Case Study
Improving Applications and Governance Across the U.S. DFC With the Microsoft Power Platform
Introduction
The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is a cornerstone in America’s efforts to address critical developmental challenges worldwide through innovative financing solutions. To amplify its operational efficiency and global responsiveness, DFC is modernizing its IT infrastructure by integrating cutting-edge technologies including Microsoft (MS) Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI.
This transformation initiative focuses on replacing outdated MS SharePoint applications, Word document-based workflows, and legacy business processes with streamlined and efficient Power Apps solutions. By implementing Power Automate, DFC has automated repetitive tasks, significantly reducing processing times and enhancing workflow efficiency. Additionally, Power BI’s advanced data visualization capabilities provide actionable insights, enabling data-driven decision-making to support DFC’s mission.
One of Northramp’s key contributions to this modernization effort was the development of an ‘Intake System’ to manage IT service requests, including Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) and Privacy Threshold Assessments (PTAs). Additionally, Northramp created a robust document approval system to replace Word-based workflows, ensuring seamless collaboration and traceability. These advancements were pivotal in ensuring DFC remains agile and responsive to the evolving needs of its global operations, strengthening its capacity to deliver impactful results worldwide.
The Challenge
As DFC sought to enhance its operational capabilities through digital transformation, several challenges emerged, including:
Legacy Systems: Outdated SharePoint applications and processes that are inefficient and no longer meet the dynamic needs of global finance operations.
Integration Complexity: Difficulty integrating new PowerApps solutions with existing IT infrastructure, while ensuring data consistency and security across platforms.
Process Standardization: The need to standardize processes across different departments to ensure uniformity and effectiveness of the new digital tools.
User Adoption: Resistance to change and the challenge of ensuring smooth user adoption of the new systems across all levels of the organization.
Data Governance: Establishing robust data governance frameworks to manage the increased data flow and ensure compliance with international regulations.
Scalability: Ensuring that new solutions are scalable and can adapt to the evolving needs of the DFC without requiring frequent significant overhauls.
The Solution: Power Apps and Enhanced Governance
To help DFC modernize and streamline its application development efforts using low/no-code solutions and improve its associated governance, Northramp assisted DFC in developing a comprehensive strategy that addressed environment management, roles, user access, versioning, security, and compliance training. By leveraging leading practices, Northramp established a robust framework designed to support scalability, adaptability, and long-term sustainability across all technological deployments. This strategic approach empowers DFC to maintain a scalable, secure, and agile PowerApps infrastructure, meeting both immediate needs and future demands with confidence.
Enabled by the improved governance framework, Northramp successfully implemented a suite of new, efficient, and effective applications, significantly improving business processes across the organization. We modernized multiple outdated systems and processes by implementing solutions that enhance user experience, automate workflows, and improve data management.
These new applications feature user-friendly interfaces, making them more efficient and accessible to DFC’s diverse staff. Our governance model prioritizes agility and continuous improvement, enabling DFC to quickly adapt and refine solutions to meet evolving business needs and user feedback. Additionally, we streamlined complex business processes that were previously ‘un-automatable’ due to technological limitations, delivering a significant boost in efficiency and productivity.
Outcomes
Through Northramp’s support DFC realized substantial benefits including:
Improved Governance: By implementing robust governance practices specifically tailored to PowerApps, we helped ensure streamlined management and oversight of app development, enhancing security, compliance, and functionality.
Improved Applications: Our Power Platform-based applications streamlined operations by replacing outdated systems with modern, scalable solutions that support the dynamic needs of the organization.
Improved User Experience: Our focus on user-centric design made DFC’s applications more intuitive and accessible, improving the user experience and increasing adoption rates across departments.
Increased Automation and Efficiency: By leveraging automation tools, such as PowerAutomate, we significantly enhanced operational efficiency, reducing manual workload
Customer Proof Point
“Northramp helped us build, enhance, and update several internal applications. Through this we replaced old and cumbersome processes and streamlined and automated them. Through this effort our governance and system development processes have also greatly improved.”
DFC Core and Power Apps Lead