Carlsberg saves time, improves employee experience with Windows 11 and Autopilot, boosts efficiency and security

When J.C. Jacobsen, a Danish brewer, founded Carlsberg in 1847, he launched an iconic brand. The brewery group would go on to become a global presence, establishing itself in more than 125 markets to date. While Carlsberg beverages have always been synonymous with innovation (we have the Carlsberg research laboratory to thank for the invention of the pH scale), the company’s IT organization has an equally innovative vision for employee experiences and technology at the company. “We are always looking for new, more efficient ways for employees to do their jobs,” says Oleksii Giriiev, Service Owner for Endpoint Management and ServiceNow at Carlsberg. Change is part of how Carlsberg plans to continue delivering on its brand promise of innovation and a great place to work. Says Tim Lauridsen, Director of Global Digital Workplace at Carlsberg Group, "By embracing modern and cloud native technologies we have been able to both improve employee experiences and save time.”

For endpoint management, the business embraced Microsoft Intune, along with Windows 11 Enterprise for the latest Windows experience for employees across the company. When it came to deploying and provisioning its 18,500 devices globally, Carlsberg saw an opportunity to create a more efficient process using Windows Autopilot. “We can now enroll devices from anywhere in the world, faster with Windows Autopilot and we are using other Microsoft tools, including Microsoft Intune, Windows 365 Frontline, and Windows 11 Enterprise, to drive efficiency and provide more seamless employee experiences.” 

Saving 30 minutes per device provisioned with Windows Autopilot

Carlsberg employees work in offices, breweries, and from the road, all around the world. With such a distributed workforce, deploying new devices was a time-consuming process. Take, for example, Carlsberg’s sales team which promotes Carlsberg products to restaurants and distributors globally. “The sales force is an important usage scenario for Windows Autopilot,” shares Giriiev. “We have used the service to successfully replace laptops for these highly mobile employees in just a few hours. This would not have been possible using our previous solution.”

In Germany, Carlsberg was able to pre-provision laptops with Autopilot, and in turn was able to replace 40 laptops for members of the sales force to get started right away. Also, in the instance there may be a problem on an end user's laptop, the device can be reset remotely within two hours, instead of requiring the salesperson to physically bring the device in.

While salespeople are an obvious candidate for the cloud-based capabilities of Windows Autopilot, all employees are benefiting from the more efficient device deployment and configuration. Carlsberg can deliver pre-provisioned devices to employees’ homes and uses Windows Autopilot to enable a self-service approach to deployment that takes only up to 15 minutes, including unpacking, to work with the device. In the past, IT employees invested a significant amount of valuable time provisioning devices and much of the process happened in-person. “With Autopilot, we saw an opportunity to drastically reduce the time our on-site support team spent on provisioning new devices,” says Giriiev. “Today, we are saving up to 30 minutes per device. Across 18,500 devices at Carlsberg, that translates to a massive time savings for IT teams.” 

In the past, some employees drove hundreds of kilometers to an office to meet with IT. “All an employee needs now is a Wi-Fi connection and we can provision their device remotely,” says Giriiev. “No one has to drive anywhere, which is supportive of our sustainability goals.” 

Evolving to simplified management and updates with cloud-managed Microsoft Intune

By modernizing processes, Carlsberg has signaled its commitment to a great employee experience and an innovative work environment. “Reducing our on-prem footprint has been a gamechanger. We are able to spend much more time on initiatives that benefit Carlsberg as a business, rather than maintaining IT systems,“ says Lauridsen. 

Carlsberg is adding even more efficiency and further supporting remote work by using Microsoft Intune to manage devices. “With Microsoft Intune, our end-users can install all the permitted applications they need directly to their laptop without waiting for IT on-site support to help them,” says Giriiev. 

Carlsberg has also streamlined how employees access company apps, reducing four platforms to a single application, the Intune Company Portal app for Windows. By consolidating to the Intune Company Portal, Carlsberg has created a more seamless employee experience and reduced confusion. “It’s a step up for users to know that whenever they click install, they can trust that the apps they choose will be installed quickly and reliably,” says Giriiev. 

