Baker Tilly simplifies Windows 7 deployment with CA Technologies solutions

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1 Customer success story Baker Tilly simplifies Windows 7 deployment with CA Technologies solutions Customer profile Industry: Professional services Company: Baker Tilly Employees: 2,400 Revenue: 204 million Business Baker Tilly is a leading firm of accountants and business advisors that specialises in providing a range of integrated services such as audit, accountancy, taxation, VAT and management consultancy. Challenge Maximising the time staff and partners spend with clients on fee-earning activities is vital to Baker Tilly s profitability. Providing staff with continuous access to technology is key to this goal. Solution Baker Tilly uses an integrated CA Technologies solution to manage IT incidents, problems and changes. As a result, it can provide a faster response to IT issues and change requests and continually improve performance. Benefit As well as enhancing the quality of day-to-day IT operations, the CA Technologies solutions enabled Baker Tilly to migrate 2,400 users to Microsoft Windows 7 in just four weeks. we can

2 Business Helping clients transform their business visions into reality Baker Tilly is an independent firm of chartered accountants and business advisors. The company has 2,400 employees and 280 partners based across 29 offices throughout the UK, making Baker Tilly a local firm with national capabilities. The company provides a broad range of accountancy and business advisory services that help its customers comply with regulations, facilitate growth and manage their finances more effectively whether they are a large public-sector organisation, an international enterprise or a small business. Baker Tilly s teams of specialists have a wide range of expertise in a variety of disciplines and work in partnership with clients to transform their visions into reality. Challenge Maintaining the time spent in fee-earning activities To maximise its profitability, Baker Tilly needs to ensure that its staff spend as much time as possible with clients and on billable activities. IT downtime can severely impact productivity, which in turn affects our ability to serve clients. Simon Harding-Rolls IT Director, Baker Tilly Providing staff with continuous access to the technologies they require is crucial to achieving this goal. Simon Harding-Rolls, IT Director at Baker Tilly, comments, While the right technologies, such as mobile devices, can help our staff be more efficient, IT downtime can severely impact productivity, which in turn affects our ability to serve clients. 02

3 To safeguard system availability, Baker Tilly s IT department needs a thorough understanding of its IT infrastructure and the ability to track and resolve problems effectively. As well as ensuring the performance of existing systems, Baker Tilly also needs to be able to quickly deploy new technologies that will further enhance staff productivity. David Hilland, Baker Tilly s Deputy Director of IT, comments, Staff are used to having computers at home, so they have high expectations. To maximise the value of IT, we need to be able to respond rapidly to issues and also manage individual change requests and enterprise-wide deployments efficiently. Solution Automated and efficient incident, problem and change management To achieve these goals, Baker Tilly has adopted a solution based on the ITIL framework and CA Technologies integrated IT management and automation solutions for incident, problem and change management. We have used CA Technologies solutions for many years now, and have always found them intuitive and easy to use, comments Harding-Rolls. For example, Baker Tilly has used CA Service Desk Manager since Around 20 level one support staff use the solution to provide IT support to the organisation by tracking 900 incidents, problems and change requests every month. As Hilland explains, End users can log any problems via the CA Service Desk Manager online interface. Using this portal, they can also view the status of their issues and who is dealing with them, which helps to manage their expectations. The CA Technologies solutions integrate seamlessly to provide enhanced efficiency. David Hilland Deputy Director of IT, Baker Tilly The CA Technologies solution also helps the IT department to manage its time more effectively and monitor service levels. Using CA Service Desk Manager, we can view at a glance how many outstanding tickets we have, estimate how quickly they can be resolved, prioritise them appropriately and identify recurring problems, comments Hilland. The solution also provides us with a consistent view of IT service delivery across our 29 UK offices, which aids continuous improvement. 03

