Windows devices
CASE STUDY
INFRASTRUCTURE

Going Global

Major supplier to automotive manufacturers connects worldwide workforce with Intel® mobility technology

Background

Fifteen years ago, the people I worked with were down the hall. Now they’re all over the world,” says a senior manager at the company. But resulting in more than just a spread out workforce, globalization has also increased competition for the company and it needed to speed up its product development processes in order to survive and thrive in the face of this added competition.

Solution

The company launched its Connected Worker program to give employees the digital tools they needed to defy the distance between them and collaborate effectively, while at the same time compressing the company’s decision making processes. In practice, this means giving specialized devices to various user populations to give them the mobility, performance, and collaboration tools they need to get their jobs done.

The ‘highly mobile professional’ is one such user group. These 5,000 employees’ jobs demand that they work in multiple facilities or at customer and partner locations. As such, the client sought a full-powered computer that was mobile, had great battery life and fast startup/shutdown times. It looked at many devices but decided on the Microsoft Surface Pro 2, powered by the Intel® Core™ i5 processor as being best able to meet these demands, and selected Sogeti as its supplier.

Built on Intel processors and architecture, the tablets can run full versions of the Windows 8.1 Enterprise operating system, and business-critical applications like Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Lync Server 2010. They also integrate seamlessly with the Microsoft Server Product Portfolio while still satisfying the company’s demanding criteria around battery life and startup times.

Furthermore, the client was able to maintain a consistency of user interface and manage, secure and support the tablets using the same system management and security tools they used for their already deployed desktops and laptops.

Our employees are all familiar with Windows, which dramatically simplifies adoption, and Windows 8.1 offers a great touch experience, blazingly fast startup and shutdown times, and rock-solid stability,” stated a company executive.

The company is also using Microsoft’s enterprise social networking solution, Yammer, to improve collaboration.

Results

The company has deployed 250 of the planned 5,000 Surface tablets to engineers, salespeople and managers.

With their new devices and cloud services, employees are more productive, can work flexibly anytime, anyplace, and make better decisions by having quick access to the right people and information. With such tools, the company can centrally manage devices and it also believes it can better compete for talent.

The security and remote manageability capabilities that come with Windows 8 take advantage of the device features the Intel platform provides, and can further help improve efficiencies and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) when managing large fleets of devices.

With their critical Windows-based applications always at their fingertips, employees have noticed a huge difference in how productive they can be. When employees have more flexibility in when and where they work, they get more done. An employee can quickly start up their Surface after dinner, check email, respond to a colleague in China, and move a decision along without waiting eight hours. Staying connected and productive is a lot easier with Windows 8 and Surface compared to traditional laptops. It has helped the company move work along beyond the typical workday, which is critical in a global company.

Employees are also now able to make better decisions. When a company group in Asia was working over Yammer with the North American team on a project to set up additional production capacity, a million-dollar mistake was avoided when someone realized they had selected the wrong equipment. Lync, Yammer, Windows 8, and Surface have revolutionized how the employees communicate internally, which affects how quickly they can get products to market.

In addition, the client has also found that having modern tools helps tremendously in attracting top talent. This is essential when it is competing with the likes of Microsoft, Facebook, and Google for the brightest computer science college grads.

Finally, the company has encrypted its Surface’s hard drives by activating Windows 8.1’s BitLocker feature. This will help protect data on the devices if they are misplaced. The company believes that by giving employees a powerful device that they love, they reduce the chance that employees will use personal devices to do their jobs, and this improves its overall security posture.

How Sogeti, Intel and the customer worked together

The Windows 8 and Intel ecosystem is vast, including many different device types and form factors. However, Sogeti’s deep understanding of the product portfolio and the demands of its customers’ specific industries meant it was able to help the customer zero-in on the right solution, with the right specification, for them.

Sogeti is also providing managed services though its “Workspace-as-a-Service” offering, which allows it to manage customer devices using Microsoft System Center and the management features embedded in the devices, such as Intel® vPro™ technology. With “Workspace-as-a-Service”, Sogeti provides the Intel-based devices for the customer, in addition to managing the devices and the applications.

Looking ahead, Sogeti will continue to work with the customer on the measured roll-out of its mobility solutions across the organization, developing tailored solutions that fully address their business needs, now and the future.

Contact
  • darren_baker
    Darren Baker
    Global Intel Alliance Director
    +1 425 691 2709

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About the client

If you’re a regular driver then there’s a very good chance you use one of this company’s vehicle subsystems every time you go for a spin. Solutions designed and built by this UK-based global supplier of electronics and technologies for the automotive, commercial vehicle and other market segments, underpin features such as remote central locking, in-car navigation and even steering wheels in cars right around the world. It employs 161,000 people at design centers, manufacturing sites and customer support centers in 32 countries.

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