Hauzer Techno Coating is a pioneer in the advanced coating industry, with a mission to take a leading position in sustainable technologies. To get there, the growing company needs solutions like Application Workspace to help their globally-based employees work smarter and more efficiently with self-service capabilities.
With a methodical approach to shoring up vulnerabilities and advancing technology capabilities, Hauzer IT Manager Michel van den Einden has set specific continuous improvement goals for the last few years. The IT department has been improving serviceability, which they identified as an important area. They also needed to improve the process for application approvals, installations, and updates in a major way.
The team first explored the Microsoft Autopilot function of Windows as a viable solution for onboarding devices without needing IT help desk support. They found the technology did not meet the expectations for ease of use and a uniform approach to installing applications. While internal scripting expertise enabled them to also try PowerShell as a potential solution, it did not meet the need for end user serviceability.
Faster with self-service as a priority
“The ideal application installation solution should be faster and be presented to the user in a way that allows everyone to help themselves,” says van den Einden. “We needed something different than Microsoft Autopilot or scripting to avoid the hell of application installation from an IT department perspective.”
After initial conversations with the internal Hauzer IT team, a Netherlands-based partner was chosen, IT-Value to work on a proof-of-concept production and ultimately help with implementing the project.
After reviewing the Application Workspace capabilities, especially in application installation, van den Einden determined it met many of the objectives he was looking for and more. Some of these advantages include:
- Cloud-based applications access — via connectors
- End user self-service — creating a uniform, fast and seamless way to install applications for all the company’s users without the need for a help desk ticket
- Trouble-free deployment — especially with new application updates to the endpoints
- Automatic updates — no need for IT resources to spend time on the constant stream of patches and updates needed for numerous applications
- Doing more with less — it was vital to have a solution that could save time and money for a booming company with a small IT department and limited resources.
Application Workspace is rolled out to the delight of end users
The Hauzer IT department deployed the solution to its worldwide end users with excellent results. This was especially true in the highly prioritized areas of application installation, easy use, self-service, and freeing up their IT department to focus on vital tasks and higher priorities.
“My philosophy is rather than having software that is difficult to install or maintain, it should have software that you just set it and forget it,” says van den Einden. “It was my goal to maintain that kind of IT environment. I achieved this for a lot of programs with the use of Application Workspace and connecting it to the setup store.” The Hauzer team opted for the cloud-based option versus an on-premises solution to give them the flexibility and ability to move some applications to the cloud, which was a real time-saver. Van den Einden explained how this establishes a completely automated approval and installation process for the end user to choose and get the applications they want and prefer to use in their digital workspace and devices:
“The user doesn’t care whether the application is on-premises or cloud. It’s completely transparent to them. There’s no need to ask, ‘Can I have this program?’ or ‘Do you want to set up this license for me?’ We have the approval workflow running so I can okay an app and purchase a license for the user that we easily and quickly it up, so now I don’t have to do anything other than changing the shortcut in the workspace. Plus, the automatic updates provide an important capability that will yield more benefits as we move more and more to the cloud.”
The company is still in what van den Einden calls the “first phase” where the solution is operational, with significant results coming in the form of positive feedback from end users early on after the deployment.
“My end users are surprised and say, ‘this is so easy,’ or ‘this is really fun.’ They don’t need to wait because the applications are immediately available,” says van den Einden. “They don’t need to wait on IT to install the software they want or ask where it is because it’s there in the catalog. So, I can just forward them a ticket and tell them, ‘Here it is,’ and they can easily do it themselves, which works very well for everyone.
It’s equally important that the solution has garnered rave reviews from the entire IT department, according to van den Einden: “It’s great to see that my team also loves Application Workspace because of the flexibility that empowers them to do so much with it so simply, which is a real time-saver.”