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Case study

The challenge

One of the leading players in the retail and consumer goods sector sought to deploy a scalable, resilient and cost-effective cloud-based enterprise mobile management (EMM) solution in place of its existing legacy on-premises virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution. As a direct selling company, its core business users are service center and call center employees who interact with end customers. Its existing VDI solution lacked certain functionalities—including accessibility, performance, scalability—and data security limitations. The company was also concerned about the high capital and operational expenses associated with purchasing and maintaining hardware and software for the existing platform. The unexpected onset of the COVID-19 crisis required employees from all departments to work remotely to ensure productivity while complying with the retailer’s security policies. Cognizant stepped in to enable secure remote working and ensure business continuity for the retailer during the COVID-19 crisis.

Our approach

The Cognizant team identified the cloud-based Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) implementation as the best fit for the client's virtual workplace needs, considering it the most secure and productive method to keep employees engaged and connected at the most needed times. We adopted Microsoft Intune as the retailer’s new EMM platform and shifted 1500+ users from on-premises to this cloud-based solution. 

Our in-house tools helped automate and integrate different aspects of the retailer’s applications.  We integrated third-party cloud apps as well as other data centers using multiple server-to-server (S2S) links (hub and spoke) in a mere five weeks. 

Anywhere on any device, secure remote working 

Following its digital transformation initiative, the retailer achieved capex savings of more than 70% of its original expenditure. The retailer’s employees can now access corporate data and applications from anywhere on any device, with all the necessary security measures in place. With the workplace transformation, employees receive the corporate machine directly—on auto-pilot mode and with all corporate policies applied—in a couple of hours rather than imaging a whole machine over days. The transformation also provided resiliency and scalability while improving productivity and employee experience.

> 70%

capex savings achieved post digital workplace transformation

5 weeks

time taken to implement a VDI environment with anywhere, anytime access