Forrester Report: Dell Technologies Services Accelerates Deployment, Time-to-Value with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams

Download Full Study: Dell Technologies Services Accelerates Deployment and Time-to-Value with Microsoft 365 and Teams

Forrester Consulting recently interviewed a decision-maker at a large North American grocery retailer about the company’s experience working with Dell Technologies Services to deploy Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams. The interview was part of a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) studyi Forrester conducted in March of 2021 to better understand how customers benefit from leveraging Dell Technologies Services.

The grocer has 30,000 employees in 1,500 retail stores and 5,800 employees in more than 20 distribution and back-office locations. They realized they needed outside assistance to successfully plan and manage the large-scale deployment. Their internal IT team lacked: 

  • resources needed to manage the migration 
  • expertise to implement the new processes 
  • knowledge about how to ensure best practices for Microsoft 365  

Customers Chose Dell for Experience and Approach

Dell Technologies Services was selected because of its unique capabilities and experience working with a similar organization. The director of IT services center at the grocer explained: “Dell Services had done a similar work effort with [another grocery retailer] that had similar challenges that we had. Being able to leverage [Dell’s] experience … made a difference.”  

The Dell team recommended using a persona-based rollout strategy to enhance employee experience, promote faster adoption of the new technologies, and reduce costs. Instead of rolling out different technology components sequentially to the entire enterprise, Dell’s plan was to deploy the entire productivity suite to designated groups and tailor change management activities to each group’s persona. 

Workforce Personas. Formal workforce persona research helps IT understand what the workforce needs and wants in order to be productive – and why they want it. Revealing the experience gaps – between what IT provides vs. what employees want – also helps IT understand that a one-size-fits-all approach may not work for every IT service. Personas make it easy for IT to see how it can tailor and market services to the workforce and drive adoption of the right solutions to maximize productivity.

Dell’s Roll Out Process

Dell created the first two personas and then trained the customer’s internal team on how to use the same approach to define additional personas and apply the strategy to other projects. “We asked [Dell] to help us create two separate personas and then to help us understand the recipe they used [so we can] continue to do that work.” 

The migration began with Dell defining personas for the customer’s 5,800 back office and distribution center employees. The Dell team then transitioned these employees to Microsoft 365, Teams and SharePoint, and migrated them from an on-premises Exchange environment to the cloud. “We utilized Dell in two ways: One was to set up the environment, and [the other] was to set up the basic processes and controls around it so that our staff that really didn’t have that knowledge could jump onto the bandwagon and start using it.” 

Teams is probably one of the more complex Microsoft 365 apps in terms of planning considerations and the impact it will have on the workforce. It’s important to have a well-thought-out adoption and change management plan that includes how you’ll manage communications, create excitement, and drive adoption with your workforce. Developing workforce personas and user journeys with worker research are the best way to ensure a successful implementation.  

It would have taken us three times longer to do this internally.” 
SAVINGS = 3 YEARS + $3M 

Advantages of Working with Dell Technologies Services

The advantages the customer gained from working with Dell Technologies Services included: 

  • Reduced Risk – the Dell team had already successfully planned and managed a similar project for another large grocery retailer. 
  • Saved Time – time to value was reduced from 4.5 years to 1.5 years. “It would have taken us three times longer to do this internally.” 
  • Saved Money – $3M in Microsoft subscription costs were saved because the software was deployed much faster. “You’re paying for [subscriptions]…whether you deployed it or not.” 
  • Leveraged Investments – gained more value from Microsoft FastTrack. “FastTrack is … very useful for velocity work, [but] they are quick to pass it back to you when it gets complicated. And that’s where we want to leverage Dell.”
  • Increased employee productivity – employees could benefit from new Microsoft 365 and Teams capabilities 36 months sooner. “The value is really in the functionality and collaboration that we’re going to have by having everybody on the same level of toolkit.” 

In addition, future hardware costs decreased because of the migration to the cloud: legacy on-premises hardware can now be reprovisioned for future uses, computer room space is freed up, and power and cooling costs are lower. “We’re obviously going to retire a significant amount of space that we have in the computer room …  [It’s] going to be severely reduced.” 

A separate Forrester study of other organizations deploying Microsoft 365 E5 found the ROI to be 203% with a three-year net present value per user of $4,876.ii Another study of Microsoft Teams found an ROI of 832% with a three-year net present value per user of $5,416.iii

How Do You Get Started? 

Making the move to Microsoft 365 and Teams can be a huge productivity boost for your organization, but there’s a lot to navigate. Dell Technologies Consulting Services can help. We have services for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams to help organizations like yours plan, design and execute your initiatives. Learn more about this customer’s experience by reading the complete Forrester TEI.  

Download the full TEI StudyForrester Total Economic Impact Study: Dell Technologies Services Accelerates Deployment and Time-to-Value with Microsoft 365 and Teams
A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Dell Technologies, April 2021. 


Additional Resources: 

Associated Forrester Reports  

  • Forrester Study:Use the Lessons Of 2020 to Create Your Anywhere-Work Strategy”, Dec 2020 
  • Forrester TEI Study: “The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Teams,” a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft, April 2019.  

 Services for Microsoft 365 Webpage 

 Services for Microsoft Teams Webpage 

Services for Workforce Personas Webpage 

About the Author: Matthew Roberts

Matt Roberts has been with Consulting Services since 2006. Collaborating with customers for so many years to enable their employees to just get work done, he has a unique perspective on how best to leverage technology that spans Dell’s strategically aligned businesses, the Microsoft ecosystem, and other third party software to achieve real workforce transformations for clients. Matt is passionate about digital transformation, modernizing digital app experiences and developing solutions that make the digital workplace as productive, engaged, and connected as possible. With 20+ years of software and consulting experience, his career has focused on Digital and Web/App Development. He has broad digital strategy, solution and technology architecture expertise; with specific depth in portal, collaboration, digital/web, content mgmt., search, and ITSM solutions.