As described in this case study Crocs, the worldwide seller of iconic, comfortable footwear adopted 365 to scale it’s global workforce with less administrative headache.
The organization has achieved record revenue growth for the last five years standing and providing technology services that can keep pace with that growth can be challenging.
Scott Czarnecki, Senior Director of Global IT, immediately identified the company’s virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) as a prime candidate for modernization. Their previous virtualized environment wasn’t scalable for the growth that the business was experiencing.
In addition to being costly, difficult to manage, complex to maintain, and a leading source of service outages, their VDI solution also required specialized service contracts for partner support.
And because Crocs used it for many business functions, the cost structure and complexity would only become more problematic as the company expands operations into new markets. “I don’t want to have to manage servers anymore because there’s no value in patching servers or troubleshooting crashing operating systems.”
Instead of replacing the company’s aging infrastructure, Czarnecki wanted a new solution that would not only ease the financial burden but also improve the experience for administrators and users.
Crocs Senior Infrastructure Architect Ryan Ellison found the answer: Windows 365, which gives workers access to a full, personalized Windows experience from a Cloud PC on any device. Windows 365 Cloud PCs are simple to manage, use technology that Crocs employees and contractors are already familiar with, and provide scalability and global availability.
“We’re moving away from on-premises infrastructure into a world that fully embraces cloud architecture and services,” says Ellison “Microsoft Intune and Windows 365 are perfect for managing company devices and service delivery, and our employees immediately have compliant core applications and settings moments after provisioning.”
Crocs relies heavily on contractors, and in the past, it had to generate an account for each, create a new virtual machine, and populate it with the apps the contractor needed.
Crocs simplified this time-consuming process with a faster and easier provisioning approach. It now gives its contractors—who make up one of the company’s largest Windows 365 user groups—Cloud PCs and use Microsoft 365 Groups for numerous contractor types and add them to an appropriate group.
By focusing on identity rather than virtualization, users can access the right apps and Microsoft Teams groups and other collaboration channels on a variety of devices. “Switching to Windows 365 Cloud PCs has substantially simplified how we onboard contractors and manage their interactions across our environment,” says Czarnecki. “And when a contract is done, we just shut down the Cloud PC to remove access.”
