Accenture upgrades the experience for over 700,000 employees with Windows 11 Enterprise and Intune

Providing the latest operating system without friction or interruption

Accenture started its deployment in January 2022, transitioning nearly all of its employees who were using Windows devices to Windows 11 Enterprise. “Because Accenture runs on Microsoft and we have a very low friction upgrade process, we decided early on that as soon as Windows 11 was available, we would deploy it,” explains Ellis. “Annual feature updates and 40% smaller cumulative updates for Windows 11 Enterprise are huge for us because we can meet our patching goals much more efficiently and create less strain on our infrastructure and employees.”

At the same time, the work Accenture put into moving to Windows 10 transitioned well into its upgrade to Windows 11, eliminating the need for more heavy lifting or large investments relative to its organization size. “We spent millions of dollars to move to Windows 10 and only hundreds of thousands on moving to more than 95 percent adoption of Windows 11 Enterprise,” says Bradley Nyers, a Managing Director at Accenture responsible for infrastructure managed services.

Most important, Accenture wanted to deliver the latest and most powerful technology straight into its employees’ hands with minimal learning curve. Nyers was among the initial group of company leaders who participated in the entire prelaunch journey, from testing to updating his device to the configuration of Windows 11 Enterprise on release day. “My initial reaction was that the refreshed UI felt more modern and aligned with other Microsoft applications and where they’re headed,” he says. And after collecting feedback from employees, Yusra Qamar, Talent and Organization Manager at Accenture, notes, “Central controls in Windows 11 Enterprise were an immediate game-changer for people who disliked having to go to Microsoft Teams to mute and unmute themselves, struggled to use split screens for multiple applications, or craved weather and quick search widgets.”

For the rapid shift from Windows 10 to Windows 11, Accenture sought to minimize the impact on employees’ day-to-day work. The company’s Windows Servicing Council, a forum run by its Windows engineering team, identified the top 25 critical applications that would be deal breakers if they didn’t work with the new OS. “We worked with external vendors beforehand to confirm compatibility of their products with Windows 11,” says Ellis. “Only after that did we start proof of concept testing with my workstation team, pilot testing with key teams, and then broader pilot testing across the company, monitoring and reporting incidents along the way.”

Pilot testing groups quickly accelerated from 10,000 to 50,000 employees, leading to a competitive pace of 100,000 devices upgraded per month during the production waves. Leading the way were eager early adopters at all levels of the company who were most excited to try the new Windows 11 Enterprise features. “If someone wanted Windows 11 Enterprise sooner rather than later, we dropped them into the current wave with Power Automate,” says Ellis. “These are the people who want to be on the latest and greatest as much as we do.” Most devices easily upgraded in place to Windows 11 Enterprise, with only 1% requiring hardware replacement.

Designing a more effective, holistic approach to Windows 11 change management

As part of the migration process, Accenture put its Journey and Change Management Center of Excellence into action to develop a comprehensive communications and training plan. It designed a strategy with one key difference from the company’s traditional tech-focused change plans: the primary messaging was meant to be benefit-oriented and was key in helping every employee make the most of their Windows 11 Enterprise experience. “To do that, we relied heavily on Good Morning Accenture, our twice weekly email digest,” says Ellis. “Too many change management communications can be overwhelming, so the idea here is if you read no other email, this has everything you need to know.”

Taking change management to the next level, Accenture emphasizes behavioral changes, amplifying adoption efforts to encourage every employee to be the best digital worker possible using all available resources. “By telling our people to free up space and back up their files to OneDrive along with their Windows 11–specific communications, we’re able to do a whole campaign around the right behaviors for file storage and improving the overall workstation experience,” says Qamar. “Now, if your device gets damaged, your files are protected on OneDrive.”

Accenture now uses Windows 11 Enterprise as the default operating system for all of its Windows devices—exactly as it set out to accomplish. “As people come and go from Accenture, we refresh their devices so that any going out the door to employees as of April 2022 are equipped with Windows 11,” says Ellis. “It’s not like we shipped Windows 10 devices and then a month later upgraded to Windows 11. We set an early objective to get any new devices on Windows 11 by working with our vendors to have them shipped with it.”

Growing into a company more people want to work for

In addition to supporting current employees, one of the primary motivators for Accenture to deploy Windows 11 Enterprise was to attract and better support the next generation of talent. “If we’re not on the latest and greatest cloud-based software and a new joiner learns we’re on an old operating system or four patch revisions behind, it is certainly a red flag in their mind,” says Ellis. Accenture had Windows 11 Enterprise deployed to its first 50,000 employees and their devices in just over two months—directly after its initial early adopters’ pilot. “We continue to demonstrate to both employees and clients that we’re one of the fastest and brightest when it comes to running the Windows shop,” Ellis adds.

The company further highlights its digital prowess by having employees’ devices ready to go as soon as they start work. “I have heard from many new joiners that their onboarding experience at Accenture was much different than other companies they've worked for because we have their enterprise ID and workstation configured and ready to go so that they can be in an operational state on day one,” says Nyers. “Windows 11 further enables that environment for us.”

“Accenturizing” employee devices with Windows Autopilot, Intune, and new security features

Moving forward, Accenture is embracing a cloud-native approach as it nears final testing of modern management for its Windows 11 Enterprise devices using Windows Autopilot and Intune. It’s also quickly moving from Active Directory to Entra ID-only joined devices. “We can now Accenturize a device in a single double click,” says Ellis.

From a security standpoint, Accenture is also taking full advantage of security capabilities within and attached to Windows 11 Enterprise, including Secure Boot and Windows virtualization-based security (VBS). It also continues to use Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to identify and target specific threats. “We made a specific effort with Windows 11 to turn on a number of security features that we hadn’t previously used with Windows 10, including some with Windows VBS,” adds Ellis. “It wasn’t because they weren’t available, but it was a good opportunity as we were transforming on a broader scale to take advantage of additional capabilities.”

Finding differentiation through leadership in technology adoption

Having committed to innovation and digital transformation from day one, Accenture’s decision to upgrade to Windows 11 Enterprise is the latest step in its journey to lead with a streamlined environment offering easier navigation, more efficient multitasking, and new security capabilities, all resulting in an enhanced employee experience that’s already appealing to a growing number of new joiners and potential recruits. “The ease of deployment and adoption of Windows 11 Enterprise for 50,000 people in a pilot, which is the size of some profitable companies’ entire production wave, up to 738,000 employees, is a testament to both Microsoft and Accenture,” says Ellis. “Microsoft made the product easy to use, and for a large group like Accenture, we have our act together managing the upgrade.”

Best of all, this accomplishment was achieved while business continued on as usual. “Compared with most major version upgrades, it’s the lack of noise in moving to Windows 11 Enterprise that really differentiated what we did,” says Nyers. “When the next operating system is released, we’re prepared to move fast and lean into our position as a future-ready enterprise.”

Next up, Accenture is conducting early pilots of Copilot in Windows 11 and says it’s already become a huge component of its adoption strategy. “We’re well aware of the art of what’s possible with AI, which is why we chose to pilot Copilot with our most senior leaders and flipped the adoption mechanism from the bottom up to the top down,” says Nyers.

In addition to demonstrating Accenture’s technical expertise with the Windows OS and reinforcing its position as a champion in technology adoption, the company hopes this effort inspires other IT departments to achieve similar goals. “I would love for our clients to know that Accenture’s ability to move at this pace and scale isn’t only because we have the focus to do this but because Windows 11 is built in a way that facilitates success,” says Ellis. “We didn’t have to jump through a bunch of hurdles with Windows 11 to get what we wanted—it was ready out of the box.”

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