Customer Solution Case Study
/ Service Provider Enlists Support to Improve Expertise and Ensure Swift Optimization
Overview
Country or Region: Germany
Industry: Professional services—IT services
Customer Profile
EGRIMA Business Center is a shared service center for DKV Euro Service and other subsidiaries of EGRIMA Holding. The subsidiaries offer customer services that focus on commercial mobility.
Business Situation
Based in Ratingen, Germany, and with 700 employees, DKV Euro Service used an aging IT environment that no longer supported its needs for seamless processes and enhanced security for remote employees.
Solution
Its IT team at EGRIMA Business Center signed up for Microsoft Services Premier Support to bring experts onsite to help optimize its IT infrastructure and help with an upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Enterprise.
Benefits
· Gained access to Microsoft expertise
· Optimized IT infrastructure
· Saved 30 percent on deployment time
· Enhanced support for mobile workers
· Increased flexibility
· employees
· Increased flexibility / "As a midsize business, it was important to us to have a Premier Support agreement and have Microsoft experts onsite. They diagnosed our specific problems and delivered rapid support."
Florian Schäfer, Head of IT Infrastructure & Support, EGRIMA Business Center
DKV Euro Service, a subsidiary of EGRIMA Holding, provides a service card for cashless transactions, mainly for customers in the freight forwarding and trucking industries. It handles all card accounting and administration, so its IT processes have to work seamlessly. It also wanted to solve the needs of its growing number of mobile employees, especially the need for data security. DKV Euro Service decided to reorganize and update its aging IT environment. Its IT team at EGRIMA Business Center signed a Microsoft Services Premier Support agreement to gain access to expertise for the upgrade and for optimizing the IT infrastructure. The IT team used the opportunity to gain the knowledge it needed to completely update the IT environment, including a move to Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Enterprise—a solution that also helped to reduce costs and improve employee flexibility.
Situation
A subsidiary of EGRIMA Holding, DKV Euro Service is a major service provider for the transportation industry in Europe. It is referred to as a “hidden champion” in the German Wikipedia—which means it is a company that, although not well known to the public, is a market leader in its field. EGRIMA Business Center acts as a shared service center for the subsidiaries of EGRIMA Holding, including DKV Euro Service, and helps provide it with IT support. DKV Euro Service has 700 employees.
DKV Euro Service provides the DKV card, which its customers use to pay at over 35,500 gas stations and rest stops without using cash. An additional 7,600 contractual partners accept the DKV card for repairs, tires, and towing services and for vehicle rental and cleaning services. It also can be used to pay tolls throughout Europe for highways, bridges, passes, and tunnels, including a number of ferry connections. By using the card, customers can avoid spending time waiting in queues and often gain discounts. Card use also gives customers improved efficiency because DKV Euro Service handles all card accounting and administration. DKV Euro Service knew that it needed a seamlessly functioning IT infrastructure in order to ensure that all card processes would go smoothly.
Until mid 2010, DKV Euro Service worked with an IT infrastructure consisting of about 80 servers running the Windows Server 2003 operating system and 600 desktop computers running both the Windows XP operating system and Microsoft Office Professional 2003. Although this environment continued to meet broad requirements, it was becoming clear to IT staff at EGRIMA Business Center that newer versions of the software would be better equipped to deal with its changing work environment.
“We used to have 50 portable computers at headquarters; now there are about 150,” says Florian Schäfer, Head of IT Infrastructure & Support, EGRIMA Business Center. “Mobility is a big issue for us; our employees have to be able to work flexibly.” For the IT staff, this meant a new set of challenges. For example, the amount of business-critical data on mobile employees’ portable computers was increasing. Data had to be backed up manually to a CD or a USB storage device, which was inconvenient for employees, in addition to being very costly and time-consuming.
The IT team considered possible solutions to its challenges. It saw that with the virtual private network (VPN) connection in the Windows 7 Enterprise operating system, manual backup would no longer be necessary because the data synchronizes and backs itself up automatically. It also saw good reasons for an upgrade for the server operating system. It liked the extensive range of Group Policy settings and support for different administrator roles that it saw in Windows Server 2008 R2. Joris Mocka, Teamleader of Server/Network at EGRIMA Business Center, who is responsible for server operation, calls these features of the current generation of Microsoft server operating systems “significantly more comfortable and time saving.”
Solution
Eventually, two events combined to provide the impetus for an upgrade of the IT environment at DKV Euro Service. The first was that the company wanted to move from Düsseldorf to nearby Ratingen. The other was the founding of EGRIMA Holding, which now acts as the parent holding company for DKV Euro Service and other subsidiaries within the group. As part of the foundation of the new company, the EGRIMA Business Center was created as a Shared Service Center to take care of the IT needs of all subsidiaries of EGRIMA Holding, including DKV Euro Service.
This new organizational structure would require extensive changes to the overall IT infrastructure, with new organizational units within the Active Directory domains. In addition, the Active Directory service would need to be divided among the new subsidiaries and desktop computers would need to be reconfigured.
The time was right to make a complete change. The IT team at EGRIMA Business Center wanted to replace the entire system landscape by deploying Windows Server 2008 R2, both the Standard and Enterprise versions. At the same time, it decided to set up a newly configured Active Directory service—free from the difficulties of the former IT environment. The decision to plan a comprehensive change was not a hard one for the leaders in charge of IT. “Because the support for Windows XP would expire after 10 years, we would have needed to perform an upgrade in the foreseeable future anyway,” says Danny Kopper, Project Manager for Windows 7 at EGRIMA Business Center. “We wanted to stay in tune with the market by incorporating and using the latest technologies.”
