Workforce
By Matthew Roberts |
Forrester Consulting recently intervieweda decision-maker at alargeNorth Americangrocery retailerabout thecompany’sexperience working with Dell Technologies Services to deployMicrosoft 365 andMicrosoftTeams. The interview was part of aTotal Economic Impact™ (TEI)studyiForresterconductedin March of 2021to better understand how customers benefit from leveraging Dell Technologies Services.
The grocer has 30,000 employees in 1,500 retail stores and 5,800 employees in more than 20 distribution and back-office locations. They realized they needed outside assistance to successfully plan and manage the large-scale deployment. Their internal IT team lacked:
- resourcesneededto managethemigration
- expertise toimplementthenewprocesses
- knowledge about how toensure best practices for Microsoft365
Customers ChoseDell for Experience andApproach
DellTechnologies Serviceswas selected because ofits unique capabilities and experienceworkingwith a similarorganization. The directorof IT services center at the grocerexplained:“Dell Services had done a similar work effort with [another grocery retailer] that had similar challenges that we had. Being able to leverage [Dell’s] experience…made a difference.”
The Dell team recommended using a persona-based rollout strategy to enhance employee experience, promote faster adoption of the new technologies,and reduce costs. Instead of rolling out different technology components sequentially to the entire enterprise, Dell’s plan was todeploy the entire productivity suite to designated groups and tailor change management activities to each group’s persona.
Workforce Personas. Formalworkforce persona research helps IT understand what the workforce needs and wants in order to be productive – and why they want it. Revealing the experience gaps – between what IT provides vs. what employees want – also helps IT understand that a one-size-fits-all approach may not work for every IT service. Personas make it easy for IT to see how it can tailor and market services to the workforce and drive adoption of the right solutions to maximize productivity.
Dell’s Roll Out Process
Dell created the first two personas and then trained the customer’s internal team on how to use the same approach to define additional personas and apply the strategy to other projects.“We asked [Dell] to help us create two separate personas and then to help us understand the recipe they used [so we can] continue to do that work.”
Themigrationbegan with Delldefiningpersonas forthe customer’s5,800 back office and distribution center employees. The Dell team then transitioned these employeesto Microsoft 365,Teams and SharePoint,and migrated themfrom an on-premises Exchange environment to the cloud.“We utilized Dell in two ways: One was to set up the environment, and [the other] was to set up the basic processes and controls around it so that our staff that really didn’t have that knowledge could jump onto the bandwagon and start using it.”
Teams is probably one of the more complex Microsoft 365 apps in terms of planning considerations and the impact it will have on the workforce. It’s important to have a well-thought-out adoption and change management plan that includes how you’ll manage communications, create excitement, and drive adoption with your workforce. Developing workforce personas and user journeys with worker research are the best way to ensure a successful implementation.
It would have taken us three times longer to do this internally.”
SAVINGS = 3 YEARS+$3M
Advantages of Working with DellTechnologies Services
Theadvantages thecustomergained fromworking withDell Technologies Services included:
- ReducedRisk– the Dell team hadalreadysuccessfully planned and managed a similar project for another large grocery retailer.
- SavedTime–time to valuewas reducedfrom 4.5 yearsto 1.5 years.“Itwould have taken us three times longer to do this internally.”
- SavedMoney–$3MinMicrosoftsubscriptioncostswere saved becausethe software wasdeployedmuch faster.“You’re paying for [subscriptions]…whether you deployed it or not.”
- LeveragedInvestments–gainedmore value fromMicrosoft FastTrack.“FastTrack is…very useful for velocity work, [but] they are quick to pass it back to you when it gets complicated. And that’s where we want to leverage Dell.”
- Increased employeeproductivity–employeescouldbenefit from newMicrosoft 365 andTeamscapabilities36 months sooner. “The value is really in the functionality and collaboration that we’re going to have by having everybody on the same level of toolkit.”
In addition,future hardware costs decreased because ofthe migration to the cloud: legacy on-premises hardwarecannowbe reprovisioned for future uses,computer roomspaceis freed up,andpower and cooling costsarelower.“We’re obviously going to retire a significant amount of space that we have in the computer room … [It’s] going to be severely reduced.”
A separate Forrester study of other organizations deploying Microsoft 365 E5 found the ROI to be 203% with a three-year net present value per user of $4,876.iiAnother study of Microsoft Teams found an ROI of 832% with a three-year net present value per user of $5,416.iii
How Do You Get Started?
Making the move toMicrosoft365 and Teams can be a huge productivity boost for your organization, but there’s a lot to navigate. Dell Technologies Consulting Services can help. We have services forMicrosoft 365andMicrosoft Teamsto help organizations like yours plan, design and execute your initiatives. Learn more about this customer’sexperience by reading the complete Forrester TEI.
Download the full TEI Study:ForresterTotal Economic Impact Study: Dell Technologies Services Accelerates Deploymentand Time-to-Valuewith Microsoft 365and Teams.
A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Dell Technologies, April 2021.
Additional Resources:
Associated Forrester Reports
- ForresterStudy:“Usethe Lessons Of 2020to Create Your Anywhere-Work Strategy”, Dec 2020
- ForresterTEIStudy:“The Total Economic Impact™ofMicrosoft Teams,” a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft, April 2019.
Services for Microsoft 365Webpage
- Customer Story: Reviving Investment in Microsoft 365
- eBook‘Microsoft Teams Considerations for Optimizing Worker Experiences’
- Blog: 10 Key Business Considerations When Planning Your Microsoft Office 365 Migration Strategy
- Roundtable Discussion: Executing Your Microsoft 365 Strategy
Services for Microsoft TeamsWebpage
- Video:How Consulting Services helps customers roll-out Microsoft Teams. (1:56)
- Panel Discussion: Microsoft Teams Planning Considerations (11: 40)
- Flipbook: More Ways to Be a Team
Services for Workforce PersonasWebpage
- Blog: 4 Tools and Techniques to Create Change and Empower the Workforce with Personalized Experiences
- Video:How Consulting Services Helps customers with Workforce Personas(1:15)
About the Author: Matthew Roberts
Matt Roberts has been with Consulting Services since 2006. Collaborating with customers for so many years to enable their employees to just get work done, he has a unique perspective on how best to leverage technology that spans Dell’s strategically aligned businesses, the Microsoft ecosystem, and other third party software to achieve real workforce transformations for clients.Matt is passionate about digital transformation, modernizing digital app experiences and developing solutions that make the digital workplace as productive, engaged, and connected as possible.With 20+ years of software and consulting experience, his career has focused on Digital and Web/App Development. He has broad digital strategy, solution and technology architecture expertise; with specific depth in portal, collaboration, digital/web, content mgmt., search, and ITSM solutions.
