Henkel relies on TeamViewer to streamline IT support for 60,000 devices worldwide

Introduction

Henkel is a globally operating company with leading innovations, brands, and technologies in two business areas: Adhesive Technologies and Consumer Brands. Its portfolio includes well-known hair care products, laundry detergents, fabric softeners as well as adhesives, sealants, and functional coatings. In order to accelerate the digital transformation in the company, Henkel has established the digital unit Henkel dx in 2020. Focusing on individual customer and consumer needs, the department builds digital and data-driven business models for the company’s business units. An important part of Henkel dx is the digital workplace team, specifically looking after end user computing and workplace backend infrastructure topics for the global workforce.

Challenge

In the past, Henkel’s internal IT service desk has had a remote support solution in place, but it was only tailored to the Windows platform, which turned out to be a challenge: “Over time, we realized that we were having trouble in our IT support to service the growing number of corporate devices other than our standard laptops, such as mobile phones and Mac devices”, says Adrian van Zyl, Product Owner Client & Mobility Operations at Henkel dx. 

When helping an employee with such a device, IT agents had to rely on the basic troubleshooting procedures, such as a static knowledge base they would go through with the employee step-by-step over the phone. This proved time-consuming and inefficient, also, among other things, because of frequent language barriers between service desk agent and employee, creating more and more dissatisfaction among both groups.

“At that point in time, our mobile device fleet was a little bit smaller than today, but nevertheless, mobile devices were always in the top ten of the ticket drivers. This was an important early indicator for us that this seemed to be a pain point we should have a closer look at”, says Adrian van Zyl. In a huge effort to modernize its workplace, empower its employees and facilitate access and participation with the digital infrastructure, Henkel started to introduce more Mac devices, including handing out Apple iPads to 6,500 employees in Germany. But to serve the growing need for remote IT support and access, Henkel finally would have had to license three different remote support products to satisfy only one use case. This would have resulted in a non-uniform, non-standardized remote support solution ecosystem that was becoming increasingly harder for Henkel IT to manage since each solution works differently resulting in complexity and bad support agent experience, not to mention managing different licenses from different solution vendors. 

“It was not ideal for the support agents from a workflow perspective, and not ideal for the end user, as they had to accommodate to different solutions. At that point in time, it really became a no-brainer for us that we needed a single solution to manage our ever more heterogenous fleet of around 60,000 devices worldwide and streamline the experience”, Adrian van Zyl remembers.