Simplify device configuration and deployment

Understanding and managing the device lifecycle from end-to-end can be transformative, enabling business to gain visibility across their whole device fleet, and track how it’s meeting their evolving IT needs. Lifecycle management can help ensure devices are kept in good order and properly configured, and that you stay on top of security and compliance. Most of all, the lifecycle approach can help you make the most of your IT assets during their lifespan – and even extend them to maximise efficiencies.

The easiest way to get to grips with the device lifecycle is to shift to managed services as an IT operating model – and specifically Device as a Service (DaaS), which makes lifecycle management an intrinsic part of the system.

The reasons why begin with deployment. With DaaS, a new device can be shipped out to an end-user with a base image ready for the user to sign in. Once signed in, cloud-based management services can have it set up and personalised for that user’s needs, without any hands-on IT involvement. “It comes from the factory, pre-provisioned and pretty much ready to go,” explains HP Senior Product Manager, Trevor Gordon. “You fire it up, and you’re productive within an hour.”

This doesn’t mean maintaining a device menu with a thousand different flavours of IT, but it does mean giving organisations the flexibility to have different devices and configurations for all their lines of business, with a layer of deeper personalisation on top. And as the needs of an organisation evolve, their DaaS line-up evolves to meet them. “We can build that flexibility into the contractual model, provide our customers with the service stack, and grow it as they need to,” Gordon adds.

Gordon believes that day one productivity is critically important, because “more than ever, companies are flexing up and down. They’re bringing new people onboard quite frequently.” It also sets the tone for the whole employee experience: one where IT isn’t a barrier to making progress, but an enabler that gets you up and running, then stays out of the way.

From deployment to retirement

With DaaS, that tone can be maintained throughout the product lifecycle, through cloud-based management tools that support the device from deployment through to retirement – using HP’s Proactive Insights technology to harness in-depth, real-time telemetry to track performance and predict and remediate faults. This ensures devices work effectively and that employees can be productive, right up until the device reaches end-of-life. What’s more, because telemetry data from one device is aggregated with data from across the fleet, IT teams can uncover underlying trends around problem hardware or software, and ensure that they don’t impact on employee productivity. Where HP monitors and manages devices directly, this information can even be fed into future service options or device upgrades.

Where catastrophe hits and a device is lost or hardware fails, HP’s DaaS services are there to bring a fix through Advanced Unit Exchange. Even when end users are travelling or based remotely, a replacement device can be with them within 24 hours, and up and running with their applications within an hour.

As a device nears the end of its useful life, DaaS services make sure they remain productive, capturing insights into how it’s working so that businesses can make informed decisions about when it’s time to retire a device, and where there are opportunities to extend its working life.

“We’re investing heavily in what we call device extension,” explains Gordon. “That’s having the ability to keep devices longer. We’re supporting the device throughout. It’s not a case of rolling your own and hoping that it works.” In other cases, devices can be refurbished then fed back into the same business, or otherwise leased or resold. Keeping devices in use for longer makes a difference when 80% of its environmental impact is created during manufacturing.

Where that’s no longer practical, devices can be decommissioned and recycled to minimise the waste. It goes back to the process’ says Gordon. “We have many devices that are now manufactured with a very high percentage of recycled materials. We want to be the most sustainable manufacturer on the planet when it comes to PCs.”

From manufacturing to retirement, managing the whole device lifecycle through DaaS can help IT teams reduce their costs and workloads, while ensuring employees get a great experience throughout. And by keeping devices working for longer, businesses can make the most out of them while improving the sustainability of their IT.

To find out more about HP’s DaaS and lifecycle management services, visit HP Services – PC Services for Commercial Enterprise and SMB IT | HP® United. Kingdom.

Find out how to unlock the value of your IT with our in-depth guide to managed services.