Unilever (UK)

Firm Expects Easy-to-Use Smartphone to Improve Employee Productivity

The IT team at Unilever looks for technologies that employees can use to improve productivity. Unilever approved Windows Phone 7 for use because it offers an interface that integrates work and personal user experiences so that employees can focus on their job—without losing touch with friends and family. Also, Unilever developers can use the Windows Phone platform to build applications that deliver anytime, anywhere productivity through one device.

Business Needs
Unilever was created in 1930 by the amalgamation of British soap maker Lever Brothers and Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie. Today, Unilever offers more than 400 brands that span 14 categories of home, personal care, and food products.

The company’s IT department selects the right tools and technologies for the work force to boost employee productivity and satisfaction. The IT team supports approximately 10,000 mobile devices, about 2,000 of which are smartphones. Unilever only supports smartphones that interoperate seamlessly with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 messaging and collaboration software and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync technology.

“We offer smartphones to give employees the lifestyle and ease of use benefits that you get with reliable access to email from your mobile device,” says Glynn Stanton, Communications Architecture Manager at Unilever. “To comply with our IT policies, the smartphone has to be Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync 2.5–compliant so that we can enforce password policies.”

Currently, the company supports six smartphones. However, it has not gone unnoticed at Unilever that more and more people are bringing their personal phones into the workplace. “The whole consumer market is driving the types of applications and level of sophistication in how people want to use these phones,” says Stanton. “In the IT department, we need to stay ahead of our employees’ knowledge so that we appear proactive and can influence our users, rather than be led by them.”

Solution
When Microsoft invited Unilever to join the Windows Phone 7 Rapid Deployment Program (RDP) in September 2010, the company was very interested in testing the new technology. Windows Phone offered a compelling blend of corporate and consumer features and functionality. Unilever employees can use the Office Hub feature to view, edit, and comment on Microsoft Office documents, record meetings with the Microsoft Office OneNote Mobile note-taking program, and access and share files from Microsoft SharePoint sites. Part of the company’s goal in joining the RDP program was to evaluate the smartphone’s candidacy for the company’s list of approved smartphones.

Unilever is absolutely going to endorse Windows Phone 7 for our employees. It’s a compelling alternative to other smartphones, it works with Microsoft Exchange Server, and it meets our security requirements. Glynn Stanton Communications Architecture Manager, Unilever

After business partners and technical staff in Trumbull, Connecticut used the Windows Phones, it didn’t take long for the company’s IT staff to add Windows Phone 7 to its list of corporate-sanctioned smartphones. “Unilever is going to approve Windows Phone 7 for our employees as part of our 'Bring your Own' program,” says Stanton. “Windows Phone 7 is a compelling alternative to other smartphones, it works with Microsoft Exchange Server, and it meets our security requirements.”

“The RDP helped us to understand how we can take advantage of the nuances of Windows Phone 7,” says Chris Parchinski, Communications Architect at Unilever. “We wanted to learn more about the Windows Phone to stay ahead of the curve because some of our employees have already bought the phone.” One such employee is Justin Bennett, Lead Architect - Integration at Unilever. Bennett is excited about using the Microsoft Visual Studio development system and his Microsoft Silverlight 4 application development skills to build applications for Windows Phone 7.

Benefits
Unilever expects that the ease of use and integrated business and personal user scenarios with the Windows Phone 7 will improve productivity. “We’re learning how Windows Phone 7 can add value to our employees’ work experience,” says Parchinski. “And because Windows Phone blurs the boundaries between work and personal lives, we may also be gaining an opportunity to understand consumer behavior.”

Integrated User Experience
“My Windows Phone 7 is linked to my work and personal email and calendars,” says Bennett. “To have one phone that hosts personal and corporate access to email, social media, and documents is very beneficial. For a business trip, I added details of the venue in my laptop using Office OneNote and synced them to my phone. Then, as I travelled through the city, I could refer to the replicated data for images, address details, and notes. I saved 10 to 15 minutes not having to look up that information on my laptop.”

Stanton agrees. “I like the blurring between social and business worlds. The fact that I get my Facebook updates on the same phone that I use to look at my Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets, and documents simplifies my life.”

Ease of Use
Reviewers at Unilever cited ease of use as a major factor that bodes well for quickly improving business and personal productivity. “The two interface styles [pivot/landscape] are excellent and simple,” says Bennett. “My children quickly grasped how to slide, pinch, and double tap to easily play games and to navigate photos and videos.”

“I like the idea of getting and reviewing PowerPoint decks, Excel spreadsheets, and Word documents on my mobile phone and I found the whole Office Hub very easy to use and intuitive,” adds Stanton.

Rich Development Platform
Bennett is also looking forward to creating applications using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Silverlight 4 that will work with both smartphones and PCs and that connect directly to Microsoft Exchange Server–based or Microsoft SharePoint Server–based solutions or customized Unilever applications.

“Developing for multiple platforms is costly, so to simplify that process using Windows Phone 7 would save money,” says Bennett. “I’m looking forward to porting a key application I designed for Capacity/Architecture in Europe to be accessible via Windows Phone 7. To be able to navigate information intuitively in corporate applications and access that data while in meetings or travelling—that’s going to make people more efficient, and the gains to Unilever will start to stack up.”

For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit:
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