3 Things You Should Know Before Deploying Windows 10 On Your Own

While certainly worthwhile, the journey to Windows 10 can be daunting. We touched on this topic in a blog post we ran last year, entitled “Don’t have 6-9 months to prep for Windows 10? Don’t worry.” In the post, we cited a recommendation from research firm Gartner that businesses should invest anywhere from, as the title indicates, 6-9 months in order to properly prepare for a move to Windows 10.  That’s a sizeable chunk of time to spend on planning alone. As it turns out, Gartner’s fellow research giant Forrester has its own data on how long it could take to complete the move to Windows 10. Unfortunately for IT pros, the timeframe is no less intimidating.

In its research paper entitled “The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Windows 10,” Forrester sought to quantify the experiences of organizations who’ve upgraded to the latest Windows OS. According to Forrester, businesses can expect to devote anywhere from 1-2 years on the move. Obviously, this total is dependent on plenty of factors, including size, environmental complexity, and so on. However, it does give IT teams an idea of what their own migration could look like.

The keyword there really is “could.” There is a way to potentially cut projections such as those from Gartner and Forrester in half – or more – and start realizing the benefit of Windows 10 without the deployment headaches.

Realize Windows 10 ROI in roughly half the time

By working with an IT partner like Arraya Solutions, businesses can see their anticipated rollout time drop all the way down to just 3-6 months. What’s driving that level of savings? Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which working with a partner to deploy Windows 10 has the edge over attempting to fly solo.

• Firsthand experience – Partners such as Arraya have taken part in countless Windows 10 rollouts, across all sorts of industries. They’ve seen for themselves where the pitfalls lie and they know what to do to avoid them. That experience doesn’t just make a difference when it comes to mistakes and rework. All facets of moving from one OS to another become easier with a resource on hand who understands the decisions regarding enterprise features, security implications, testing methodologies and more that come up during a migration.
• Dedicated resources – Interruptions are plentiful in IT. Whether it’s a fire that pops up and demands immediate attention or the incessant lure of multitasking, it’s rare for IT pros to have the opportunity to put on the proverbial blinders and plow ahead, completely focused on a task. During an OS rollout, this can contribute to costly delays or errors as IT personnel attempt to jump back and forth between tasks. When working with a partner, however, this isn’t an issue. Partners can fully commit members of their team to hitting technical checkpoints while, from a higher level, project managers can keep projects on task and on target.
• Sufficient skillsets – It isn’t just enough to have a free set of hands around to task with a project. Deploying a new OS requires the skilled hand of an expert desktop engineer. However, desktop teams typically aren’t the top priority when it comes to IT spend, leaving many lacking the specialized skills (and, as mentioned above, the experience) needed to bring projects to a swift conclusion. Partners, again, may not share that problem. Since they participate in so many OS rollouts, it makes far more sense for them to carry this expertise (and expense) on staff than it would for an organization that only undertakes such a project every few years.

Next Steps: Supporting your Windows 10 investment now – and later

The upsides of working with a partner like Arraya don’t end when deployment does. These relationships can help ensure the long-term health and cost efficiency of operating systems. As explained in the Forrester study, Microsoft says Windows 10 will require roughly two feature updates per year. Organizations attempting to handle these on their own, on average, spend 160 hours per update on planning and testing as well as 40 additional hours for rollout. With the proven expertise of a partner at the helm, the time needed for planning and testing can be reduced to 40 hours per update, while minimal time will be required during rollout.

Ready to bring Windows 10 to your organization? Don’t go it alone. Let Arraya’s Windows 10 experts take your business to the most advanced Windows OS ever in the most efficient and secure way possible. Visit us at: https://www.arrayasolutions.com//contact-us/ to get started.

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