Carlsberg also uses Windows Update for Business to stay consistently up to date and maintain the most recent security features in Windows 11 Enterprise. For Giriiev, the service helps ensure that updates are seamless. “We use Windows Update for Business to ensure that we have a minimum impact on the business when we deploy security patches or upgrades,” he says. Giriiev mentioned Carlsberg will also look into moving to Autopatch this year.

Improving security and productivity with Windows 11 Enterprise and Windows 365 Frontline

When Giriiev and his colleagues first encountered Windows 11 Enterprise, the release stood out to the team for its inherent security features and design. And, Windows 11 Enterprise fit the team’s future vision. “Carlsberg has been on a digital transformation journey to move device management from on-premises to the cloud with Microsoft Intune. This also means ensuring employees have the latest operating system, Windows 11 Enterprise, so that they don't need to focus on the technology, but on what the business needs to achieve." Initially, the IT team anticipated that extensive training and change-management would be needed, but quickly realized that the update was intuitive for users. “We got the feedback right away that the transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11 Enterprise was seamless,” says Giriiev. “There was no need for training, and we saw performance improvements on devices.” 

Popular Windows 11 Enterprise features include clipboard history and the updated snipping tool and simple shortcuts for snap layouts. “We provided employees with some documentation on shortcuts and benefits of Windows 11 Enterprise,” says Giriiev. “For example, snap layouts help employees work more efficiently because they no longer need to jump back and forth between multiple windows.” And, for added security and productivity benefits, Carlsberg uses the facial recognition feature in Windows Hello for Business on Windows 11 Enterprise. “Instead of typing in a password to sign in, employees use Windows Hello for Business biometric login or a short PIN to make the process faster and more secure,” adds Giriiev. “It’s a better experience for everyone.”  

Carlsberg has already created a more employee-centric, well-secured, and efficient environment for its workforce, including 1,000 employees who use Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs to work productively from anywhere, on any device. “For certain user groups, like external vendors and accounting teams, we provide Windows 365 to enable access to Cloud PCs so they can do their work without us having to intervene with their laptops,” says Giriiev. In the past, Carlsberg used an alternative virtual desktop solution, but found it was overly complex. As a result, end user experiences could be less-than-ideal. And, because multiple vendors were involved in the solution, any issues required multiple support tickets. Embracing a single platform has helped simplify processes. “In the past, we would hear from employees who were experiencing issues with their virtual desktops and it could take us hours to restore service,” says Giriiev. “Today, it is so easy to spin up a Windows 365 Cloud PC and we have fewer complaints from end-users.” Employees appreciate that their personalized Windows experience is always available, across devices, exactly where they left off. And, Carlsberg’s IT team envisions more use cases for Windows 365 in the future. “In summary, everyone is very happy with Windows 365 and they want even more,” adds Giriiev.

Embracing the future with Windows Autopatch and Copilot for Microsoft 365

Next, Carlsberg is excited to roll out Windows Autopatch to automate upgrades and updates while further boosting security. “We want to use Windows Autopatch broadly in 2024,” says Giriiev. “We trust Microsoft to act as a partner in providing and managing software updates, as well as address any issues quickly.” Giriiev is optimistic about the efficiencies Autopatch can help his team realize, and in time understand which KPIs to monitor to measure impact, which will in turn enable IT to focus the time saved on more impactful activities.

And, for a forward-thinking business that prizes innovation, embracing Microsoft Copilot will be a powerful next step. “We are currently exploring Copilot for Microsoft 365 to do things like summarize email threads and meetings,” says Giriiev. “This helps me reply quickly to urgent messages and do my work faster.” Although the business is still early in its AI journey, Giriiev envisions Copilot helping expedite processes, even the adoption of new technology. “I can imagine using Copilot to help produce adoption guides for users and help make the process more efficient,” he says. “We are only just beginning to explore all the potential uses for Copilot to improve how we work at Carlsberg."