Microsoft System CenterCustomer Solution Case Study

Nordic Real Estate Firm Switches to Microsoft Management Tool, Expects $73 Million Gain

OverviewCountry or Region: SwedenIndustry: Construction

Customer ProfileJM, based in Solna, Sweden, is one of the leading developers of housing and residential areas in the Nordic region. It has 2,300 employees.

Business SituationWhen JM contemplated the upgrade of its 1,500 PCs from the Windows XP operating system to Windows 7, it wanted to use a Microsoft deployment tool that would support a people-centric application model and boost IT efficiency.

SolutionThe company achieved its goal by replacing its ZENworks management software with Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager.

Benefits Gains people-centric software model

to boost employee productivity, satisfaction

Expects to reduce service desk tickets by 10 percent

Expects US$73 million in additional revenue

“We’re talking about big money in additional business by using Configuration Manager to meet contract terms for rapid software deployment. It could well total 500 million Swedish Krona [US$73 million] a year.”

Tomas Wiik, Chief Information Officer, JM

As one of the biggest builders in Europe’s Nordic region, JM knows about architecture, including software architecture. The company is using that knowledge to build a people-centric software model, based on Microsoft System Center 2012 and the Windows 7 operating system, designed to boost both user satisfaction and IT productivity. Employees will access their desktops and applications from anywhere in the company’s offices or construction sites, with whatever client devices are available. IT staff will deploy operating system images and applications more quickly, to any combination of physical, virtual, desktop, and mobile devices. With greater reliability, the solution is expected to reduce service desk tickets by one-third. And by reducing application deployment time by 70 percent, the company expects to gain about US$73 million in additional business.

SituationIt used to be that the most important tools on a construction site were hammers, drills, and soldering irons. Today, that list also includes email.

That’s certainly proved to be the case for JM, a major developer of residential and commercial real estate in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Belgium. “So much of what goes on at a construction site today is based on digital information,” says Tomas Wiik, Chief Information Officer at JM. “So the construction site has to have technology as advanced as in the corporate office. Construction managers need the same tools, from email to mobile phones, as their corporate counterparts.”

In 2008, JM sought to provide more powerful mobile phones to workers on its construction sites and elsewhere throughout the company. That seemingly straightforward migration led to a more effective technology standard throughout the company, and a more effective way to manage the company’s 1,500 desktop and laptop computers.

Because the company’s Novell GroupWise email software wouldn’t run on the new Ericsson Symbian phones, JM migrated its email as well, to Microsoft Outlook communications client software. While that gave mobile users—particularly those at construction sites—anytime, anywhere access to email and other applications, it also gave Wiik and his colleagues a new challenge: a mixed server environment and the need to support both Microsoft and Novell. “We had two sets of file and print servers, directory systems, and much else,” says Wiik. “It was too much. We didn’t need

to keep Novell so we adopted Microsoft as our standard platform.”

The issue of multiple platforms arose in the PC environment too, when JM was ready to upgrade its aging Windows XP operating system deployments to Windows 7. JM had managed its desktops and laptops with Novell ZENworks. But here too, the company was ready for a change. JM’s IT organization couldn’t use ZENworks to maintain a precise inventory of, or precise control over, its PCs. As the number of PCs in the company quickly grew by 50 percent, this issue grew as well.

“We were standardizing on Microsoft, so it didn’t make sense to bring Novell into our new Windows 7 environment,” says Wiik.

But Wiik had concerns about bringing the Microsoft deployment and management tool into its Windows 7 environment, too. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 was used by more enterprises than any other client management solution, but it hadn’t been designed to support the people-centric deployment model that JM wanted in order to give employees anytime access to their applications―whether in a colleague’s office, a conference room, or a construction site.

JM wanted a single tool it could use to manage an increasingly diverse environment. And JM wanted that tool to be cost-effective and easy for its increasingly taxed IT department to adopt and use.

