When the pandemic hit, like many organisations, the client faced a sudden requirement to shift to remote working.

The client had hundreds of traditionally office-based end-users in the UK who needed to transition to the new way of working. With both their own employees and third-party customer service staff to support, the organisation needed to quickly enable remote work on a massive scale to maintain business continuity.

The government guidelines also meant the business had to react and adapt to the change immediately to ensure staff safety and compliance with lockdown regulations. An existing client of Deloitte, they approached them for assistance, and Deloitte put 848 forward to tackle the task. 848 recommended building a customised virtual desktop solution to meet the clients needs.

As a key collaborator of Deloitte for digital transformations, the 848 Group led the project to help the client overcome their challenges. 848 has worked with Deloitte for more than 6 years delivering an extensive variety of successful large scale IT transformation projects to global clients.

848 has proven their capabilities and expertise to Deloitte time and time again. That’s why Deloitte trust 848 to look after projects for significant clients across all sectors, and has confidence in their specialist staff to represent the prestigious Deloitte brand when delivering business changing IT.

848 worked quickly to plan a solution that would enable all users to work safely and securely from their own homes. They assessed their infrastructure to tailor a solution that would work effectively within their existing environments.

As the client was already running a Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) environment under an enterprise agreement, 848 recommended a flexible virtual desktop solution that would work in harmony with their current cloud set up. While traditionally remote desktop solutions have been difficult or expensive to implement, 848 delivered a cost-effective and simple desktop virtualisation service that runs in the cloud.

848 utilised their core cloud infrastructure as the virtual desktop landing zone, and quickly deployed a full virtual desktop environment that was accessible by any device, from any location.

This seamless solution enabled effective remote working and ensured the business could continue to operate effectively.

848’s responsiveness and rapid deployment of the virtual desktop solution meant end-users had full remote access to core applications and data in a matter of days. This meant the client was able to quickly adapt to the change, minimise the impact on operations and maintain “business as usual”.

The roll-out was not only rapid, but cost-effective. By utilising the existing licenses to roll-out the virtual desktop environment, 848 were able to reduce the cost of the solution for the client, delivering significant cost savings. Security was also a major concern for the client, as remote working often creates additional security gaps and gateways for threats and attacks.

Utilising the best-in-class security and compliance practises and solutions backed by the cloud, the virtual desktop enables businesses to keep workspaces secure, by proactively detecting threats and taking remedial action. This has meant the business has been able to allow staff to work from home with confidence that they are protected by enterprise-grade security features.

The flexibility and scalability of the solution has been a real benefit to the client and will also continue to deliver value in the future as the business can scale up and down their usage with ease and without overpaying.

For example, when staff have gone on furlough, they have been able to reduce their consumption. And when they have returned to work, it has been easy for the business to scale up their usage and give the user back their access to their remote workspaces.

The virtual desktop environment runs on a pay-as-you-go basis, where you only pay for what you use. This has allowed the client to enjoy peace of mind they aren’t wasting budget on idle resources, further adding to the cost benefits of the solution.

This scalability also means the client will already have the capabilities in place to adapt when staff eventually return to the office, whether that’s full time, or on a part time basis. The virtual desktop environment will continue to enable the business to ensure staff have the freedom to choose how they work.