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Many of Big Picture’s employees are part-time workers who already own personal mobile devices. The company’s main challenge was to provide all employees with relevant information, at the right time and in their respective languages, regardless of whether they used a company-owned device or their own device. Half of Big Picture’s mobile device fleet consists of corporate-owned tablets, while the other half is a mix of employee-owned smartphones and tablets.

Big Picture designs training programmes and sales tools and shares high resolution videos and photographs, so the company needed a containerization solution - an encrypted storage space with secure access. By implementing a hybrid program of corporate and employee-owned devices, the company wanted to give employees access to corporate resources, while ensuring its data was protected and secure.

The Client

Established in 1996, Big Picture is the UK’s premier field marketing agency, specializing in the consumer electronics and technology sector. Its mission is to run campaigns that drive incremental sales and to leave a legacy of improved sales after in-store activity has finished. In addition, the company develops training programmes for employees and provides sales and feedback reporting.

After noticing significantly increased sales in clients’ stores where tablets were used, Big Picture’s leadership team began researching Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solutions for a way to push content to devices from a central admin console. “One of the main reasons we selected AirWatch was because of Secure Content Locker (SCL),” said Julian Duncan, General Manager of Client Services, Big Picture. “SCL is the best tool on the market. It enables our end-users to view all available content at a glance and to download multiple documents at once. Within one week, three of our employees seamlessly rolled out more than a hundred BYOD devices.”

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The Solution

Big Picture manages and secures corporate-owned devices, while managing content for both corporate and employee-owned devices. A password is required to view and download content in SCL. Different privileges for employees were set up, based on profiles defined by three criteria – the employee’s location, the employee’s role (manager of field staff), and whether the device was employee or corporate-owned. Employees can access relevant content, in their own language and location. The functionality to push information to devices is crucial, especially during product launches, as they are under embargo until an official announcement date. Once a product has launched, Big Picture’s IT department pushes launch-related content directly to the devices at the same time.

In the past, Big Picture’s employees had to manually write their sales reports during the day and type them on their personal computers at home, a process that was time consuming. Many can now complete their reports in stores using tablets. “This capability has been very well received by our employees because it saves time otherwise spent on manual reporting, which can now be spent selling.” explains Mr Duncan. “Besides, by using tablets managed by AirWatch in stores, we can offer clients live sales data through our online portal.”

Big Picture also runs reports to track the content and apps being accessed, which measures employee engagement and ensures the company’s two mandatory apps are used - iBooks Author and SCL. Big Picture’s IT department uses reports to track compliance violations and enrollment, and sends automatic emails to users as necessary. “The flexibility to build custom profiles rather working with an existing file structure is very important,” explains Mr Duncan. “We are always coming up with new ways to use the AirWatch solution. As a company, AirWatch is very responsive to our questions and feedback. They understand our business.”

Up Next

Big Picture will expand its collaboration with AirWatch in the future. The company is planning to explore content management and SharePoint integration. The IT department plans to develop internal applications, which will be deployed through AirWatch’s App Catalog. The next step will be to develop an integrated reporting system to be pushed out through AirWatch for employees to report their sales figures, feedback, timesheets and payroll information, all integrated through one system.

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