Case Study: Sonae MC achieves 220 hours saved and error-free interview scheduling with Microsoft Power Apps

Progressive retailer resolves challenges with low-code automation and AI solutions

Sonae, a multinational retail group (Sonae MC), faced time-consuming, error-prone HR and operational processes—most notably manual interview scheduling for its Contacto Traineeship and processing COVID-19 test result PDFs—while accelerating a company-wide digital transformation. To address this, the team adopted Microsoft Power Apps as part of the Microsoft Power Platform, leveraging Microsoft Power Automate for low-code flows and AI Builder for PDF form processing to enable rapid citizen-driven automation.

Using Microsoft Power Apps’ Power Automate flows, Sonae built a SharePoint-based booking system that reduced interview scheduling from three people working a week to a 30-minute, zero-error process, saving roughly 120 hours of scheduling and 100 hours of invite processing; the solution also won HRO Today awards. By adding AI Builder to automatically read >7,500 COVID-19 test PDFs, Sonae eliminated manual data entry with zero errors and saved about 25 hours/month for medical staff and 17 hours/month for technical staff—demonstrating measurable productivity and quality gains from Microsoft Power Apps.

Sonae

Helder Teixeira

IT Specialist