Getting Past Groundhog Day Deployments for PCs

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There’s a slang term in the U.S. military for deployments that seem to proceed in the exact same way despite your unit’s best efforts to change them: Groundhog Day.

Yes, it’s a play off the Bill Murray film with that title…of course! And we all know that feeling, especially when we are struggling with yet another PC deployment project.

I don’t mean to scare you, but is there a deployment disaster tipping-point waiting for you and your organization? How many new systems, new images, and new configurations will it take to push you into Groundhog Day madness?

Relax, there is a solution. To solve your G-Day blues, we recommend using ProDeploy and its not-so-secret ingredients, such as TechDirect and ImageAssist to easily manage your deployments, imaging, and all the rest of those chores that spring from your organization’s growth and progress.

After ages of working with you in every corner of the world in every industry, we still weren’t satisfied with the way you struggled to deploy 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, asset 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. In other words, don’t make me wait for a deployment manager to call just so I can get a status!

The bottom line: you want to focus on your critical initiatives instead of deployment tasks but your doers need a fully configured system that works right out of the box.

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

But don’t just take my word for it. Let me give you one example. ProDeploy Plus includes TechDirect, a self-service portal that enables you to easily direct and control your deployment projects with less risk of mistakes, making the entire engagement more efficient and effective. The results? Principled Technologies, a third-party lab, tested ProDeploy Plus and was able to deploy PCs up to 35% faster.[i]

Okay, twist my arm, here’s another example. ProDeploy Plus includes ImageAssist too. ImageAssist empowers you to quickly create a custom cross-platform image—ready to deploy when you say so. The simple user interface helps you prepare your custom image, including OS, licenses, applications, desktop customization, and network configuration settings. You don’t have to settle for repeating yesterday.

[i] Based 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.
[ii] 35% Source: Based on May 2016 Principled Technologies Report commissioned by Dell EMC. 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://www.principledtechnologies.com/Dell/ProDeployPlus_0816.pdf
[iii] $620 Source: Based on IDC White Paper commissioned by Dell EMC, “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://www.Dell.com/IDCDeploymentServicesBusinessValue

About the Author: Kent Allison

Kent has been with Dell [now Dell EMC] for 16 years in product development roles for enterprise, client and now services product group. He is passionate about delivering great products to customers. He has leveraged his Dell EMC experience in his current role to build customer solutions that connect client and enterprise products with core IT systems via services delivery automation in SupportAssist and TechDirect. He is driven by the simple product tenets of simplification and reduction of customer effort.
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