Discover how we helped Reckitt implement a modern management approach across their global IT estate to enable a secure, modern way of working across the organisation.
Reckitt – the company behind some of the world’s most recognisable and trusted consumer brands in hygiene, health and nutrition, including Air Wick, Calgon, Dettol, Durex, Enfamil, Lysol, Mortein, Nurofen and more – understands the need for constant innovation.
Reckitt strategically identified the move to a modern management approach to support their vision for a digital workplace and engaged PowerON to help accomplish this.
“As a team, we were already working on how to deliver on our Digital Workplace strategy when COVID-19 hit and, like many organizations, we realised that we needed to turbo charge our ambitions in this area. From day one of working with PowerON, it was clear we were speaking to experts with extensive experience in developing, designing and deploying the Microsoft Modern Management approach.
What was the challenge?
With operations across 60 countries and six continents Reckitt knew this would be a huge project. They approached Microsoft to understand how they could bring their ideas to life – and Microsoft knew we were the right partner to help them achieve their strategic goals.
Their IT team knew that agility is key to success, so they wanted to adopt a ‘work from anywhere’ culture, with security and a seamless end-user experience at its core. This meant the team were in a better position than most when COVID19 hit; work had already begun to allow secure remote working, and they were on their way to enabling this across all areas of the business.
The ability to maintain a high level of control and security over 30k+ devices globally was vital, whilst giving their teams the flexibility they needed to continue working through lockdown.
"The capability we’ve now enabled has been a game changer for Reckitt IT and as a business, with over 30k devices co-managed in Endpoint Manager, all from the cloud. And, on top of that, this partnership helped us evolve from classical device deployment to self-deployed capabilities like Autopilot, with over a thousand machines enrolled so far. Working with PowerON was a great experience, delivering a successful outcome for everyone involved, with the partnership growing stronger in other technology areas as well.”
What did we do?
Following an introduction from Microsoft in the spring of 2020, Reckitt IT and PowerON started collaborating to achieve the business goal of expanding remote work security and management options, a plan that was accelerated by the global pandemic.
“The capability we’ve now enabled has been a game changer “
The teams quickly began to design, develop and deploy an Endpoint Management solution that leveraged the benefits of Microsoft Endpoint Manager (both ConfigMgr and Intune components) to enable new and existing devices, and achieve a core baseline security profile to strengthen the modern management approach.
Once the design phase had been completed, work then began to support the roll-out and testing of the solution across the various global primary sites. Careful considerations had to be made with numerous time-zones, languages, and specific operational tailoring needing to be acknowledged.
“Working with PowerON experts on the design and implementation of the new device management platform in Reckitt, focused on a Cloud-first approach, was a very positive experience. Their technical knowledge and skillset allowed Reckitt IT to implement smoothly the new MS Endpoint Manager solution within months to an estate of over 30k devices across the globe. It also enabled us to provide modern management services like Autopilot, which is a fundamental change to the way we set up and deploy devices to our people, with very positive feedback.”
With tools such as Autopilot and WaaS, the teams were able to automate and streamline many processes, which allowed them to focus on business-critical tasks, being confident in their security and work anywhere position.
PowerON helped Reckitt with a design and implementation that leveraged multiple Microsoft Modern Management technologies to achieve an endpoint solution that bolstered their capability to support remote working while still providing a secure and managed environment, no matter where the device was.
Working with PowerON was a great experience, delivering a successful outcome for everyone involved, with the partnership growing stronger in other technology areas as well.”
Leveraging Autopilot allows devices to be rapidly provisioned without the cost of maintaining complex custom images while also allowing the provisioning of devices anywhere without relying on the traditional connection to the internal network as before.
Microsoft Endpoint Manager as the core management platform provides visibility and ongoing management of devices, even when remote from the network, using Intune and ConfigMgr Cloud Management Gateways, ensuring configuration and apps can always be delivered while gathering analytics data to support decisions and assist with activities such as Windows as a Service (WaaS).
“Communication throughout from Dean and all team members was fantastic, with both parties seamlessly working together to successfully achieve the end goal.”
Implementing a WaaS lifecycle process now means that Reckitt will continue to ensure devices are updated, providing the security and productivity enhancements to the business that allow it to improve service delivery.
Standard Operating Procedures were created across the implemented technologies to ensure the Business-as-Usual teams were able to put the solution into practice, going forward, and manage the future Windows as a Service lifecycle. Knowledge Transfer sessions were held with these teams to further complement the Standard Operating Procedures and ensure Reckitt had everything they needed to manage the solution going forward.
"From the very beginning of the project to the end, the Reckitt team were extremely focused and engaged whilst working side by side with our consultants. When prerequisites or certain tasks needed completing either in advance of sessions or at short notice, the PowerON team could take comfort knowing these were being actioned by the Reckitt team in a proactive and responsive manner, making for a productive and successful project. Communication throughout from Dean and all team members was fantastic, with both parties seamlessly working together to successfully achieve the end goal."
Looking forward
PowerON have provided assistance with proof-of-concept activities in other areas such as Azure Active Directory P2 and HoloLens, to assess the future of other Microsoft modern management tools and how they can benefit Reckitt in the medium to longer term.
PowerON is also working with Reckitt to implement Azure Virtual Desktop across key areas of the estate with projects ongoing over the course of 2021.
