allowing you to get the most out of your ERP investment. The user-friendly interface of Power Platform supports faster adoption in your workforce, enabling quicker time to value.
With tools like Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, manufacturers can:
This means manufacturers can innovate at the edge—where operations meets customers and real-world needs—while avoiding disruptions to their ERP core and reducing the risk of shadow IT.
That’s exactly where Microsoft Power Platform comes in.
Ground-Level Use Cases from the Manufacturing Floor
Power Platform isn't just for executive dashboards. Its real power lies in practical, shop-floor applications. For example:
These apps allow teams to add cost-efficient, last-mile customizations while still keeping core processes untouched and integrated. It's a way to scale smartly—addressing user needs without burdening IT with heavy code or maintenance.
Three Real-World Use Cases
We've helped organizations around the world unlock last-mile digital transformation with Microsoft Power Platform. Check out a few examples below.
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1. Gaining POS Visibility in Distribution
Companies with broad distribution operations require better visibility into point-of-sale (POS) materials across regions.
Using Power Platform, we can create intuitive apps to monitor, manage, and optimize POS assets—a process that could take months and become a major investment using SAP alone.
The result: Increased responsiveness, tighter inventory control, and lower costs.
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2. Empowering Global Finance with SAP + Power Platform
Enterprises with a global footprint often need to unify finance reporting across multiple countries while retaining SAP as its ERP backbone.
By implementing Power BI dashboards that pull and visualize SAP data, HSO has helped many customers harmonize global finance functions to enable faster decision-making and improved compliance.
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3. Enabling Better Decisions in High-Tech Industries
High-tech manufacturers benefit from real-time business insights across operations in order to fine tune costly processes that involve valuable materials.
To fill this need, HSO delivers a Power BI solution connected to SAP, enabling tailored reporting and deeper visibility.
This transforms how leadership engages with data—supporting agile, informed business decisions and setting the foundation for AI-powered analytics.
Whatever your needs, Power Platform allows you to extend, integrate, and innovate on SAP.
Why HSO: Industry Expertise Layered onto Last-Mile Transformation for SAP
HSO brings decades of experience to help you get more from your existing SAP investments using Microsoft tools
Our Power Platform for SAP methodology ensures:
HSO’s approach is specifically designed to leverage SAP plus Power Platform, allowing companies to innovate without disruption.
Whether it’s extending service processes, modernizing reporting, or digitizing field operations, HSO helps manufacturers build smarter, faster, and more cost-effectively—without disrupting SAP.
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Customer Case: Thomas Concrete Group
Thomas Concrete Group, a leading supplier of ready-mixed concrete, needed to harmonize financial processes across its global operations.
With their newly harmonized finance system, they used Microsoft Power Platform and Azure AI—delivered by HSO—to create an AP Automation Solution. This solution auto-matches and auto-approves incoming invoices, meaning Thomas Concrete Group saves hundreds or even thousands of hours over the course of a year.
The result was automated invoicing and streamlined financial processes across worldwide locations, freeing time for Thomas Concrete to focus on their core business.
We process hundreds of thousands of invoices a year, and we are now running close to 50% that is auto-matched and auto-approved. For us, this is a huge improvement.
Request Your Discovery Call
Ready to modernize your SAP landscape without the risk and complexity of traditional ERP projects?
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Fill out the form below to schedule your free 60-minute Manufacturing Platform Insights Discovery Call with our Manufacturing Industry Director.
See for yourself how Power Platform and HSO’s proven approach can unlock last-mile digital transformation across your business.
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In this session, you'll gain: peer benchmarking insights, real-world lessons from similar manufacturers, and tailored, actionable next steps for innovation.
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Let’s identify the right path forward—together.