4 The resolution process has been further enhanced by CA Remote Control, part of the CA IT Client Manager suite. Using the solution, Baker Tilly can provide remote support services to its offices negating the need to deploy IT personnel at every one of its sites, and in larger offices attend to the users problems more promptly. Daniel Russell, Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Baker Tilly, comments, The ability to take control of a user s computer and experience the problem directly simplifies resolution. This helps to minimise downtime for the user and frees IT staff to work on other problems. While CA Remote Control increases the efficiency of resolving problems, CA Software Delivery enhances change management. This CA IT Client Manager module is used to remotely deploy around 90 percent of the required software to Baker Tilly s staff from standard software bundles to specialist lines of business tools, such as accountancy packages. CA Technologies solutions help safeguard the productivity of our end users. Simon Harding-Rolls IT Director, Baker Tilly As well as simplifying change management through automated processes, CA IT Client Manager also provides essential visibility of Baker Tilly s assets. Information on more than 3,000 desktops, laptops, and physical and virtual servers located at both the firm s datacentres and offices have been captured with the discovery and inventory capabilities of the solution. Using the information from CA IT Client Manager, we know exactly what hardware models we are supporting, comments Russell. The solution also provides central visibility of our software estate, which means when we re-evaluate our licensing requirements we know what is installed on each device. Greater IT maturity and integration Following the success Baker Tilly has continuously achieved with the CA Technologies solutions during the past 12 years, the company has recently upgraded to the latest release of CA Service Desk Manager and CA IT Client Manager and integrated the CA Technologies solutions to provide greater automation. 04

5 The upgrade prompted us to look again at our business processes and identify areas for improvement, comments Hilland. For example, we have implemented CA Service Desk Manager s knowledge management capabilities and have taken the opportunity to integrate CA IT Client Manager with CA Service Desk Manager. As part of this initiative, Baker Tilly also plans to provide users with self-service capabilities for software installations using CA Software Delivery and to implement the CA Patch Management module of CA IT Client Manager to simplify the delivery of security patches. The CA Technologies solutions integrate seamlessly to provide enhanced efficiency, comments Hilland. As our IT management capabilities mature, we plan to take full advantage of this integration. Simplifying the deployment of Windows 7 As well as enhancing the delivery of IT services on a day-to-day basis, the CA Technologies solutions also make it easier for Baker Tilly to evolve its business and supporting systems. For example, the firm used CA IT Client Manager to assist with the recent deployment of Microsoft Windows 7. Jo Pascoe, Baker Tilly s Senior Business Solutions Advisor, comments, We were able to use the various modules of CA IT Client Manager to simplify key stages of the Windows 7 rollout. As a result, we were able to roll out the new operating system to 2,400 users in just four weeks. For example: CA Asset Management: provided comprehensive visibility of the hardware estate, making it easier for the IT team to select the devices that needed to be upgraded. CA Software Delivery: facilitated the automatic deployment of line of business applications. CA OS Installation Management: automated the deployment of the new Windows 7 image and increased efficiency during testing and user acceptance. CA IT Client Manager also played a key role post-deployment, as Hilland explains, With CA Remote Control, we were able to provide more rapid assistance to users while they adjusted to the new operating system. 05

6 Benefit Safeguarding productivity and profitability To ensure it was running the relevant Windows 7 release, Baker Tilly conducted a second migration using the CA Desktop Migration Manager module within CA IT Client Manager. CA Desktop Migration Manager assists with the migration of user settings, other personalisation and also printers, comments Pascoe. Using the latest version of CA IT Client Manager, including these capabilities, we were able to reduce the build time for the entire enterprise to just two and a half weeks. By simplifying change, Baker Tilly can reduce disruption to fee-earning staff while ensuring they are equipped with the latest technologies. The CA Technologies solutions also help Baker Tilly: Enhance the efficiency of the IT team and minimise downtime Maximise the time staff spend with clients and on billable activities. By enabling us to deliver responsive and efficient IT services, CA Technologies solutions help safeguard the productivity of our end users and therefore enhance the firm s overall profitability, concludes Harding-Rolls. Copyright 2010 CA Technologies. All rights reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. This document is for your informational purposes only. CA assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the information. To the extent permitted by applicable law, CA provides this document as is without warranty of any kind, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. In no event will CA be liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, from the use of this document, including, without limitation, lost profits, business interruption, goodwill or lost data, even if CA is expressly advised in advance of the possibility of such damages.