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June 09, 2021

Nokia Mobile Networks builds its Digital Care Management Platform on Microsoft Power Platform

Nokia Mobile Networks is a division of Nokia, a global telecommunications and electronics company based in Finland. Technical Support Service (TSS) provides technical support for Mobile Networks customers around the world. Microsoft Power Platform has been used to digitize and automate Care Program Management (CAPM)–related processes and tasks.

Nokia

“We used Microsoft Power Platform to transform our business over the past year and improve our customer service in ways that simply wouldn’t have been possible with traditional development platforms.”

Deepak Harie, Vice President, Technical Support Services, Nokia Mobile Networks

The Care Program Management (CAPM) team at Nokia Mobile Networks was facing a dilemma. To provide the best care to its customers, the team continuously tracks, monitors, and analyzes delivery performance. Actionable insights based on this data lead to even better service delivery performance and customer satisfaction. The problem was that the time spent digging through systems to generate performance reports was cutting into the time available for supporting customers.

With a new app built on Microsoft Power Platform, CAPM now has the best of both worlds—even more accurate reporting in less time. In fact, the performance reports that used to take the team up to two weeks to prepare can now be completed in just 20 minutes.

The solution is just one of almost 90 low-code apps created in-house using Microsoft Power Platform. Together, they form what is called the Digital Care Management Platform (DCP). The platform was created to digitize the team’s entire care program management processes, create a single source of truth, and provide better access to more meaningful analytics.

Before building the DCP, the CAPM team looked at several off-the-shelf solutions that promised a quick solution to its core data challenges. But a closer look revealed that it wasn’t going to be that simple. “Customizing an off-the-shelf solution would have taken years to meet all our objectives,” says Ronghui Zhu, Head of Care Program Management at Technical Support Services, Nokia Mobile Networks. His team also didn’t want to have to wait and pay for each change to the solution. And then there were the ongoing maintenance costs.

Developing a custom solution in-house made more sense. The problem with that approach was that Nokia’s in-house development teams were busy dealing with their own backlog of custom development projects. This led to the team developing its own solution using Microsoft Power Platform.

Laying the foundation with low code

The CAPM team at Nokia selected Microsoft Power Platform to use for building its Digital Care Platform for several reasons. When evaluating other low-code solutions, the team saw that Gartner and other analysts had ranked Microsoft Power Platform as a leader in several categories: business intelligence, analytics, and low code. Nokia also liked the cost benefits. With Microsoft 365, Nokia could start building using Microsoft Power Platform solutions at no additional cost.

The sheer simplicity of the platform was another deciding factor. Team members quickly discovered that they could build the apps and functionality that they needed without custom coding experience. This allowed for a more business-centric focus. “The same people building the apps in Microsoft Power Platform all have direct experience as Care Program Managers. They already know what dots need to be connected,” says Samir Sahay, Program Manager at Care Program Management, Nokia Mobile Networks.

Taking advantage of this rich business experience, the team kicked off planning by mapping out the care management process, identifying all process steps, data sources, and stakeholders. “In many ways, our plans to digitize using Microsoft Power Platform became a kind of forcing function to reexamine and rationalize our entire care management process. It was a highly productive exercise right from the start,” says Deepak Harie, Vice President, Technical Support Services at Nokia Mobile Networks.

Using an agile development methodology, each team member was assigned several digital solutions based on their specific expertise. While each app covered a unique business process, the objectives were the same: consolidate data for easier accessibility, then use Microsoft Power Automate, Power Apps, and Power BI to optimize the use of that data across the Digital Care Platform.

Digital Care Platform Architecture
Figure 1. The Digital Care Platform built using Microsoft Power Platform covers the complete customer care cycle for Nokia Mobile Networks. For larger versions of all the figures in this story, go to the Downloads section of the left-hand sidebar.

Unifying data through Power Automate

Once the team members had mapped out which apps they wanted to start building, the next step was to unify the data that was driving these apps. This included more than 3 million customer contract items, which CAPM oversees for customers.

