DESTIL Prolians wanted to offer its employees a modern workspace that would allow people to work when and where they chose. IT needed to provide everyone with the same user experience that would make it easy to find and use applications and tools while also being easy for IT to manage remotely. They ultimately chose Application Workspace (formerly Liquit Workspace) and the Release & Patch Management module.
DESTIL
From a small shop in 1865, Destil has grown into the leading wholesaler and supplier of the widest assortment of products and services for the construction and industrial sectors in the Netherlands. The market leader’s fully automatic warehouse gives them the ability to deliver their thousands of stocked items quickly and efficiently throughout the country.
While 35 physical points of sale offer a great deal of convenience for customers preferring pickup, DESTIL has developed a strong distribution and fulfillment network for customers and webshops. This gives its customers, which include national and regional contractors and subcontractors, the speed and convenience they demand. DESTIL provides the same level of service to its customer base of self-employed workers, carpenters, interior builders, building material traders, and B2B/B2C webshops.
Improved collaboration and uniformity in work
As an innovative company, DESTIL Prolians recognized the benefits of facilitating a modern workspace designed to empower employee collaboration. The goal was to offer devices and applications their workforce needed to do the job anywhere and anytime. This would require a modern workspace with a central dashboard where the workspace would ensure all needed tools, applications, and services are reachable from every device. According to Harold Brants, who had been DESTIL ICT-Team Coordinator at the time of the project, they were looking for a solution that could provide everyone with the same experience:
“We reached out to our implementation and IT partner KNNS and let them know we were interested in a workspace with characteristics of simplicity and easy approachability. It would need to be suitable for people who have limited or no IT experience.”
One portal for every need
KNNS started with the underlying infrastructure comprising Microsoft Azure cloud services and Microsoft 365. An early demonstration of Application Workspace used the Synigo Pulse digital workspace and social intranet platform. This would enable them to make local applications available in a simple way when integrated with Recast Software’s Application Workspace. “KNNS had implemented the DESTIL workspace, which was a combination of Microsoft Autopilot, Intune, and Synigo Pulse with Application Workspace and the Release & Patch Management module, explained Harold.”
As a Recast Software partner, KNNS was fully trained on Release & Patch Management. This allowed them to design and implement the IT infrastructure and support the DESTIL Prolians IT team to relieve any learning curve burdens. “With over 5,000 updated applications in the Recast Software application catalog, they can easily add, change and automatically update them, so we don’t have to grant rights for every individual PC since Application Workspace takes that worry off our hands,” said Harold.
The applications and services needed by employees are provided via Application Workspace’s Smart Icons, which are available from a central dashboard. These Smart Icons give user-based contextual access to applications like Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams, and SharePoint. “By implementing Application Workspace and the Release & Patch Management module, we can add any other application (or service) as part of a single portal to everything from the CRM system to our own webshop,” explained Harold. “The platform is flexible, fast, and scalable in ways that make it easy to commission new devices and keep applications up to date.”
Even with KNNS managing the Application Workspace environment, the internal DESTIL Prolians IT team can easily perform maintenance and updates remotely. To ensure that the workspace met internal expectations, the team initially started with about 20 employees and found they could immediately work within the new environment. Response was positive, especially because of the intuitive self-service web page where employees can select the applications they need with just a click.
“The new method of working caught on immediately because it is unnecessary for our end-users to come back to the office to have the physical device updated, which is a tremendous benefit,” explained Harold. “Our workforce isn’t interested in the technical aspects of the backend; they just want to do their job. To guarantee that, we have made Application Workspace available for the entire organization.”
No stress with Application Workspace
DESTIL Prolians has been working with Application Workspace (formerly Liquit Workspace) for well over a year and a half, which has continued to work well, according to Harold:
“The platform added enormous value for us, and we cannot imagine doing our work without it. The current team can easily create Smart Icons remotely, adapt software when needed, and do it all without needing physical access to the approximately 350 physical PCs and laptops. This saves hours of the IT staff’s time and a lot of money that would have gone to hiring people to get the work done before Application Workspace. KNNS provides remote management of the platform for us, and the license pays for itself.”
“Application Workspace also removes the stress in choice of software for our employees. Everybody knows how to access a web page, so our employees can find the tiles with the desired content, on the workspace web page portal, which makes it very easy to use, even for the older generation. Our credo of ‘We Win Together’ certainly applies in this context!”