Starting point.
Vaudoise has been providing some of its workforce with a mobile workplace for the last ten years. With this project, Vaudoise wanted to now provide all of its employees with a new work environment. By providing everyone with the same device, Vaudoise has been able to enable its entire team to access their information, anywhere, any time.
With more than 120 years of experience, and always wanting to stay at the cutting edge, Vaudoise is positioning itself as a mobile, modern, and technologically equipped employer, making it attractive to future recruits. This workplace should reflect the image Vaudoise wants to project, as the company selected “best employer 2018” by Bilan magazine in the banking and insurance category.
Project objectives.
Firstly, to ensure Vaudoise workforce mobility, each employee having their own mobile device, namely a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet. Additionally, by providing employees with the same type of device, our customer is creating a universal workplace. Every workspace is equipped with a docking station that’s compatible with Microsoft Surface Pro tablets, so everyone can connect wherever they want within Vaudoise’s offices. This also allows for enhanced communication between headquarters and agencies and links between the company’s various entities.
Challenge.
“In general, the project needed to fulfil a lean organisational need, especially in the context of rollout carried out every 4 years. It also had to be implemented within a short time period, during the summer, the quiet period in the insurance cycle. This dictated precise and rigorous organisation, and our call for tenders was very explicit on this point”, explains Patrick Lilli, Head of IT Infrastructure at Vaudoise.
This crucial specification was the cornerstone to the call for tenders our teams responded to, we had to respect this short and precise time window. “This constraint required a special skill that the Bechtle teams have shown they posses,” explained Renaud Sériès.
In this way, we worked in collaboration with our Swiss German branches to be able to provide our customer with a suitable solution. In addition to this collaboration within the group, we also joined our forces internally with the Project & Managed Service and Skills Management departments coming together. These diverse collaborations enabled us to find the best solution, both in terms of technology and deployment and follow up of the project. We were able to provide a simple model by migration type for all Vaudoise locations across the whole of Switzerland, totalling 113 sites. At the end of each site’s migration, we conducted a survey of each user to measure the level of satisfaction in relation to expertise and interpersonal skills of our technicians and Bechtle employees. We also collaborated with our customer to measure the rate of satisfaction with the change to each individual’s workplace. Over the four months of the project, a weekly status update meeting was held with the IT teams and a monthly status update with the project team.
“The members of Bechtle’s teams perfectly adapted to Vaudoise’s values, making them at one with our teams and employees, as if they were a new part of our own company. We received excellent support in terms of both content and form, which was crucial for us,” Renaud Sériès tells us.
The Bechtle team have demonstrated solid skills, and the right people were made available as part of the rollout logistics. Bechtle knew how to keep its promises, supply and deliver the services we hired it for.
Renaud Sériès, Modern workplace team leader, Vaudoise
Solution.
Our Bechtle teams performed the who project from start to finish, carrying out and implementing end-to-end migration. First of all, managing decommissioning of the old devices and then redistributing all mobile devices—refurbished and new—across all Vaudoise users. Our engineers were also tasked with deploying the latest version of Windows 10 across the entire IT fleet. This made for a particularly innovative concept because all machine staging was performed with 4G technology. The Vaudoise teams realised an extension of their network in order to enable the Bechtle teams to stage in their premises, creating high flexibility and establishing a single staging location. Once all the equipment was ready to use, Bechtle project workers guided the Vaudoise users in getting to grips with their new workplace.
“Bechtle's teams demonstrated real expertise and proposed tangible solutions. They mobilised the right resources, their teams integrated into our company, and respected Vaudoise values—proximity, reliability, approachability. Additionally, from a practical point of view, the fine stock management in Bechtle’s offices and their logistics skills were exemplary,” says Renaud Sériès.
Business benefits.
“Mobility has been boosted—everyone can connect in any location they need to thanks to the self-service workplace. This approach also benefits our employees’ quality of life and environment by limiting travel and shortening distances to the workplace. Another major challenge was the change of culture with regard to our teams, in enabling employees not to have to work from our headquarters in Lausanne but being able to work from their local branch. 95% percent of our workforce currently use their Surface for working, the project has really borne fruit and everyone has been able to benefit from the flexibility provided,” reports Renaud Sériès.