ValCom Case Study - Lenovo

ValCom
Lenovo and ValCom collaborate in the in the Lenovo Innovation Center to develop
innovative services offerings based on the Lenovo ThinkVantage Technologies and
LANDesk Management Suite for TVTs.
OVERVIEW
ValCom, with over 20 years
of experience in the IT
industry, is an innovative full
service technology provider
that helps corporations
stay focused on increasing
their competitive edge
through cost effective
offerings. ValCom is a single
source provider, combining
hardware provisioning,
technical services,
consulting and security
with a solid management
approach that provides real
returns on IT investment
dollars. Lenovo and ValCom
came together in the
Lenovo Innovation Center
to build an optimized and
efficient solution strategy for
ValCom's IT challenges.
Overview and goal
Collaboratively design an industry
leading technology services offering
portfolio that provides ValCom with
a competitive advantage in the
marketplace. This services offering
portfolio must align with ValCom's core
goals:
•Streamline processes
•Help manage accountability of
technology and service providers
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Reduce the overall total cost of IT
ownership
The Approach
In a two day planning and collaboration
session, ValCom and Lenovo analyzed
ValCom's business IT needs and
customer solution planning process.
The team explored ValCom's processes
and portfolio of configuration, imaging,
installation, software distribution, etc.
The Lenovo and LANDesk teams
then demonstrated ThinkVantage
Technologies, including the OEM
versions of the TVT tools, designed
to work on non-Lenovo hardware,
and LANDesk capabilities to ValCom,
targetting the areas identified in the prior
analysis. Lenovo and ValCom then
explored Lenovo's TVT Calculator tools
working with ValCom's real world cost
“ValCom is very excited about
the (Lenovo TVT) offerings ”
–ValCom, Summer 2006
“Everybody wins in the
Innovation Center.”
–Kimber Barton, LANDesk WW Sales Engineer,
Spring 2006
The Team
ValCom: Chuck Birmingham, President ; Zach Bowling, Service Manager; Mike
Aloba, Account Manager; Rob DeBeau, Account Manager; John Wall, VP of Service
LANDesk: Kimber Barton, WW Sales Engineer
Lenovo: Jim Goodwin, Channel Account Executive; Bill Buchna, Service Channel
Consultant; Tracy Barney, Program Director, ThinkVantage Deployment; Dave
Buchanan and Terry Buschbach, WW ThinkVantage Technologies Team
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data to calculate the potential savings
for ValCom and their customers. Next,
the team moved to the development of
a custom offering . The next session
mapped this TVT calculator output
into ValCom's services offerings, and
resulted in a framework for a TVT and
LANDesk-based offering. This offering
will allow ValCom to address the entire
life cycle of a PC installation, with
solutions for each phase, from purchase
through deployment, maintenance, and
disposal.
The Solution
In this engagement, Lenovo and ValCom
identified a subset of customer IT pain
points and "events" that drive the majority
of spending in customer IT organizations.
Working within this framework, ValCom
and Lenovo mapped problems to
solutions, solutions to benefits, benefits
to decision makers, and necessary
training to target audiences. At the end
of the session, the Lenovo and ValCom
teams left the Lenovo Innovation Center
with a clearly defined, attainable, and
actionable plan for delivering the benefits
of Lenovo's ThinkVantage Technologies,
LANDesk's systems management
capabilities and Lenovo's products to
ValCom's customers using ValCom's
existing service framework.
The Results
As a result of the collaboration with
Lenovo and LANDesk in the Innovation
Center, ValCom and Lenovo have been
able to plan a services strategy which
will enable ValCom to offer a better total
customer experience and to provide
technical services that are transparent to
their users.
The Technologies
ImageUltra Builder
ImageUltra Builder's ability to compress
their image and migration processes
into one consolidated deployment and
update process was compelling for
ValCom. ImageUltra's object-oriented
smart image allows ValCom to build
one common image regardless of
hardware, operating system, language,
or application needs . The "baseline"
concept within ImageUltra allows
ValCom to take advantage of the Lenovo
standard Windows XP Pro preloaded
image as the ValComs for the core
image. Using this, ValCom does not
need to replace the entire factory
contents with the customer image. They
only need to add customer-specific
applications and customizations.
Bringing this degree of hardware
independence to ValCom's imaging
process was a key identified benefit of
the work session.
System Migration Assistant
Lenovo's ThinkVantage System
Migration Assistant simplifies the
migration of an old computer’s data and
settings to a new computer or operating
system. This tool enables ValCom to
eValComly transfer data and settings
for operating systems, printers, network
connections, and personal preferences
as well as a wide variety of application
settings. Lenovo's SMA helps ValCom
perform multiple migrations over an
enterprise network or peer-to-peer
network and automates the migration
of user preferences and data, which
helps them reduce labor costs and helps
increase migration accuracy.
LANDesk Management Suite With
ThinkVantage Technologies
LANDesk's world-class remote systems
management, security and patch
management, as well as tight integration
with the Lenovo TVTs and Intel's
Advanced Management Technology
(AMT) were ley items for ValCom. In
particular, LANDesk's proven ability to
produce quick, measurable benefits
and to reduce PC lifecycle costs were
compelling and were crucial to the
development of this solution for ValCom.
ValCom is implementing LANDesk in
their own in-house proof of concept lab.
Rescue and Recovery
Lenovo's one-button rescue solution
includes a set of self-recovery tools
to help ValCom and their customers
diagnose, get help, and recover from a
virus or other software crash, even if the
primary operating system will not boot.
It covers the spectrum from complete
software failure to occValComons
when they need only to restore a
corrupted or deleted file. Rescue and
Recovery's administration tools can
be configured to help ValCom deploy
critical updates to corrupted systems in a
customer's organization quickly and with
confidence.
www.thinkpad.com/innovation
ThinkPad and ThinkCentre are products of Lenovo.
© 2006 Lenovo.
All rights reserved.
Produced in the USA,
09-06.
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References in this publication to Lenovo products or services do not imply that
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