Peikko Group improves Digital Employee Experience with better visibility of their computer environment from Applixure

Introduction

Peikko Group, a family-owned, industry-leading construction company had challenges with their computers and software including a lot of random weird issues cropping up. They were using a hybrid model to manage their environment of 1300 computers: with both external service providers and an in-house team. However, they lacked the visibility they needed to get their environment running smoothly.

Lasse Puoskari, their CIO, is on a mission to improve the Digital Employee Experience (DEX) at Peikko Group. He chose Applixure to provide them with the visibility they need. Now, Peikko Group has a holistic view of the state of their environment and can dig into the causes of issues. This has enabled the IT team to shift into a proactive mode and to significantly improve the end-user experience.

Lack of visibility causing problems and crashes

Lasse was familiar with Applixure from a previous role and knew that it was a tool that he could use to both improve employees’ IT experience, as well as gain a lot of other useful information about the company’s computer environment.

Peikko had previously used a hybrid approach to IT, outsourcing some services and handling others in-house. However, their managed service provider (MSP) did not have a tool to offer them that would give them visibility into how their computers were functioning and an overview of the environment as a whole. They were having a lot of random issues cropping up which nobody seemed to be able to resolve.

Lasse had first-hand experience with these issues: periodically, his own computer would crash and after submitting a support ticket, the case quickly bounced back to his onsite support team. But they didn’t have the right tools to figure out what was causing the issue. Lasse describes the situation:

“And I was not the only one experiencing computer issues. We had a lot of random weird things happening with the computers which had a lot to do with the history of how computers had been managed: we had been working in this hybrid model where things were partly done by an external partner and partly done in-house. The big problem was that we were not getting the most out of our computers because we didn’t really know what was going on with them.”

Eye-opening visibility

Before fully taking Applixure on board, Peikko did a trial to see what type of things Analytics could reveal to them. Lasse comments on the trial experience:

“We did test Applixure Analytics. We did a pilot with 200 computers to see what kind of data Analytics could give us. It was very soon clear that this information would be very useful.”

Because of Lasse’s previous experience with Applixure, the benefits they saw when doing their trial mainly reinforced what he already knew about the solution. For his team, however, Analytics opened up a whole new world:

“For those in my team who hadn't seen Analytics before, it was really a very eye-opening experience: we could easily see what computers we had and what software was running on them, who was using what software and with what kinds of rights, and what kinds of issues were going on with the computers and software.”

Improved visibility enabled Peikko’s IT department to be more proactive and therefore improve their end-user experience. Tuomo Tupala (IT Services Senior Manager) and Mika Kaasalainen (IT Specialist) explain together:

Analytics' clear interface makes it easy to see where to take action

Being proactive with concrete action plans is possible because Applixure presents the data in a clear and concise way. Once you fix the problem, the environment’s score gets better - directly reflecting the improvements. Lasse explains:

“The aha moment for my team came when they could see how clearly and visually Applixure presents the issues that are reasonably easy for us to fix. The challenges that end users are facing are brought to light and you can also see that when you fix things the environment’s score gets better."

Analytics was enthusiastically adopted by the IT team

Lasse was concerned that the IT team might resist taking on a new tool in the midst of a lot of change, but his concerns quickly faded:

“There is so much change going on in our organization right now that I was concerned about how this one more change would be received but Analytics is so intuitive and easy to use and the benefits are so clear, that adoption went really smoothly.”

“It has been easy to get the team on board with starting to use Analytics because everybody can clearly see the benefits and how it helps them as individuals to provide better service to the business.”

Lasse continues:

“I wish everything went as smoothly as taking Applixure into use did.”

Quick wins

Peikko has quickly achieved some quick wins from Analytics; one of them is improving how they install computers. They have also noticed issues with licensing: they have a lot of old versions of operating systems and software. With Analytics, they have been able to improve and harmonize things so that the operating systems and Microsoft packages are aligned. These are fairly straightforward, but important things.

Next step: taking Applixure Workflow into use

Next, Peikko Group will take Workflow into use. Workflow takes the data from Analytics and automatically turns it into actionable tasks that are assigned to people in the IT team.

Lasse explains that while the visibility offered by Analytics has caused an increase in workload right now, the benefits keep piling up. Now the IT team knows what to do to improve their computer environment. Once they get those done, they will have less firefighting work to do and will be able to be more efficient. Analytics has also revealed issues that they were not even aware of.

Lasse's advice to other CIOs

For someone who is considering taking Applixure on board, Lasse has simple advice:

“Applixure is an exceptional tool in that it’s so fast to pilot or to take into general use, and you immediately see the concrete benefits it brings. So, just go ahead and try it.”

Overall Lasse is more than happy with his experience with Applixure:

"Applixure is an exceptional tool in that it’s so fast to pilot or to take into general use, and you immediately see the concrete benefits it brings. So, just go ahead and try it.”

Peikko Group is a family-owned company that specializes in supplying slim floor structures, wind energy applications, and connection technology for precast and cast-in-situ construction. The company was founded in Finland in 1965 and has factories in 12 countries, with local sales in over 30 countries worldwide. Peikko Group is a global leader in the construction industry with a workforce of just over 2,000 employees and approximately 1300 computers.

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Case Peikko Group: Elevating Employee IT Experience