Norfolk County Council, located in the East of England, provides services to over 800,000 residents each year. The authority’s strategy revolves around ensuring that the area has a growing economy, thriving people and strong communities.

Workplace transformation in practice

In support of this strategy, back in 2017, there was a drive to ensure that the technology deployed by the council could support their significant ambition. 

Traditionally, Norfolk County Council undertook an end-user device refresh programme every 6 to 7 years, equipping every employee with the same device - regardless of job function. 

Martin King, Senior Project Manager at Norfolk County Council, explains: “In 2017, we started a significant workplace transformation project at Norfolk. We committed to a council-wide rollout of Windows 10 and Office 365, which involved developing our own Windows 10 build and ensuring it was compliant with National Cyber Security Centre requirements. 

”We started an intricate piece of work to evaluate the different worker styles within the council, and the types of technology those people needed to be as productive as possible. Obviously one of the main considerations as part of that piece of work was making certain each employee within the council had the right device for them.”
 

A changing approach

Following the establishment of clear worker styles, Norfolk County Council set out the technical specifications required to support their productivity and efficiency efforts. This resulted in a shift away from the 6-7 year wholescale replacement of devices to a rolling 4-year upgrade strategy - with each year seeing in excess of 2000 devices being rolled out to staff across the council.

This allows for the most efficient use of their in-house resources and ensures that excellent service levels can be maintained on an evergreen basis. 

In support of the new rollout approach,  an annual procurement exercise is run through the Crown Commercial Services (CCS) framework in order to get the right devices in a compliant and cost-effective manner. 

Martin expands: “As an authority, we are very clear to identify minimum specifications. We pride ourselves on being vendor agnostic and run our rolling end-user device procurements with a weighting of 70% price and 30% quality.

“This allows us to achieve the best value for money while ensuring quality levels meet our high expectations.”

The right technology

Most recently, this annual procurement was won by Centerprise in partnership with Lenovo - highlighting their collective ability to meet the technical specifications at the best value for money - and with functionality like the MIL standards driving the quality score. 

Martin says: “Centerprise showed a clear understanding of the tender document and not only answered the questions in detail, but made them highly relevant to Norfolk County Council.

In line with the different worker styles within Norfolk County Council, there is a blend of different devices that power productivity, from the Lenovo L series - the cost conscious business laptop - through to the highly portable Lenovo X1 for social workers.

The Centerprise difference
Complementing the technology from Lenovo there is a huge amount of value for Norfolk County Council in Centerprise’s service provision. One of the key areas of service provision is around deployment services - including asset tagging and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (previously SCCM) deployment. Martin comments: “Centerprise are able to fully support our task sequences that automate steps in deploying Windows 10 to individual users. The relationship between the two technical teams is excellent. There is a quick call, we run a small scale test, Centerprise validate the build is working from the distribution point within their factory in Wales and that’s it. “The whole process is seamless and pain free - it’s this sort of value that Centerprise provide that helps us drive efficiencies out of the way we deploy our wider services across the council.” Further to the deployment services, Centerprise also provide a hot swap warranty. This means that if a call is placed with Centerprise’s service desk before 3:30pm, an engineer will be on-site the following working day with a replacement device.

Why Centerprise?

When asked about the other things Martin values about Norfolk County Council’s ongoing partnership with Centerprise, he is clear in his response: 

“With Centerprise, we genuinely collaborate. We have regular, honest conversations across the technical, operational and commercial aspects of our working relationship and there is mutual respect to what each party brings to the table. 

“Their delivery service is extremely flexible. We get proactive communication to inform us of when shipments of devices have left their facility and when they will be arriving at our premises. This allows us to plan our own time and resources to give our end users the high-quality service experience they deserve. 

“It’s this sort of service from Centerprise and Norfolk County Council that helps our end users stay productive with the right technology to support their role.”