Microsoft Catalyst to fuel intrapreneurship

Microsoft Catalyst is described as an envisioning and planning program that employs Microsoft Dynamics 365, the Microsoft Power Platform, and the Microsoft Cloud in order to build, plan, and execute business transformation strategies with a proven, innovative approach.

This unique approach is a customer engagement journey that help businesses conceive and realize business transformation by taking customers through a series of curated phases: Inspire, Design,
Empower, and Achieve (I.D.E.A. framework).

At Business Elements, we decided to take the Catalyst framework a step further and to make it immediately tangible for our customers. We have created a virtuous loop that enables this framework to be initiated either from the Inspire phase or from the Design phase.

We recommend using the Catalyst framework to activate intrapreneurship within organizations.

If we start with the Inspire phase, we usually conduct an Envisioning workshop using a dedicated toolbox and proven design thinking techniques in order to identify the business needs of our customers. What we identify can vary from a very basic business process that would definitely need to improve up to a totally new way of integrating various data sources and process automation. The only limitations we face are the ones of our audience minds.

We lead these workshops remotely during half day sessions using Klaxoon as creativity hub and Teams as videoconferencing solution. Generally, our facilitator deals with groups of maximum 12 people. The output of such a workshop is translated into a strategic document that can be used as a briefing for the next phase : Design.

If we initiate the Catalyst framework from the Design phase, after we have identified a simple process scenario, we generally send a team of experts to join our customers' team which is composed of one Business Architect or Consultant and an experienced Developer. In a matter of a few days / weeks, we develop and release an MVP of the app that meets the business requirements in an agile fashion (very much in a "startup" mode): the Proof of Concept (PoC).

We then evaluate its business impact both in terms of user experience and business results (cost savings, process improvement, employee satisfaction, etc.).

Once the first two phases have been initiated and have demonstrated their business impact, comes a time where the organization will need to build a strategic vision around the scalability of this new infrastructure and workflow. We then conduct a series of workshops which address all the questions linked to governance, security, data loss prevention, roles and responsibilities among others.

This is the Empower phase : Making sure the organization and its infrastructure will be future proof.

In the later phase of the Catalyst framework, the Achieve phase, this is the time when the organization is ready to roll out the transformation everywhere. We then make use of our PROSCI certified practitioners in order to build the Adoption and Change Management (ACM) plans including the training, communication, sponsor roadmap, coaching and resistance management.

We realized, at Business Elements, that the Catalyst framework is a very valuable canvas to create value for our customers in a structured and pragmatic fashion. The feedbacks we received from the market is compelling and encourage us to move forward by deploying more and more this framework in all the Microsoft Power Platform and MS Dynamics 365 projects we lead.