Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Company in the US

Power Platform: Not an Afterthought for D365 Planning

A successful Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation isn’t just about configuring the ERP—it’s about laying the foundation for future innovation. Many organizations and vendors focus solely on getting D365 live, only to run into post go-live roadblocks with analytics or portals due to process and data gaps that weren’t considered during planning.

This is why the Power Platform must be factored into the planning of your future-state D365 environment from the start. It’s not an add-on or an afterthought—it’s an integral part of how your organization will extend, optimize, and evolve D365 to maximize long-term impact, both in the near and long term.

Future-Proofing Your D365 Environment

A proper D365 implementation is designed around business processes, data architecture, reporting, and integration. As Wayne Getsky famously stated, he plays to where the puck will be, not where it is. This means that Power Platform should be included in your roadmap to ensure that the system you go live with can support future-state needs:

Planning for enterprise-wide analytics ensures Power BI reporting will be built on a solid data architecture designed to support the demands of AI.
Define how your organization wants to communicate and collaborate via portals with customers, vendors, and partners.

By designing D365 with Power Platform in mind, you ensure that the D365 ecosystem will meet the needs of the organization day one but also support the demands of future business growth, innovation, and transformation.

We Plan for the Future, Even When It’s Hard to See

If Power Platform isn’t considered early in the process, companies often run into roadblocks after go-live, realizing that their analytics and automation aspirations require rework, costly customizations, or process redesigns.

We don’t need to define detailed requirements upfront, but during our planning process, we ask the right questions to account for future-state needs—even those that may be hard for your team to envision today. By helping leadership think beyond the constraints of their current processes, we guide them in imagining how the company could operate without barriers, leveraging automation, analytics, and seamless system interactions.

By integrating Power Platform into your future-state D365 strategy, we eliminate obstacles before they arise—allowing your business to focus on growth and continuous improvement instead of running into walls after go-live.

D365 + Power Platform = A System That Evolves With Your Business

D365 is more than just an ERP or CRM system—it’s a foundation for business transformation. But without Power Platform embedded into your strategy from the start, you risk creating a system that needs workarounds instead of one that enables continuous improvement.

At Ascent Innovations, we don’t just implement D365—we design future-ready solutions that ensure your analytics, automation, and process optimization efforts are fully supported from day one.

Want to ensure your D365 investment delivers long-term impact? Let’s talk about how Power Platform can help you build a system that scales with your business.

About the Author

John Bruhnke has 20 years of leadership in management consulting, specializing in ERP and analytics modernization with experience leading 15 modern analytics enterprise roadmaps in manufacturing and CPG. He collaborates with executive and management teams to drive alignment on strategic goals and develop a collective vision for modernization that balances both immediate business needs and long-term strategy.