Goodbye Labor-Intensive, Hello Light-Touch Deployment for PCs

I was struggling with the right way to convey my excitement in this blog when I ran across this quote from the late senator and astronaut, John Glenn:

“To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way man was meant to operate.”

That’s exactly the challenge and the thrill I wanted to describe.

After decades of working with our customers in every industry you can imagine, we still weren’t satisfied with the way our customers struggled to deploy their PCs, especially in large quantities and for remote and mobile employees. We invested in global research to zero in on the most difficult phases in the process. Sure, the results identified the phases we all know and…well, not love. But the research also helped prioritize the hurdles. Configuration – imaging, BIOS, tagging etc. – was number one, but scratch the surface just a bit more and the research revealed a hidden desire shared across almost all of the respondents: more direct control of and visibility into the whole process.

The bottom line: IT managers need to focus on their critical initiatives instead of deployment tasks and employees need a fully configured system that works right out of the box – with the launch of the ProDeploy Client Suite, we’re delivering that experience!

An office with several Dell monitors

By alleviating and/or automating time-consuming, labor-intensive deployment tasks and addressing planning, dashboard visibility, configuration, integration and post-project needs, we’ve enabled our customers’ administrators and service partners to deploy PCs with greater speed, less effort and more control…to empower their doers quickly and easily.

Plus, depending on the customer’s needs, the suite has three offers that align to common deployment scenarios:

  • Basic Deployment: We prepare the systems for deployment in the factory. They arrive with the image loaded, BIOS configured, and asset tag applied.
  • ProDeploy: includes all the features of Basic Deployment and coordination of all aspects of installation and configuration of hardware and system software, including up-front planning, 24×7 onsite installation, and post-deployment knowledge transfer. You can also use our ImageAssist tool to quickly create, deploy and maintain a single cross-platform dynamic image.
  • ProDeploy Plus: has all the capabilities in ProDeploy and a distribution point for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager in the factory, data migration with secure data wipe of legacy systems, training credits, 30-day post-deployment support, and a dedicated ProSupport Technical Account Manager.1

For customers who want to have control and visibility of the project, there’s TechDirect, a self-service portal that allows customers and partners to easily direct and control their projects with less risk of mistakes, making the entire engagement more efficient and effective.

The results? A third-party lab tested ProDeploy Plus and was able to deploy PCs up to 35 percent faster.2 Couple that with IDC’s finding that ProDeploy Plus provides a cost savings of up to $620 per PC3 and you have an absolute winner. How’s that for “influencing” your fate?

This is also good news for our channel partners and the customers they serve. Our channel partners have the flexibility to resell or co-deliver these services and are now fully enabled with a framework designed to supplement their capabilities, grow their services revenue and deliver their customers the best possible deployment experience.

We are not “sitting back and letting fate play its hand out.” We identified the challenge and went to work. With ProDeploy Client Suite, we are providing the right tools, processes and experts for a powerful deployment “one-two” punch, reducing risk and saving significant time and cost. Want to learn more? There are links below or send me an email.

The ProDeploy Client Suite is available for Dell Latitude, OptiPlex and Precision systems in 70 countries across the globe. Check out more details in today’s press release, and for the latest news from Dell EMC Services, follow @DellEMCServices or @DellProSupport on Twitter.

1Available for ProSupport Plus customers who qualify for a Technical Account Manager

2Based on May 2016 Principled Technologies Report commissioned by Dell. Testing results extrapolated from a 10-system deployment to project time savings for larger deployment compared to in-house manual deployment. Actual results will vary. Full report: http://bit.ly/2hgCBrO

3Based on IDC White Paper commissioned by Dell, “The Business Value of Utilizing Deployment Services,” July 2016. Results derived from a survey of 550 organizations. Savings calculated on a Tier 3 deployment. Cost savings in U.S. Dollars. Actual results will vary. Full report: http://dell.to/2gnfFFX

 

About the Author: John Moody

John Moody serves as Vice President of Client Solutions Services Product Group. In this role, John is responsible for the worldwide design, development and marketing of Dell Support and Deployment services for all client units such as PCs, Thin Clients, Notebook’s and IoT. John has 21 years of Services, Sales/Online Marketing and Product Marketing experience at Dell. Prior to joining Dell in 1996, John worked in Insurance and Health Care Systems Integration for Electronic Data Systems for 8 years. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 1985 with a BBA in Accounting, John worked for Coopers & Lybrand, auditing and consulting in a variety of industries. John is a native Texan who currently lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Lea. John enjoys running, biking and water skiing. He has two children, 26 year old daughter Maddie who also works in the technology industry and 24 year old son Jacob, a university student in Austin.