Grant Thornton UK LLP saves hundreds of hours with Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365

Bridging geographies to offer more services to customers

Auditing, one of the core services Grant Thornton firms offer, is a quickly growing aspect of the business that faces hurdles when it comes to resourcing. “There is a dearth of auditors in the UK,” says Swift. “Attracting talent is a challenge.” That challenge became a major bottleneck to Grant Thornton UK’s growing auditing business—until Swift and his colleagues used Azure Virtual Desktop to bring experienced auditors from overseas to the United Kingdom, digitally. “We used Azure Virtual Desktop to set up a solution where auditors from Grant Thornton member firms could connect to virtual desktops in a highly secure way and work alongside our UK-based auditors,” explains Swift. “With Azure Virtual Desktop, we went from concept to execution in four weeks and kept important auditing projects moving ahead.”

Tom Gilbert, Senior Infrastructure Manager at Grant Thornton UK, adds that the move saved a significant amount of time. “Going the traditional route of provisioning laptops and setting up a dedicated software-defined network would have taken a minimum of three months,” he says. And, if Grant Thornton UK had pursued an alternative solution, namely shipping devices to auditors overseas, the cost would have been significant. Swift estimates that the firm saved £1,000 per person by using Azure Virtual Desktop instead.

Swift describes the solution as “a win-win” because the offshore auditors can help alleviate the workload of United Kingdom–based employees during their busiest time. “It’s given us a different model to scale our resourcing more effectively and actually get more work,” he says.

Saving hundreds of hours by accessing content from the cloud

Another Microsoft cloud offering, Windows 365, came to the fore to help Grant Thornton UK as it navigated a series of audits, this time as a subject rather than an auditor. “Occasionally, an outside firm that has been hired to review our work will come in and perform that review,” explains Swift. In the past, a visiting auditor would book a physical laptop with relevant files installed, requiring a Grant Thornton UK employee to be onsite while the review took place. That system worked well until COVID-19 restrictions made it difficult to travel simply to perform a review. “We saw an opportunity to improve the whole process,” says Swift. “We used Windows 365 to create Cloud PCs that auditors could access using multifactor authentication for heightened security and review the relevant files in a safeguarded environment, from anywhere.”

Over the course of a year, 150 such audits might occur, and the move to a cloud-based process will help save valuable time. “We expect to save 500 billable hours by moving the review process to the cloud,” says Swift. The transformation is more than a simple time-saving measure. “Windows 365 is helping our people think differently,” says Swift. “They are no longer thinking they need to do everything on a local device. That’s transformational.”

The move to Cloud PCs is also helping reduce travel—and the expenses that come with it. “External auditors used to have to travel to the site and book an office space,” says Gilbert. “That is no longer necessary.”  “We have over 150 external file reviews performed in our offices each year, the reduction in travel and accommodation to facilitate these is a significant saving, contributing to the total £5 million saved in expenses as a result of Covid and working differently in 2021”.

Self-service model simplifies onboarding and lightens IT workload

The Grant Thornton UK IT organization uses Windows 365 to lighten the load on IT admins and create a consistent experience for employees. “With Windows 365, we have experienced a revolutionary change to how we onboard new people,” says Gilbert. “There is no more manual creation of accounts.” As per a process implemented by Grant Thornton UK, new accounts are added to an Azure Active Directory group and a Windows 365 Cloud PC is automatically provisioned within an hour. “It’s a self-service model now,” Gilbert continues. “People get the same experience no matter if they sign in from a physical machine or a Cloud PC. The new process saves us 40 hours per month of setup and administration and to date over 400 hours. It has also helped streamline IT support. It doesn’t matter what type of machine someone is using—our support is the same.”

Additionally, some patching is handled automatically via Windows 365, freeing up even more time for IT to focus on other tasks. Pricing is more predictable, too, because Windows 365 features a standard monthly cost that suits the majority of the Grant Thornton UK employees who work in a hybrid manner. And, when IT needs to test a new Windows 11 environment, the process is simplified with the use of Windows 365. “We now have the ability to quickly spin up a Windows 11 environment to test,” says Gilbert. “That’s been a game-changer and simplified things for our testing team. We no longer need to build a whole load of images.” Grant Thornton UK benefits from an improved proof of concept process with Windows 365, selecting a wider test group without the need to disrupt existing laptops or send out alternative devices.

Grant Thornton UK’s IT organization also uses Windows 365 to continue to serve its customers in the face of unexpected supply chain issues. “Providing solutions via a Cloud PC has mitigated the issues that the recent supply chain disruption created for us,” says Gilbert. “We were still able to meet demand because we used Windows 365 Cloud PCs instead of distributing physical devices.” In the case of summer interns, for instance, the use of Windows 365 helped IT deliver an optimal experience despite various challenges. Notes Swift, “Without the use of Cloud PCs, we might not have been able to run the internship program in 2021. But with Windows 365, we were able to give interns a good experience.”

While operating in a highly regulated industry, Grant Thornton UK needs tools that stand up to strict compliance requirements. “With both Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365, we implemented features that prevented data from leaving the protected environment,” says Swift. “It’s been a huge win.” Today, Grant Thornton UK meets the strict regulations of its industry by using Microsoft tools built with compliance in mind. For instance, files that are accessed using Azure Virtual Desktop can’t be printed or downloaded. And Grant Thornton UK uses data loss prevention controls to help ensure that its data stays within the United Kingdom—even while being worked on from another country—via Microsoft Intune and the Remote Desktop Protocol properties on the host pool. “Our regulator probed very heavily on those issues, and we were able to address those security and compliance concerns with the features inherent in Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365,” says Swift.

A cloud transformation to support customer needs and employee experiences

Grant Thornton UK also uses Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 to keep up with the rapidly evolving nature of its business, particularly in the emerging field of machine learning. “We often have requirements for additional compute power from employees working with AI modeling,” says Swift. “That is difficult to keep up with from a physical PC perspective, but with virtual machines, it’s really simple to add those capabilities. Running a script that might take three days on the average laptop can be done in 20 minutes on a virtual machine.”

Swift also expects that the use of Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 will give Grant Thornton UK more flexibility in meeting employee needs—even if they are constantly changing. “Rather than us providing everyone with the same specification PC, people who require a lower specification PC can continue to work on those,” says Swift. “That will create savings.” Grant Thornton UK’s existing environmental, social, and governance goals are also supported by virtual machines. Gilbert explains, “The energy consumption of just one high-powered laptop can be significant, especially for those working from home. It’s certainly more energy efficient to run those devices in the cloud.”

Ultimately, embracing Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 serves Grant Thornton UK customers and its employees. “Our customers are the main thing,” says Swift. “We have been able to show them that we can continue taking care of their needs even in a rapidly changing world.” Most of the firm’s customers have strict deadlines by which they need to file accounts. “We need to complete our work on time to enable them to meet those deadlines,” says Swift. “We used Microsoft cloud services and applications to continue meeting our commitments to our clients, even in a hybrid world. The experience reinforced our existing relationships and helped us forge positive new relationships with customers.”

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