Chain of Buy-in: The Key to Successful DaaS Implementation

Implementing virtual desktops – whether an internal VDI initiative or a move to DaaS – is a big undertaking and often represents a massive process change for an organization. With something this big and fundamentally different, it’s difficult to be successful without the right internal champions.

A champion is someone who believes in the proposed change and understands that it’s worthwhile for the company. These people will help clear roadblocks, articulate business benefits and drive adoption. With something as big as outsourcing virtual desktops, you can’t rely on a single internal advocate. Instead, you need champions who have bought into the proposed initiative from many levels of the company.

Without the right internal champions, your project can stall indefinitely or fail to make a strong enough case for the change. Never underestimate the power of “but we’ve always done it this way.” You need to be prepared for pushback with an army of internal advocates that can help push the move to DaaS to completion – and success.

There are five areas you should secure buy-in from:

1. C-Level Executive
2. IT Upper Management
3. IT Implementation Team
4. Department Managers
5. End Users

While it may seem like higher level champions would be more important and helpful, it’s important to remember the “boots on the ground” players. An executive may buy into the project and give the order to move forward, but an unconvinced IT staffer or a skeptical manager can delay the implementation or negatively affect rollout and adoption.

Understand Your Argument

When approaching your potential champions, it’s important to tailor your talking points to what they care most about. Taking your highly technical argument about how DaaS will improve the company’s desktop management process likely isn’t going to impress anyone outside of IT. Instead, hone in on what will have the biggest impact on each champion’s everyday life and business goals and use that as the foundation for your argument. The way you convince someone to become a champion for DaaS is to convince them that it will benefit them in some way.

Here are a few key themes for each level of champion:

• C-Level: What will the business benefits be? I.E. Will it save the company money? Help with data security? Positively impact the bottom line? At this level it’s good to bring up current events like changing regulations, the cost of aging infrastructure or recent security threats.
• IT Upper Management: In most cases, the best arguments here will likely be around budget savings, streamlined processes and if DaaS meets very technical demands. Feel free to geek out!
• IT Implementation Team: Get really in the tech weeds here, these people are going to want to know that you did your homework and that your proposal to move to DaaS will work. Also tie it back to how it will affect their everyday duties (if it’s going to add more work you might want to go back to the drawing board).
• Department Managers: Focus on the benefits for their department and employees – better access, more productivity, whatever you think will make them excited about switching to a virtual desktop. Also mention how easy the transition will be.
• End Users: Making life easier and better is the name of the game for end users – focus all your efforts on this topic and forget about the technical stuff.

As we dig deeper into each champion persona and why they matter below we’ll also outline some particularly compelling arguments and talking points to help you customize your DaaS pitch and get these internal champions on board.

C-Level

The keepers of the budget, the c-suite is going to wonder why they need to invest in DaaS. While the move may make sense from a technical standpoint, you need to put it into terms of business benefits that people like the CEO and board of directors can understand. This is where having a c-level champion comes in handy. They not only have regular access to this top level of the business, but they’ll have the best understanding of the company’s current challenges and concerns and which potential benefits are most likely to get the project approved.

After implementation they’ll be able to help gauge the effectiveness of the move and potentially go to bat for the program if it comes under scrutiny. As the saying goes, it pays to have friends in high places.

Particularly strong business arguments for DaaS include: 

• A shift from burdensome CAPEX to predictable OPEX
• Reduced time to productivity (and therefore reduced time to revenue)
• A stronger cybersecurity posture
• The ability to scale quickly as the company grows
• Smoother, less IT-risky mergers and acquisitions
• The ability to securely support remote workers

IT Team

Within IT departments you’ll need the buy-in of two different groups: Upper level IT management and the team that will be implementing and managing the changes.

An upper level manager – like a VP or Director – will have access to top level executives and a deeper understanding of the business benefits that will resonate best with high level decision makers. They’ll also likely be a key decision maker themselves in terms of how the project will proceed, the budget and in DaaS vendor selection. Once the project is in motion, they’ll have influence over the implementation team, helping ensure the project continues to drive forward.

Particularly strong IT management arguments for DaaS include:

• Easier, faster desktop management – allowing staff to focus on more business-driving initiatives
• Moving from CAPEX to OPEX
• Eliminates need to maintain, update and replace infrastructure
• Get out of the hardware provisioning business

You also need buy in with the IT implementation team. During project planning and proposal they’ll poke holes in every element of the plan – it’s part of their job to look for potential issues and hang ups. You need someone on your side to look for the positives and be open to adopting this outsourced technology. Once your move to DaaS has been greenlighted, this team will have one of the biggest impacts on how quickly it is rolled out. If they don’t think it’s a good idea, don’t count on your DaaS implementation getting off the ground any time soon.

Particularly strong IT implementation arguments for DaaS include:

• The ability to manage all desktops from a single pane of glass
• The ability to easily and successfully support BYOD programs
• Easy access to manage and support remote endpoints
• Simple pushout of patches and updates
• Easily implemented user and group policy controls
• Less time spent on desktop trouble shooting and support
• The help of an outsourced team for virtual desktop support

Department Managers

It may seem like department managers shouldn’t matter to this process – the company is making a change and they’re expected to go along with it. But just like with the IT implementation folks, if a department manager doesn’t believe in the usefulness of or need for virtual desktops they’re certainly not going to be very passionate about encouraging adoption.

In general, people aren’t a fan of change, especially if they feel like it’s going to negatively affect their productivity while they adjust to a new way of accessing their desktops, applications and documents. The only way you’re going to get swift and far reaching adoption is if the change is driven from the top down, and at this level that “top” is the department manager.

Particularly strong departmental arguments for DaaS include:

• Better enabling the company’s No. 1 asset – its employees
• Remove tech challenges specific departments may have complained about
• Uniform access to necessary applications
• Better productivity since employees can access their desktops from any device, anywhere, anytime
• Don’t have to worry about an employee losing their laptop or a laptop being stolen – all information stays secure and the employee can just log into their same desktop from a new device
• Easily grant remote employees access to all the applications and data they need, increasing time to productivity and reducing management headaches

End Users

At the end of the day, end users are the ones that will be using the virtual desktops. They don’t care about the business or IT benefits, they only care about how quickly they can learn this new process, how well the desktops work and how this change effects their everyday habits. If you encounter any growing pains (not uncommon when implementing a new technology) they’re going to be the ones to raise the alarm and try and sink the initiative. That’s why it’s important to have end user champions.

These champions can be peer-to-peer advocates for your move to DaaS. They’ll be the ones that understand the core benefits to them and their coworkers, they’ll be the early adopters (possibly even the test cases that help you work out the kinks) and they’ll ultimately be the ones to encourage their peers to embrace the change and work through any concerns.

Particularly strong end user arguments for DaaS include:

• The ability to work anywhere, from any device
• Better support for their chosen device in a BYOD situation
• No need to worry about accepting software update or patching requests in the middle of the work day (because IT can take care of it off-hours)
• All the applications they need will be automatically added to their desktop and maintained
• Don’t have to worry as much about making a data security mistake

The Chain of Buy-In

The most successful projects are ones that people are excited about and believe is a good idea. Unfortunately in a corporate setting you’re not likely to get everyone on board. But by securing internal champions at key points of the organization you can help drive your DaaS initiative through from start to finish. Take as many champions as you can get (the most the merrier), but be sure you have at least one influential advocate at each of these pivotal levels or your project is likely to run into some speedbumps.

You may also like:

• Understanding the Benefits & ROI of DaaS
• Making the Business Case for Virtual Desktops
• Desktop as a Service (DaaS) Delivery Options