Device forecasting at Microsoft has allowed the company to plan for new hires, replace out-of-warranty devices for existing employees, and respond to major events, like the release of Windows 11. As a result, we’ve been able to strategically acquire equipment in a more efficient way.
It all started with a shift to remote work.
“New employees will always need a device on day one,” says Pandurang Kamath Savagur, a senior program manager with Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms the company. “But for the first time ever, we were also in an experience where people had to stay productive from home with only a single device. They couldn’t easily get into the offices for a secondary or loaner device.”
To anticipate demand and offset delays, Microsoft Digital built a platform where administrators across the company could project the number of devices they’d need. Simultaneously, the group took a deep dive look at the current device population to forecast the number of employees who would need a device refresh—all in time for the deployment of Windows 11.
[Discover how Microsoft quickly upgraded to Windows 11. Find out how Microsoft is reinventing the employee experience for a hybrid world. Learn more about verifying devices in a Zero Trust model.]
Getting better at predicting the future
Historically, Microsoft didn’t need to build up a large inventory of devices for employees; everything was made to order.
Business groups own the budget, so they know what the next six months will look like for their team. Microsoft onboards approximately 3,000 employees each month, and every employee needs to select and set up a device. We can’t just buy 3,000 devices a month—we need to know specifications about how it will be used.
—Pandurang Kamath Savagur, senior program manager, Microsoft Digital
It worked a little bit like this:
Procurement, having already certified devices and negotiated pricing and SLAs suitable for employees, enables administrators or direct employees to obtain a new employee device through our internal ProcureWeb tool. The tool places a purchase order directly to the OEM—the third-party manufacturer of the device—or a reseller who would then manufacture and ship the equipment out to the user.
But the shift in how people worked meant we’d need to be more proactive in procuring devices for employees. And to get there, we’d need a better picture of fluctuating demand.
“Business groups own the budget, so they know what the next six months will look like for their team,” Savagur says. “Microsoft onboards approximately 3,000 employees each month, and every employee needs to select and set up a device. We can’t just buy 3,000 devices a month—we need to know specifications about how it will be used.”
Everything from storage space, computing power, memory, and keyboard language to the number of units would need to be collected from business groups. Once that information came in, Procurement could work with OEMs to have machines ready and available to be delivered to administrators well in advance.
This new approach to device forecasting has streamlined the way Microsoft acquires devices, giving us adequate stock to ensure a good experience. We can now anticipate device purchases for new hires while also accounting for break fixes.
And the timing of this effort couldn’t have been better—Windows 11 was on the way, and we would need this new approach along with additional analysis to get the new operating system into the hands of employees.
Empowering Microsoft with Windows 11
Released in late 2021, Windows 11 gives us the enterprise-grade security that Microsoft requires. To achieve this secure-by-default state, we needed to replace older devices with equipment that met the Windows 11 hardware requirements.
But instead of issuing new devices to everyone at launch—something that would be both costly and logistically impossible—we took a strategic approach, using a combination of telemetry and machine learning to identify and prioritize devices for replacement.
“We have telemetry data, application usage, and warranty information, and that gives us a base to forecast from in Power BI,” says Neeti Sawant, a data engineer with Microsoft Digital who helped create a device forecasting dashboard as part of this effort. “It told us what we needed to monitor and forecast, which devices are aging out, and when they would be eligible for a refresh.”
But we weren’t just relying on warranty data alone.
Using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and Microsoft Azure DataBricks for machine learning, we are able to leverage the historical data for device population and apply survival modeling techniques, predicting how many ineligible primary devices would be active over the next few years towards the Windows 10 end of support.
Device forecasting has allowed us to work closely with OEMs so that devices are available on time and so that we’re not selecting on availability, but rather meeting all the performance, compliance, and security needs of our users. Satisfaction scores from employees have increased by 20 points since we started doing this.
—Pandurang Kamath Savagur, senior program manager, Microsoft Digital
“Not all users will replace their device at the end of warranty,” says Anqi Cheng, a data scientist with the W+D Data team at Microsoft. “Although many devices will naturally age out over time, many users hang on to their devices for an extended time. When combined with other device forecasting data, we had a holistic view of the landscape.”
This level of analysis ensured Microsoft would be able to quickly develop a roadmap for getting employees on Windows 11.
A bright forecast for Microsoft
Employees at Microsoft can—and should—expect to have a device that engages, protects, and empowers them. Device forecasting makes this possible.
“Device forecasting has allowed us to work closely with OEMs so that devices are not selected on availability, but rather meeting all the performance, compliance, and security needs of our users,” Savagur says. This effort has resulted in a better experience for employees. “Satisfaction scores from employees have increased by 20 points since we started doing this.”
Access to device forecasting information has also been helpful to admins and Finance, who now have a better idea as to which devices will need to be refreshed for Windows 11. Moving into the future, these same projections will make it easier for Procurement to put the right device into an employee’s hands.
“With the analysis provided to us by Microsoft Digital, we can now understand how many primary devices are in our environment and when we expect them to refresh,” says Colby McNorton, a senior program manager on the Microsoft Procurement team. “As we look forward, instead of the purchasing journey being reactive, we can proactively reach out to users and tell them that their device is at the end of its life and even recommend a device based on what we know about usage.”
Thanks to Windows Autopilot, new devices are automatically pre-configured with Windows 11. Windows Autopilot deploys an OEM-optimized version of the Windows client, so you don’t have to maintain custom images and drivers for every device model. This makes new devices business-ready faster, empowering employees to stay engaged and protected. Users can just switch on, sign in, and all policies and apps will be in place within a day.
- Be sure to get visibility into your device population. Find out what kinds of devices are on your network, where they’re located, who owns them, and what stage they’re at in their lifecycle. This gives you a lot of agility in a changing environment. You can do this using Microsoft Intune.
- Windows 10 and Windows 11 can be co-managed side by side using the same tools and processes, which makes it possible for Microsoft and other companies to be methodical about replacing devices.
- Spend time with team admins who understand user needs. This allows you to cultivate a short list of devices that are best suited for your employees and gives procurement clear priorities.
- Discover how Microsoft quickly upgraded to Windows 11.
- Find out how Microsoft is reinventing the employee experience for a hybrid world.
- Learn more about verifying devices in a Zero Trust model.
- Read about how Windows 11 helps businesses.
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