The IT team planned the rollout of the new desktop and portable computers and the installation of Windows 7 Enterprise and Microsoft Office 2010 to coincide with the move of DKV Euro Service to Ratingen. About 350 workstations had to be set up overnight. In order to prepare for the deployment, the IT team wanted to set up a new standard desktop operating system image based on Windows 7 Enterprise.
Everyone involved in the upgrade and reorganization knew that it would be a task of Herculean proportions. In order to ensure that it had professional support, especially for the configuration of the Active Directory service, EGRIMA Business Center entered into a Microsoft Services Premier Support agreement in October 2010. This gave it access to a dedicated support team of subject matter experts and trainings tailored to its unique IT environment.
Because of its consistently positive experiences with the Microsoft support team, in February 2011, the IT management decided to significantly increase the budget for that support. As a result, the IT team received the support of Microsoft Premier Field Engineers, who conducted an on-site technical assessment of the previous and planned domains using the Active Directory Risk and Health Assessment Program (ADRAP). They were also on hand to answer other, more in-depth questions. “That helped us enormously,” says Schäfer. “There were a number of things we needed to improve, specifically with regard to synchronization of the domain controller and replication.”
As a Microsoft Services Premier Support customer, EGRIMA Business Center can use the ADRAP tool for a year and a half. As a result, the IT team will be able to keep regular checks on the health of the Active Directory service. In addition, EGRIMA Business Center is entitled to make a specified number of telephone support requests as part of the agreement, which means that it can continue to consult Microsoft technical experts in the future.
During the transition, the IT team was able to make important improvements to its processes. For example, it automated the data exchange with the server at DKB Euro Service in Ratingen by using the Folder Redirection and Background Sync functions in Windows 7.
It also improved the way employees log onto the company network. Previously, an additional application had to be added to the Windows XP VPN client so that employees could log on using UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) or WLAN (wireless local area network). Now it can be done easily through the Network and Sharing Center in Windows 7. With Windows 7 Enterprise, remote employees can type in the PIN for the UMTS card and start the VPN client. The connection to the company network is already there.
Also, by using the Multilingual User Interface technology in Windows 7, the IT team expedited deployment by simply installing a single image and then just changing the user interface to the local language.
Benefits
By working closely with Microsoft experts, EGRIMA Business Center gave DKV Euro Service the IT support it needed. It accomplished a rapid upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Enterprise and optimized its IT infrastructure.
Access to Microsoft Expertise
The direct contact with the experts from Microsoft gave the IT team an additional sense of security. “As a midsize business, it was important to us to have a Premier Support agreement and have Microsoft experts onsite. They diagnosed our specific problems and delivered rapid support,” says Schäfer. Using the knowledge the experts passed on, administrators now can handle their own IT processes down to the very smallest detail.
Hands-on collaboration with experts also has proved to be a source of motivation for the employees themselves. “It takes an IT team so much further when it can work with Microsoft experts,” says Schäfer. “You are really dealing with true professionals.”
Enhanced Support for Mobile Employees
The IT team implemented a number of improvements, particularly for employees working remotely. The storage of data locally on a remote employee’s portable computer is a thing of the past. Data exchange with the server at DKV Euro Service in Ratingen is now automated. “With Windows 7 Enterprise, we can now be certain that the business-critical user data is not just on the employee’s computer, but on our file sharing system as well,” says Kopper. As a result, the IT team does not need to use outside tools for data security; everything is handled through tools built into Windows 7.
The way that remote employees connect to the company network has also been simplified. Previously, the IT team had to install an additional application so that employees could log onto the network. Now it can be done easily through the Network and Sharing Center in Windows 7. “With Windows 7, connecting for remote employees is easy. The connection to the company network is already established,” Schäfer explains. “That makes things much simpler for our remote employees.”
Increased Flexibility
Thanks to the availability of more flexible Group Policy settings and changes in the management of user accounts in Windows 7 Enterprise, employees can configure their computers much more flexibly without affecting data security. Previously, employees could not perform even simple system commands on Windows XP desktops for security reasons. For example, they could not arrange the entries in the Start menu to match their own preferences. Today, employees at DKV Euro Service have a much wider range of options to set up their computers to suit the way they work.
Reduced Costs for Deployment and IT Support
The IT team also decreased the time needed for deployment by 30 percent. It set up a uniform desktop image throughout its offices in Europe for all 12 locations. Previously, it had to install different desktop images for colleagues in European branches. “By using the Multilingual User Interface technology in Windows 7, we simply installed a single desktop image and then just changed the user interface to the local language,” says Schäfer. “That substantially reduced the amount of time and money we had to spend on the deployment. We were able to lower costs by 20 percent.”
Even the number of support queries has decreased a great deal. Previously, there were many questions about setting up connections. “We used the improvements in Windows 7 to make administration easier for the IT team and also to make it easier for our employees to complete tasks. That guarantees a quick return on investment,” says Schäfer.
Microsoft Services
Microsoft Services is a global team of professionals who are dedicated to helping customers maximize the value of their investment in Microsoft software. Microsoft Services touches customers more than 715 million times a year, helping them plan, deploy, support and optimize our technologies. They also work closely with Microsoft Partners by sharing their technological expertise and product knowledge on a regular basis.
For more information about
Microsoft Services, go to:
www.microsoft.com/services