WEVO’s client, a Global 2000 Consumer Electronics corporation, recently had a serious software upgrade issue (now resolved) that spanned 15 corporate sites and 4,500 PCs.
“It almost sounds simple at first,” said the IT Asset Manager, “but we needed to complete a Windows 7 upgrade on all 4,500 PCs used by our employees. As we engaged with the upgrade process, we soon realized there were a few challenges to overcome. First, we weren’t sure what software was on each device, nor who had ‘admin rights.’ Sorting that out proved a challenge when working across departments, to say nothing of the technical challenge of distributing those rights. Second, we had recently been audited, and it was imperative that we ensure broad license compliance. That meant having a record of what was on each PC. Third, as we got into the upgrade process, it was taking huge amounts of time from my schedule and the schedules of my staff to manage it. With a staff of just seven people, one of my key analysts was spending her entire day on secretarial duties, just scheduling the upgrades, one by one. Some of these scheduled appointments grew rather complicated, because they required cross scheduling an engineer to be present along with the employee with the device.”
The IT Asset Manager and his team soon realized
they had to automate the process, or they would sink under the weight of 4,500
individual upgrade appointments and the entanglements of schedule coordination.
“We asked WEVO to do the nearly impossible, because by the time we brought them in to replace the original contractors, we were late in the game against our plan for the Windows 7 upgrade. And some of our approaches to date had been fruitless, like white listing / black listing certain software or urging employees to upgrade themselves.”
For more information or to talk to WEVO Group about challenges you may be facing in your organization, contact WEVO Group.