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“The construction site has to have technology as advanced as in the corporate office. Construction managers need the same tools, from email to mobile phones, as their corporate counterparts.”Tomas Wiik, Chief Information Officer, JM

SolutionJM got what it wanted. In December 2011, the company joined the Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Community Evaluation Program for Production Support. That program facilitated its adoption of Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, the latest version of the Microsoft tool for client management, including software distribution. It’s now using Configuration Manager to manage a three-month upgrade of its 1,500 PCs from Windows XP to Windows 7, in time to meet a June 2012 deadline.

To help it design and implement the upgrade with Microsoft System Center 2012, JM turned to Logica, a business and technology service company based in the United Kingdom with offices worldwide, and Microsoft Partner Network member with multiple Gold competencies. “We looked at several vendors and chose Logica because they are knowledgeable, effective, and competitive in price,” says Anderz Wedefelt, System Manager at JM. “We were going to plan and test with prerelease software. We didn’t have the knowledge we needed to be an early adopter. Logica did.”

JM and Logica began the project with a series of increasingly broad pilot tests before moving to a production rollout of the upgrade in April 2012. They are deploying Windows 7 on about 1,000 of the 1,500 PCs, and replacing the remainder with installations of Windows 7 on new hardware. To implement the upgrades, JM and Logica point the ZENworks clients that are already on the Windows XP PCs to a Configuration Manager server. When the PCs are added to the Configuration

Manager inventory, employees receive automated email notices advising them to initiate a “click to upgrade” process. The upgrade is implemented in about 120 minutes per computer. The Configuration Manager client software is deployed along with the Windows 7 software.

The companies are deploying Windows 7 to about nine PC models. In the past, JM was forced to create and deploy a separate client image for each model, a complex and time-consuming process. Using Configuration Manager, JM only needs a single image for all of its PCs, and customizes that image with a driver package appropriate to each model. Application software is deployed the same way. Instead of including all applications on the single image, JM uses Configuration Manager to deploy applications in response to user profiles and requests.

JM uses desktop and application virtualization, and Configuration Manager supports these technologies, too. The company uses Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to deliver user-specific desktop images to any authorized device, and Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) packages for self-service application delivery. Wedefelt expects JM to use Configuration Manager to deploy these virtual operating systems and application packages, in addition to the traditional Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) application packages.

JM is contemplating taking greater advantage of Configuration Manager in other ways, such as antivirus protection. The company used McAfee antivirus and Internet security software on its Windows

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“We were going to plan and test with prerelease software. We didn’t have the knowledge we needed to be an early adopter. Logica did.”

Anderz Wedefelt, System Manager, JM

XP deployments, but expects to adopt System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection which is integrated with Configuration Manager for the Windows 7 PCs. The move will save JM the extra licensing and staffing expenses of McAfee, and what Wedefelt describes as the greater manual administration and slower update times associated with McAfee software, compared to Configuration Manager.

Wedefelt notes that JM is at the start of its use of Configuration Manager, and he envisions using the software over time to achieve entirely new levels of efficiency. For example, the company is now evaluating the power management capabilities of Configuration Manager. It could use them to shut down PCs over nights and weekends, when not in use, and power them up on weekday mornings before employees return to their desks and other work locations. The company is also contemplating adopting Microsoft System Center capabilities such as those found in Microsoft System Center 2012 – Service Manager, to boost the productivity of its help desk operations.

BenefitsJM is using Microsoft System Center 2012 Configuration Manager to support a people-centric software model, boost IT efficiency, and even anticipates that it will help to win significant new revenue.

Gains User-Centric Software Model to Boost Employee Productivity, SatisfactionJM wanted a highly people-centric computing environment, and that’s what it has with Configuration Manager. The biggest beneficiaries of this model are, of

course, the users. When desktop configurations and applications follow employees across the company, there’s no need for them to delay important work processes or answers to data-driven questions until they can get back to their desks. That’s a particular benefit as employees increasingly move between offices and project sites. Not only can employees be productive at remote locations, but they don’t need to bring their laptops along with them; they can simply bring up their desktops and applications on any authorized PC at the remote site.

“I was disappointed with old models that made the computer the only relevant destination for software distribution,” says Wiik. “With Microsoft System Center, the user is an equal destination. That’s a sensational change for users, because now they are in more control of their applications, which means they’re in more control of how and when and where they do their work. There’s a smorgasbord of applications, and the users choose what they want. If users have that level of control, they can be more productive—and more satisfied with their work.”