For data that required real-time updates, such as data within Salesforce, CAPM used a prebuilt connector to tie in with Microsoft Power Platform. For other databases without prebuilt connectors available, the team was able to create custom APIs. CAPM was now ready to optimize that data and streamline processes with applications in Microsoft Power Platform.

Architecture for Data Consolidation and Reports
Figure 2. A flow built using Power Automate is triggered from a user request in Power Apps. This consolidates data into SharePoint lists. Data is pulled into reports in Power Apps and Power BI.

Streamlining the reporting process

It was easy to see why the team focused on reporting first. Take the customer care report, for example. 

To prepare this report, a care manager would have to assemble a wide range of data, from costs and contract details to servicing data from multiple ticketing systems. This involved coordination with multiple stakeholders. Because the data was pulled from multiple sources, it then had to be compiled in Excel and moved manually into charts, tables, and other presentation formats.

With the new reporting app in Microsoft Power Platform, this entire process has been automated. A manager accesses the app in Microsoft Teams—where all other apps in the platform are now posted. Once in the app, the manager enters information for each part of the report, then selects supporting data. Drop-down menus can be used to target specific time frames. Data is then automatically pulled from SharePoint lists through Power Automate. Trending data is presented in Power BI. The manager uses another field to tie the report to a specific customer for highly secure access. The whole process is completed in 20 minutes.

A similar process was created for other reports, including quarterly management reports. Along with time savings, the team also benefits from a more accurate and data-rich presentation to management. With system-generated reporting through Microsoft Power Platform, errors that popped up during manual assembly have been virtually eliminated. Not only that, but also the reports come with embedded links, making it easier to drill directly from Power BI into a data source.

Figure 3. Customer reports generated using Microsoft

Power Platform have replaced time-consuming manual assembly. 

Refining the user experience

Nokia used a multiple-wave approach to roll out its Digital Care Management Platform, starting with a pilot program in the regional offices in India. Ongoing user feedback was key to the success of the rollout—and this was another process streamlined through Microsoft Power Platform. A simple feedback form was created for each app, which compiled the reports in one repository and triggered an automated email to the app owner.

The result was an extremely efficient, real-time feedback loop which, in turn, led to ongoing refinements in the user experience. Take the self-assessment app, for example. With this app, an employee can identify skills gaps and be led directly to related training.

User feedback indicated that assessments were completed in stages. Rather than have employees start over each time, the team developed an innovative work-in-progress function. Power Automate was used to create a progress bar in the app and save the partially completed assessment in SharePoint. The next time a user signs in, the progress bar is refreshed and the assessment is pulled up, ready for completion.

“With Microsoft Power Platform, we can build apps faster and add continuous improvements quickly and easily,” says Zhu.

Figure 4. All apps within the Digital Care Platform are made available through Microsoft Teams for easier, more secure access.

Benefits extend across the business

With the success of the market pilot program, Nokia Mobile Networks is now deploying its Digital Care Platform across all markets. These markets are especially eager to adopt the platform, given the great reviews coming out of India. “Our support lead in India has been one of our best advocates,” says Harie.

As the platform is extended across the network, the team is already planning for increased scale and performance. This includes Microsoft Dataverse—the relational database that’s part of Microsoft Power Platform. “While SharePoint lists have performed well for us, we see Dataverse as offering an even more scalable platform for the future, with even faster performance,” says Zhu.

In the meantime, the CAPM team is seeing real efficiency gains across the business. For example, to enable service delivery, the customer agreement must be entered into the Nokia contract management database. This used to take a significant amount of manual effort. With the Microsoft Power Platform–based solution, this task has been largely automated.

Word of the team’s success with the Digital Care Platform is quickly spreading across the company. Requests for help with similar low-code solutions are growing. And other developer teams within Nokia are starting to look at how Microsoft Power Platform can streamline their current development processes.

Not bad for a team of just six CAPM employees with virtually no background in building apps. As Harie says, “We used Microsoft Power Platform to transform our business over the past year and improve our customer service in ways that simply wouldn’t have been possible with traditional development platforms.”

“With Microsoft Power Platform, we can build apps faster and add continuous improvements quickly and easily.”

Ronghui Zhu, Head of Care Program Management, Technical Support Services, Nokia Mobile Networks

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