Conduct a Thorough Licence Inventory and Forecast
Before expanding your Power Platform footprint:
This may sound tedious - and honestly, it can be - but I've never seen an organisation regret this investment of time. The visibility it provides is invaluable for avoiding surprise charges.
Not every user needs the same level of licensing. Consider these approaches:
A healthcare provider I worked with reduced their projected Power Platform costs by 42% through strategic licence pooling alone.
Establish clear guidelines around:
Without governance, costs inevitably spiral. One manufacturing client discovered they were paying for 47 Power BI Pro licences for employees who had left the company - a $705 monthly leak that had persisted for over a year.
Rather than treating each Power Platform component separately, look for opportunities to consolidate:
A retail client reduced their licensing costs by 23% simply by consolidating their automation workloads more efficiently.
Batch Processing vs. Individual Automation
Tier 1: Start with Included Capabilities
Tier 2: Targeted Premium Investments
Tier 3: Strategic Enterprise Adoption