More than ever before, 2020 has presented huge challenges to companies’ innovative capabilities and their ability to go digital. The Covid-19 pandemic has focused society’s attention on one specific question: What will the future of work look like? Technological innovation and a market environment in transition are giving rise to a host of challenges and opportunities alike. To continue to work efficiently, staff need to be able to work from anywhere, at any time and from any device. The solution? A mobile and – above all – flexible workspace model.
swisspro, a provider of electrical installation, ICT and automation services, has mastered the challenge of rapidly implementing mobile workspaces with consummate ease. The IT provider first started working with VMware in November 2019. Prior to that, it had struggled with an obsolete PC lifecycle management solution resulting in serious time losses and runaway costs for IT. Thanks to Dell Provisioning for VMware Workspace ONE, swisspro has now been able to renew the whole of its IT infrastructure.
Factory provisioning eases the burden on IT
swisspro employs around 1,100 people (including 120 trainees) across 20 offices throughout Switzerland. Its specialty is providing made-to-measure, end-to-end solutions that comprise consulting, implementation, maintenance and the operation of ICT, automation and electronic/electrical engineering systems for everything from SMEs to major corporations – all from a single source. The outdated PC lifecycle management solution deployed until recently meant that it took at least four hours to set up a new device. Vast amounts of time were thus wasted for staff and the IT team alike.
To make remote working easier for staff, the infrastructure was overhauled from top to toe. Thanks to Future Ready Workforce Solutions from VMware, Dell laptops running Windows 10 were rolled out for all clients. This was the first time an out-of-the-box strategy had ever been applied for a Dell Provisioning for VMware Workspace ONE project anywhere in Europe. The components needed for the hardware were selected in advance and then fitted together in the factory to produce complete laptops in accordance with the prescribed template. At the same time, swisspro replaced its deployment system with VMware Workspace ONE as a modern platform for digital workspaces. Besides accelerating roll-out, this also allowed processes to be outsourced. “Who wants to spend the whole day formatting and reconfiguring computers? Nobody!” says Reto Marti, Head of Internal IT at the swisspro Group. “The important thing is equipping staff with the right applications to let them get on with their work, simply and efficiently.”
Tremendous time savings and greater independence
Dell Provisioning for VMware Workspace ONE eases the burden of device configuration for swisspro and gives staff greater independence. On receiving their devices, employees authenticate themselves with their mail address and password. Devices are up and running within 30 minutes, after which each member of staff has full access to all corporate resources and can work remotely from anywhere.
VMware Workspace ONE now supports a modern, cloud-based administrative strategy for Windows 10 devices – including the option of remotely provisioning guidelines, operating system patches, applications and security settings. In this way, devices are always kept right up to date and fully compliant. The aim is for staff to be able to work completely independently of any given office or network. The advantage is that, if one device experiences problems, staff can simply switch to a different device and continue working normally with access to the same consistent data. IT experts can perform remote maintenance and troubleshooting, creating a win-win situation for both the IT team and the staff.
By the end of November 2020, all staff will have access to VMware Workspace ONE via their Dell hardware. Indeed, swisspro plans to exploit the full spectrum of benefits afforded by the platform: “I think there is still a lot of mileage in this versatile platform,” Marti notes. “The project with VMware, Dell and JevoTrust is a flagship project. But there is so much more we still want to do to make remote working as easy and convenient as possible for our people.”
Visit our website to find out more about our work with swisspro.
