InterTAN Canada Ltd.
National Retail Chain is Sold on Windows Vista
|
|
Company Overview
With many years in the retail business, InterTAN/The Source by Circuit City is one of the most recognizable brands in the technology retail space. Under the flagship brand, The Source by Circuit City, the retailer is headquartered in Barrie, Ontario where it supports more than 800 shopping locations, the corporate Web site, and store support centre staff. In retail, the customer is priority one, and in order to maintain customer excellence, The Source by Circuit City strives to equip its employees with the latest expertise in technologies – both in-store and behind the scenes. Today, The Source by Circuit City has an IT staff of 34 employees and three regional support representatives who have the responsibility to deploy new programs, as well as the upkeep of nearly 4,000 desktops across the country.
Business Challenge
Previously, the retailer was running Windows® XP operating system on all desktops, and Windows Server System® 2003, but The Source by Circuit City knew it was time to upgrade to the latest technologies for its desktops.
“Windows XP delivers great security, but the deployment process was too cumbersome as we had no hardware standardization across The Source,” explains Doreen Bark, Change Management/Security Compliance Coordinator, The Source By Circuit City. “This meant that we had a number of individual desktop images for all of our PCs and laptops, so our IT staff had several individual images to manually maintain.”
However, an even bigger concern for The Source by Circuit City was the time its IT staff required to build an image for a new laptop or PC coming into the environment.
“Every time we had a new hire or had an existing mobile employee update their laptop, one of our IT employees had to deploy a new image for that computer,” says Bark. “Sometimes it took days, so our deployment and maintenance expenditures were becoming too high.”
|
Solution
When looking to find a solution for its IT challenges, The Source called upon HP Canada, a Microsoft endorsed Worldwide Prime Integrator for Exchange Server 2007, Windows Vista™ and the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. HP Services (HPS) has one of the world’s largest, most specialized forces of consultants and support professionals to help companies realize the benefits of Office, Windows Vista and Exchange. HP’s long-term heritage of consulting experience, proven hardware infrastructure and management software, together with Microsoft products and technologies is a winning combination for The Source.
“Businesses can count on HP to help plan, design, implement and support an infrastructure that includes the new Microsoft products,” said Reg Schade, Vice President, General Manager, HP Services, HP Canada. “HP Services takes a holistic approach to enterprise Microsoft engagements and has the ability to work across platforms. Through HP Services, a business can mitigate operational, financial and legal risks and define, document and implement a Vista security program that streamlines how an organization manages and reacts to a security event and prevents incidents from happening.”
Almost immediately after implementation, The Source saw the value the new operating system brought to its IT staff, as well to the rest of its employees. Windows Vista connects people to information, enables mobile and remote productivity, reduces deployment and support costs, and provides a secure and compliant desktop platform.
Business Benefits
Since bringing Windows Vista into its environment, The Source by Circuit City has dramatically reduced its IT support costs, provided more security for both its in-house and mobile staff members, provided better content management tools for its employees, and increased efficiency across the board.
“As a leading retailer in Canada, staying current on technologies is important,” explains Weeks. “Having the latest and greatest in-house, means that when Windows Vista becomes available to consumers, we already have that expertise and can better provide for our customers. It also ensures that our staff has access to the productivity and collaboration tools they need to be successful”
Reduced IT support costs
The Source’s primary goal was to reduce the amount of IT time and support costs involved in deploying and managing their PCs, and Windows Vista has allowed them to do just that. New features like the file based Windows Imaging Format enabled the Source by Circuit City to save real dollars in managing and deploying their PCs. Previously, managing desktops was an escalating expense, with IT departments having to maintain and test separate OS images for each language and computer hardware type in their company. With Windows Vista’s new imaging technology, The Source by Circuit City was able to deploy a single OS image to different types of computer hardware and machines with different language requirements.
“Previously, our IT staff needed to support multiple images which could cause delays for our users,” says Margo Weeks, Vice President, The Source by Circuit City. “With Windows Vista in place, offering single-image deployment and zero-touch maintenance, we have been able to dramatically reduce our IT support costs.”
Improved Security
Security was a key focus for Microsoft in developing its new operating system, and Windows Vista has delivered buttoned-up security for The Source by Circuit City, with a bi-directional firewall enabled by default, and new built-in features like User Account Control, Windows Defender, and Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption
“Desktop security is a concern for any business and Windows Vista provides us with more control over our whole organization,” says Bark. “Starting with User Account Control, we are rolling-out our staff as Standard Users and not as Local Administrators on their PCs/laptops, as was the normal setting before. This provides users with the applications they need, while also ensuring that foreign applications which pose possible network security threats, are approved by IT before being installed.”
Security improvements in Internet Explorer 7 also provide better security for The Source by Circuit City staff. “As users surf the Web, the new version of Internet Explorer highlights any potential phishing threats before the user can continue to view the page; it makes security easy and virtually seamless for our staff,” says Bark.
Enabling its Mobile Workforce
With regional offices across the country, and a growing population of laptop users in the organization, Windows Vista helps address the concerns of a disparate and mobile workforce at The Source.
“The flexibility for sales staff and regional managers to be able to work from anywhere is essential for our business, but security is always a significant concern,” says Weeks. “With Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption providing full hard drive encryption we can rest assured knowing the confidential business information on those laptops is safe and inaccessible outside of the organization.”
In addition, Windows Vista provides laptop users with a better mobile experience. “Another great feature is the ability to create ad hoc networks on the fly with Windows Meeting Space,” says Bark. “Mobile workers can come into our store support centre – or anywhere they do business – and share a presentation from their wifi-enabled desktop over these improvised wireless networks – it’s that easy.”
Increased Efficiency
Working with HP, The Source had anticipated reduced IT costs and improved security, but Windows Vista has provided unexpected value by increasing overall efficiency.
“Everyone loves the new Windows Vista user interface, the Aero functionality, and the free desktop gadgets, but more importantly, it makes their everyday tasks easier,” says Bark. “We have a user who works daily with a customer application built on top of Microsoft Office TM Excel® macros. Previously it took the program several minutes to boot up. Now running on Vista, it takes mere seconds.”
In addition to improved program performance and memory management, Windows Vista offers The Source staff further visible efficiencies with its search capabilities. “Our staff raves about the new Desktop Search feature in Vista. Search is far more intuitive in this operating system, and faster – all of this means we anticipate ROI in productivity too,”says Bark.
Microsoft Windows Vista
Windows Vista can help your organization use information technology to gain a competitive advantage in today’s new world of work. Your people will be able to find and use information more effectively. You will be able to support your mobile work force with better access to shared data and collaboration tools. And your IT staff will have better tools and technologies to enhance corporate IT security, data protection, and more efficient deployment and management.
For more information about Windows Vista, go to:www.microsoft.com/windowsvista
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com
For more information about Hewlett-Packard products and services, call 1-(800)-227-8164 or visit the Web site at: www.hp.ca
For more information about The Source By Circuit City products and services, call 1-866-454-4426 or visit the Web site at: www.TheSourceCC.com
