The opportunity at a glance
Following an earlier governance uplift, Capricorn Society wanted to make Power Platform easier to manage, support and scale across development, platform administration and support. Arinco worked with Capricorn to turn its governance controls into practical day-to-day ways of working, giving teams clearer ownership, stronger internal capability and a repeatable pathway for moving solutions into supported production.
About Capricorn Society
Capricorn Society is Australasia’s largest member-owned automotive aftermarket cooperative, supporting members and preferred suppliers across Australia and New Zealand. Capricorn helps members run their businesses more efficiently through services such as trade accounts, supplier access, consolidated monthly expenses, rewards, equipment finance, travel services and business protection. Since 1974, Capricorn has grown from a small group of service station owners into a member-owned organisation with more than 30,000 members and over 2,000 preferred suppliers.
Business challenge
Capricorn’s use of Microsoft Power Platform had grown significantly as teams built applications and automations to improve processes across the business.
An earlier engagement with Arinco had strengthened governance across the platform, including environments, data protection, application lifecycle management, security and platform controls. The next priority was making those guardrails work consistently in day-to-day operations.
As more solutions moved towards production, responsibility was spread across development teams, automation teams, Platform Engineering and the Service Desk. Teams needed greater clarity of application ownership, and the platform itself, as well as a consistent way to handle support, approvals and production changes.
Platform knowledge also varied across teams, which meant common issues could quickly escalate to specialist resources. Capricorn wanted its internal teams to resolve more issues themselves and understand when specialist intervention was required.
Production readiness needed to become part of the development lifecycle. Teams had to consider ownership, security, monitoring, support, deployment and organisational readiness early enough to identify issues before release.
Capricorn needed a practical operating model that would help it manage continued Power Platform growth with clear ownership, consistent processes and less dependence on specialist resources.
Solution
Arinco worked with Capricorn to establish a clearer operating model for how Power Platform solutions are developed, approved, supported and moved into production.
Clarifying support and ownership
Arinco developed a tiered support and escalation model to give teams a clearer understanding of where responsibility sits when issues arise. The Service Desk became the first point of triage, supported by guidance on identifying common issues and collecting the information needed for effective escalation. Development and automation teams retained responsibility for their applications, while Platform Engineering provided specialist administration and investigation where required. This established clearer boundaries between application and platform support, and helped Capricorn direct issues to the right team earlier.
Building internal capability
Arinco delivered role-based enablement to help Capricorn manage and support the platform without depending on external specialists.
The Platform Engineering team received practical training in investigating environments, resources, connections, ownership and governance alerts. The Service Desk developed greater familiarity with common Power Platform issues and escalation requirements. Development and automation teams received guidance on access, approvals, solution quality and deployment readiness.
Arinco also introduced a champion model, establishing knowledgeable representatives within key teams who could reinforce good practices, share knowledge and support ongoing capability development.
Creating a consistent path to production
Arinco worked with Capricorn to define how common requests and production changes should move through the organisation. This included clearer pathways pathways for new environments, production deployments, standard and custom connectors, elevated access and platform or integration changes. Supporting forms capture the information needed for assessment and approval, creating more consistent requests and a documented approval trail.
Production readiness guidance brought together the areas teams need to consider before release, including solution quality, testing, ownership, connections, platform configuration, security, monitoring and ongoing support. The model clarified when teams should involve Platform Engineering, security, architecture and other approval functions. Bringing these requirements into the development process earlier gives teams greater visibility of dependencies and potential blockers before solutions reach production.
Outcomes
The engagement gave Capricorn a more practical and sustainable way to manage Power Platform as adoption continues to grow. Key outcomes include:
- Clearer ownership and accountability: Teams have defined responsibilities across application development, platform administration and support, with clearer escalation pathways and communication between platform administrators and other teams.
- Structured production pathway: Developers have clearer expectations around approvals, security, solution quality and operational readiness before solutions are released.
- Stronger internal capability: Role-based training and the champion model have strengthened the knowledge available within Capricorn to administer, troubleshoot and support Power Platform.
- Improved first-line support: The Service Desk can identify common issues, gather more useful diagnostic information and direct escalations to the appropriate team.
- Consistent request processes: Implemented defined pathways for environments, connectors, access and platform changes, supported by Jira request templates and clear approval and rejection requirements.
- Broader production readiness: Expanded readiness considerations beyond successful deployment to include solution quality, ownership, connections, security, supportability and operational preparation.
- Earlier risk visibility: Security, support, ownership, architecture and platform requirements are considered earlier in the lifecycle, helping teams identify potential production issues before release.
What's next
With the operating model in place, Capricorn has a foundation to continue maturing how Power Platform is managed and supported as adoption grows.
Future opportunities include maturing monitoring and reporting, strengthening production ownership, continuing to improve application lifecycle management, refining support processes and building capability through champions and targeted training.
Capricorn can also use Power Platform to automate elements of governance and production readiness, including requests, approvals, evidence collection and operational reporting. Together, these improvements will help Capricorn scale Power Platform while keeping production solutions secure, supportable and sustainable.
