When businesses start exploring what’s possible with Microsoft 365 and Power Platform, there is often an immediate assumption: “Our IT provider can handle that.” It is a reasonable conclusion, after all, they support your everyday IT infrastructure and support requirements. But the Microsoft 365 and Power Platform ecosystem operates in a completely different world. It is centered on business processes, collaboration, automation, and business intelligence, not day-to-day IT infrastructure and maintenance.
This assumption is similar to something we see in healthcare. Your primary care physician handles routine checkups, general health concerns, and ongoing support. When you need specialized diagnostics or complex treatment, however, you are referred to a specialist. The same is true in the Microsoft ecosystem. IT providers are the primary care practitioners, while we operate as Modern Workplace Consultants, the specialists trained to diagnose, redesign, and transform business processes using Microsoft 365 and Power Platform.
Traditional IT and Modern Workplace Capabilities Are Two Different Worlds
Most IT companies focus on essential technology operations such as networking, security, email, device management, licensing, and server administration. These functions keep systems running securely and reliably.
Microsoft 365 and Power Platform, on the other hand, are not about IT infrastructure. They are about how your business organizes information, collaborates, automates work, and captures insights. Document management, collaboration, automation, and business intelligence are all examples of modern workplace capabilities. Each of these requires a very different set of skills.
Why It’s Easy to Assume IT Should Handle Microsoft 365 and Power Platform
Many organizations default to IT for anything involving Microsoft because certain components, such as Exchange, identity management, security, and devices, clearly fall under IT’s domain. This overlap creates a natural assumption that the entire Microsoft ecosystem belongs in IT.
Once an organization begins working with SharePoint architecture, Power Apps, automation, cross-team collaboration, or data modelling in Power BI, it has crossed into the modern workplace. This discipline is rooted in business strategy, information design, and process transformation. That is the domain of a Modern Workplace Consultant, not an IT administrator.
This distinction is similar to asking a family doctor to perform a highly specialized medical procedure. They understand the field broadly, but the depth and focus required belong to a specialist.
Modern Workplace Requires Expertise Far Beyond IT
Modern workplace transformation is not a function of IT. It is a business initiative powered by technology. To deliver meaningful outcomes, Microsoft 365 and Power Platform require a combination of capabilities.
From a technical perspective, this includes solution architecture, information architecture, data modelling, app development, automation design, Power BI development, and governance.
From a business perspective, it includes process mapping, change management, user adoption strategy, communication planning, department-level workflow analysis, and strategic planning.
IT ensures systems stay online. Modern Workplace Consultants ensure people, processes, and information work better together.
Both are essential, but they serve fundamentally different purposes.
IT Providers Are Not Embedded in Your Business Workflows
IT teams fix issues, secure systems, provision access, and maintain infrastructure. What they do not typically do is analyze how work actually happens across the organization.
That includes understanding how approvals flow across departments, where process bottlenecks occur, how documents move through their lifecycle, what information teams rely on, how collaboration breaks down, and what insights leaders need but are not getting today.
Modern workplace consulting requires deep engagement with the business itself. It focuses on how the organization operates, where it is inefficient, and how Microsoft 365 and Power Platform can improve those realities. This is not the role of IT.
Microsoft 365 and Power Platform Are Business Tools, Not IT Tools
Microsoft 365 and Power Platform deliver the most value when they are used to drive meaningful improvements in day-to-day business operations.
This includes replacing inefficient, manual processes with streamlined digital experiences that reduce turnaround time and errors. It includes ensuring approvals move quickly and consistently so work does not stall. It includes transforming scattered files and folders into organized, searchable information that employees can easily find and trust. It includes giving leaders real-time visibility into performance and trends so they can make faster, more informed decisions. It also includes creating centralized spaces where teams can share information, communicate effectively, and stay aligned.
These improvements focus on how the business operates, not on how technology is supported.
The Risks of Treating Modern Workplace Initiatives as IT Projects
When Microsoft 365 and Power Platform initiatives are treated as IT projects, the results are often underwhelming. Information becomes scattered, processes fail to take hold, and tools are introduced without a clear plan for scale or governance. Collaboration spaces grow without purpose, employees fall back into familiar habits, and over time there is no shared vision for how the digital workplace should mature.
This is not a failure of IT. It is a mismatch in skill sets, much like asking a general practitioner to perform surgery.
The Most Effective Model: IT and Modern Workplace Consultants Working Together
Engaging a Modern Workplace Consultant does not replace or diminish IT. The strongest Microsoft 365 and Power Platform outcomes come from a paired approach where responsibilities are clearly defined.
IT should own Microsoft 365 baseline administration and hygiene, identity and security controls, device compliance and endpoint posture, and monitoring and incident response. These responsibilities ensure the environment is secure, stable, and governed.
Modern Workplace Consultants should own use-case discovery and prioritization, solution architecture across Microsoft 365 and Power Platform, data modeling and app design, process automation and system integration, information architecture, solution governance, and adoption and training for the business solution. These responsibilities ensure solutions actually improve how the organization works.
You would not expect a family doctor to replace a cardiologist. The same principle applies here. When IT acts as the platform steward and modern workplace consultants act as transformation specialists, organizations achieve far stronger outcomes than either could deliver alone.
Conclusion: IT Support Is Essential, but It Is Not Enough
Your IT provider keeps systems secure, stable, and running smoothly and securely. Modernizing business processes, improving collaboration, building apps, structuring information, and enabling automation are not IT functions. They are modern workplace functions.
That is why Modern Workplace Consultants exist. Maximizing Microsoft 365 and Power Platform is not about maintaining technology. It is about transforming how people work.
If this sounds familiar, the next step is not a major project or platform overhaul. It starts with a conversation. A short discussion to understand how your teams work today, where friction exists, and where Microsoft 365 and Power Platform could have the biggest impact can quickly clarify whether a modern workplace approach makes sense for your organization.
If you decide to explore this further, speaking with a Modern Workplace Consultant at West X Business Solutions can help you assess your current environment and identify practical, business-focused opportunities using Microsoft 365 and Power Platform.
If nothing else, you’ll walk away with a clearer picture of what’s possible.
