Customer Solution Case Study
/ Shop-at-Home Retailer Helps Mobile Employees Work Efficiently from Anywhere
“With DirectAccess, our people can connect to the corporate network and work productively from anywhere in the world.”
Shop Direct Group spokesperson
Home shopping and online retailer Shop Direct Group is embracing mobile working as a way to reduce office costs and increase flexibility for staff. To support this strategy, the company is deploying Windows 7 with DirectAccess on more than 800 portable computers. Mobile personnel can now access the corporate network seamlessly, wherever they’re working. What’s more, the IT team can update computers remotely, increasing security and minimising management costs.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published July 2010
Business Needs
Shop Direct Group is one of the largest online and shop-at-home retailers in the United Kingdom. The company, which employs 10,000 people, incorporates 11 well-known brands, including Littlewoods, Very, Woolworths, Marshall Ward, Kays, and Great Universal. With a strong heritage as a catalogue retailer, the Shop Direct Group goal is to make 70 per cent of its sales come through its Web sites.
To stay ahead of its competitors, Shop Direct Group wanted to offer powerful, innovative IT services to its employees. “Our corporate culture is changing along with our customers, who increasingly shop online,” says a Shop Direct Group spokesperson. “We have new offices, we no longer have a dress code for work, and we’re investing in the latest technologies that attract young, talented people.”
One key Shop Direct Group technology initiative aims to improve the experience of mobile information workers. “Buyers, merchandisers and other employees work all over the world and we wanted to make it easier for them to connect to corporate applications and data,” says the spokesperson. “Another key goal is to extend remote, flexible, and home working opportunities to many more employees in different roles in the future—reducing office costs and business travel and lowering carbon emissions.”
To provide a seamless experience for mobile workers and to support its ambitious remote working plans, Shop Direct Group needed to replace its existing virtual private network (VPN) infrastructure. “Our VPN was slow, unreliable, and difficult to use,” says the spokesperson. “In addition, end users had to bring portable computers into the office for routine maintenance, reducing efficiency and making it hard to keep them secure and up to date.”
Solution
To address these issues, Shop Direct Group engaged premier U.K. IT service provider and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Eurodata Systems to help build a new remote working solution based on Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway 2010, Windows 7, and DirectAccess.
Eurodata helped Shop Direct Group create a pilot for the solution in January 2010. After a two-week testing period, Eurodata designed and built the live deployment, and helped upgrade more than 300 portable computers to Windows 7 with DirectAccess. “The Microsoft solution implemented by Eurodata has been a great success,” says the Shop Direct Group spokesperson. “It gives mobile workers the same IT experience they’d have in the office—from virtually any Internet connection.”
Forefront Unified Access Gateway and DirectAccess replace the previous Shop Direct Group VPN solution. “Our existing VPN wasn’t user friendly, so we had to teach employees to use it,” says the Shop Direct Group spokesperson. “By contrast, DirectAccess does everything for you, so mobile workers can now get online and connect to the corporate network easily with no training.”
The Shop Direct Group IT team can now manage and update portable computers, as soon as they connect to the Internet. “We can send out the latest application and security updates even before users log on to the corporate network,” says the Shop Direct Group spokesperson. “This helps us make all machines secure and means employees no longer have to bring portable computers into the office for maintenance.”
As well as providing seamless connectivity to the corporate network from portable computers running Windows 7, DirectAccess offers a range of additional remote working features. “Employees can use DirectAccess to log on to the Shop Direct Group portal from any Internet-connected device,” says the spokesperson. “They can then access their work computers remotely, use a range of hosted productivity applications, download documents from shared drives and check their e-mail messages.”
In the next phase of the remote working project, Eurodata will help the Shop Direct Group IT team upgrade more than 500 additional computers. In the future, an even greater number of employees will receive computers to support the company’s flexible working strategy.
Benefits
Shop Direct Group mobile workers can now access key applications and data seamlessly from outside the office. “With DirectAccess, our people can connect to the corporate network and work productively from anywhere in the world,” says the Shop Direct Group spokesperson. “This opens the doors to a range of new flexible and remote working opportunities that will help us lower office real-estate costs, minimise business travel, and support greener working.”
- Improved employee productivity. DirectAccess helps Shop Direct Group staff connect to the corporate network quickly and reliably, maximising the value of time spent away from the office. “We’re giving employees the same experience from inside and outside the office,” says the spokesperson. “That means they can work efficiently whether they’re travelling, at a coffee shop with Wi-Fi, or at home.”
- Increased convenience for end users. The Shop Direct Group IT team can now perform computer maintenance and updates remotely. “Users no longer bring their portable computers into the office for routine maintenance. That saves us time and significantly reduces our management costs,” says the Shop Direct Group spokesperson.
- Enhanced IT security. The IT team can now help ensure all computers receive regular security updates. “With DirectAccess, we can deploy security updates as soon as remote users connect to the Internet. If a new vulnerability emerges, we can update portable computers within 10 to 15 minutes, wherever in the world they’re connected,” says the Shop Direct Group spokesperson.
- Reduced training requirement.Mobile Shop Direct Group employees can access the corporate network remotely with no training at all. “Previously, we had to give people an hour’s training to help them understand and use our VPN client,” says the Shop Direct Group spokesperson. “With DirectAccess, we can get them up and running in a matter of minutes, delivering massive time savings and cost cuts.”
- Better compliance with Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulationsAs Shop Direct Group offers credit to customers, it must comply with all FSA requirements. “DirectAccess helps to provide a secure environment based on IP security for authentication and encryption,” says the Shop Direct Group spokesperson. “As a result, we comply fully with the information management requirements of the FSA.”
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published July 2010