Expects to Reduce Service Desk Tickets by 10 PercentUsers aren’t the only ones who derive benefits from Configuration Manager―IT staff does, as well. JM has seen major time and cost savings from its use of Configuration Manager for the upgrade to Windows 7, and anticipates further savings as it uses the tool for continuing client management. For example, with the consolidation of its desktop images to a single, golden image, JM saves about 30 percent of the time and cost it formerly

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“The greater reliability and stability we get with Configuration Manager should eliminate 10 percent of the 25,000 service desk tickets we open each year.”

Anderz Wedefelt, System Manager, JM

spent on image maintenance and deployment, and hardware certification.

Many of the greatest IT efficiencies come from the unified IT management infrastructure that JM is developing with Configuration Manager. The “single pane of glass,” or view into IT management, that JM is achieving is quite broad, encompassing both virtual and physical environments, VDI and App-V, multiple desktop models and, when it wishes, mobile devices (including both Microsoft and non-Microsoft phones), the data center, and private cloud.

Wedefelt anticipates further savings from more precise device inventories and more reliable desktop deployments, which will minimize reinstallations and help desk tickets. “The greater reliability and stability we get with Configuration Manager should eliminate 10 percent of the 25,000 service desk tickets we open each year, including those that we saw from the ZENworks client freezing and needing to be reinstalled,” he says. “That does more than save us time and money at the help desk. It also saves employees about four hours of downtime for every time those clients would need to be reinstalled.”

Expects Approximately $73 Million in Additional RevenueWiik also envisions Configuration Manager becoming a major contributor to JM’s bottom line. The company often bids to be the contractor on government projects, such as national roads or airport facilities. Those projects often require that JM adopt application software specified by their government customers—and that they do so on as little as a weekend’s notice. However, it often took two weeks for JM

using ZENworks, to create MSI deployment packages modified to run on each of the Windows XP images. With Configuration Manger, Wiik expects to meet these deployment requirements in just three days, a 70 percent reduction, helping it to capture a far larger share of this business.

“We’re talking about big money in additional business by using Configuration Manager to meet contract terms for rapid software deployment,” he says. “It could well total 500 million Swedish Krona [US$73 million] a year.”

Saves Approximately $293,000 in Licensing CostsThe technology behind Configuration Manager wasn’t the only factor that made the software easy for JM to adopt; the low-cost licensing structure for Configuration Manager was a factor, too.

By licensing Microsoft management technologies rather than those from Novell, JM saves about SEK1.5 million (US$210,000). JM also avoids the need to continue to license the third-party product it formerly used to lock down the Windows XP environment, saving about SEK220,000 (US$30,000). When the company adopts Configuration Manager Endpoint Protection in place of McAfee, it will save another SEK380,000 (US$53,000).

“The saving in licensing fees was another inducement to adopt Configuration Manager,” says Wiik. “It’s an effective management solution—and a cost-effective one, as well.”

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“The saving in licensing fees was another inducement to adopt Configuration Manager. It’s an effective management solution—and a cost-effective one, as well.”Tomas Wiik, Chief Information Officer, JM

Microsoft System Center 2012Microsoft System Center 2012 helps your organization achieve IT as a service by enabling productive infrastructure, predictable applications, and cloud computing on your terms. With System Center 2012, use a self-service model to deliver flexible and cost-effective private cloud infrastructure to your business units while capitalizing on existing data center investments. Applications run your business, so System Center 2012 is designed to offer deep application insight combined with a service-centric approach to help you deliver predictable application services. Finally, by using System Center 2012, you can deliver and consume private and public cloud computing on your terms, with common management experiences across both.

For more information about Microsoft System Center 2012, go to: www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/2012.aspx

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Logica products and services, call (46) (8) 6702000 or visit the website at: www.logica.com

For more information about JM, call (46) (8) 7828700 or visit the website at: www.jm.se

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2012

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft System Center

Configuration Manager 2012

Partner Logica