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Staying at the leading edge of your field means your end users need technology that can keep up with them. With end users working remotely, companies face new challenges maintaining business-as-usual (BAU) when planning their next EUC transition. Your global workforce needs to remain as productive as possible, and a successful EUC transition−with BAU support−makes that possible.
Outlining Your EUC Transition
For a successful EUC transition, you’ll need comprehensive asset tagging in addition to procuring, imaging, and prepping for distribution. Each device should receive a RFID tag and be registered in an Asset Management Tool before being assigned to the corresponding user. These tagging and management tools help you keep detailed accounts of in-use, pending, in-repair, and EOL devices.
Secure Imaging and Setup
To get started, your team or your IT partner needs to be prepared with your company’s specific:
- Golden image
- Security software
- Automated update schedules
- SCCM mobile device management tools
Once the devices have been configured, you’ll need to facilitate the setup and configuration of domain, network, and application access. From there, your devices are ready for deployment.
Shipping and Distribution
Of course, it’s important to pay attention to compliance and security for device shipments and distribution initiatives, but keeping up with the minutiae can also distract you from important work supporting the needs of the business. And, most likely, you don’t have the in-house resources or expertise to navigate the extensive red tape of shipping hardware internationally.
If you want to avoid the inconveniences of delays or penalties at the border, you’ll need an IT partner with shipping specialists to step in and focus on what they do best.
Data Sanitization and ITAD for Your Old EUC Devices
If you are managing corporately-owned devices in-house, you would have to work out the logistics of R2-level asset disposition and recycling of your EOL devices. Most importantly, before you recycle or dispose of them, you will have to perform the complete sanitization of latent data from the hard drives. Again, you might not have the bandwidth to pull this off in-house.
That’s why companies turn to IT partners that provide on-and-off premise, NIST-800 level data sanitization services for your old EUC devices.
The Importance of BAU Support During an EUC Transition
It’s simple. Downtime costs money. For most companies, continuing BAU is crucial−especially during technology migrations and technology refresh projects. The longer your end users go without the ability to support clients, operate production, and continue pushing your business, the more impact you see on your bottom line. This is why BAU support for EUC transitions should be the first thing you ask your IT lifecycle management partner about before signing a contract.
For global companies refreshing their end user devices in multiple locations in different countries simultaneously, BAU support can be difficult to manage. These are red flags that your partner lacks the BAU support you need:
- No clear main point of contact
- No outline for post-deployment support
- No central support desk
- No global presence
What Successful BAU Support for EUC Transitions Looks Like:
This Local Global Automotive Technology Company’s Migration to Windows 10
With 32 locations globally, and a tight timeline to get off its parent company’s network by October 2019, the manufacturer needed a partner to help it issue new machines that would migrate its users to Windows 10, while coordinating hardware delivery schedules, field engineering coverage, and overall project management. In parallel, the company had just begun on-boarding its newest corporate acquisition under a 5-year IT outsourcing contract and needed CentricsIT to ramp up the day-to-day operational support model quickly, so the customer didn’t experience any lapse in IT support.
It was strictly necessary that business-as-usual (BAU) be able to continue unhindered during this transition. To accomplish this, CentricsIT needed a team of experienced Windows 10 experts onsite at multiple locations simultaneously.
The CentricsIT global network of engineers made this an easy task, enabling our Project Management Office (PMO) to coordinate and deploy teams of highly vetted engineers to client’s sites.
This Multinational Capital Market Agency’s Technology Upgrade
CentricsIT’s partner needed to migrate 24,000 of its capital market client’s end users from Windows 7 to Windows 10 by the end of the year. In a normal world, the users would be migrated in the offices in which they work and would be able to go directly to the IT support personnel onsite for any issues. Because these users were now working from home indefinitely, CentricsIT and our partner had to find a new approach.
CentricsIT provided experts on-location in “build rooms” all over the globe, following strict COVID-19 guidelines to keep the client, our partner, and our engineers safe and healthy. Using these build rooms, CentricsIT engineers received new assets, loaded images, ran the new system through quality assurance, and then shipped the devices directly users’ homes.
For post-migration support, CentricsIT provided remote help desk services to enable end users to call into a specialized technical support center for that client’s specific Windows 10 program. Additionally, the CentricsIT build rooms remained operational post-deployment to accept old devices that end users shipped back for certified data erasure.
CentricsIQ, the highly customized project management view from CentricsIT, provided unbeaten transparency in real-time. Its customized access protocols enabled the partner to deliver the live data and analytics its client required. The project management portal also saved the historical data from the partner’s project, enabling our partner to track project trend data for reports to its client. For the client, CentricsIQ meant project data when they needed it. For the partner, CentricsIQ gave it the granular control it needed to be as hands-on−or hands-off− as it required.
CentricsIT Helps You Maintain BAU Wherever You’re Located
The CentricsIT Project Management Office has the global network of highly vetted and experienced engineers to help companies get crucial projects completed quickly−and correctly. Our dedicated project managers and coordinators work with each client to understand their solution needs, source the right engineering expertise−whether they’re a local resource to our client or a specialized expert we fly in−for each project, and communicate with our client from beginning to end.
Our project management office updates your projects, timelines, and communications via our CentricsIQ project intelligence portal that provides unrivaled transparency into your real-time field activities.
