SoftwareOne case study

How WIS replaced Citrix with AVD and cut annual platform costs by 65%

Facing a costly Citrix renewal, WIS worked with SoftwareOne to move 320 employees and more than 100 applications to AVD without disruption.

For more than 15 years, WIS relied on Citrix to give around 320 employees access to more than 100 internal applications. When it faced a multiyear renewal with a 200%-plus price increase, the inventory services company needed a secure, scalable alternative without disrupting field operations across North America.

SoftwareOne helped WIS design and deploy Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) with Nerdio, validate the management platform in a proof of concept, and run AVD alongside Citrix during a gradual migration. The new environment cuts annual platform costs by approximately 65% against the proposed Citrix renewal, introduces multifactor authentication, simplifies administration and support, and incurred no implementation cost for WIS because SoftwareOne secured Microsoft funding.

65% cost reduction
Saving on annual platform costs compared with the proposed Citrix renewal
100% funded implementation
SoftwareOne secured Microsoft funding that completely covered the implementation cost for WIS
Zero operational impact
Migration was executed as a seamless side-by-side transition for 320 users across 100+ internal applications without downtime

Client: WIS
Industry: Retail, Professional services
Platform: Azure Cloud
Services: Cloud Services: Cloud Migration Services; Professional Services
Country: United States

A costly Citrix renewal makes modernization urgent

WIS International helps major retailers understand what is on their shelves and in their stores. Operating across the United States and Canada, the company provides inventory audit services to big-box retailers including Walmart, Target, and Home Depot. More than 20,000 WIS employees work in the field, supported by established processes and the technology delivered by its internal IT organization.

For more than 15 years, Citrix had been central to that technology environment. Around 320 WIS employees, primarily area and regional managers distributed across North America, depended on it to reach more than 100 internal applications. Most were delivered as remote applications, with a smaller group using full remote desktops.

The platform was familiar and capable, but its economics changed abruptly. “We were being forced to sign a multiyear contract with probably a 200%-plus increase in the renewal cost,” Madhu Machala, Director of Information Technology at WIS, explains. “When that renewal cost came up, it was so high that there was no other option for us but to get out of Citrix.”

WIS had already been considering how to modernize the environment, but the looming renewal turned a longer-term ambition into an urgent business requirement. Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) offered a promising alternative because the necessary user-access rights were already covered by Microsoft 365 licenses that WIS was paying for.

WIS evaluated more than one provider before selecting SoftwareOne. Previous migration projects had given the company confidence in SoftwareOne’s delivery teams and understanding of its environment.

“We did evaluate a couple of vendors,” says Machala. “My team and I liked the proposal from SoftwareOne including its Virtual Desktop Kick Start [a tool to simplify and accelerate the deployment of AVD]. We also felt good about the people at SoftwareOne.”

Scaling AVD with automated governance using Nerdio

AVD itself was not entirely new to WIS. Small, focused groups - including IT employees, developers, and external vendors - were already using it. However, extending AVD to hundreds of business users and replacing a mature Citrix deployment required a stronger management and automation layer.

“We knew what AVD was, so we did not have to do a large proof of concept,” Machala says. “But there was one important solution that SoftwareOne recommended, and we did a proof of concept. That was Nerdio.”

Nerdio makes AVD much more usable for management and governance at scale. Native AVD tooling tends to work well for fewer than 50 users and one or two host pools, but beyond that, management, updates, and day-to-day maintenance become much more complex. “The Nerdio platform overcomes these problems and gives you the kind of capabilities we had with Citrix.”

SoftwareOne helped WIS evaluate Nerdio, obtain a proof-of-concept license, and understand how it would integrate with AVD. Nerdio's image-led provisioning, autoscaling, monitoring, and session-management capabilities addressed important operational gaps in native AVD and made the combined environment easier for WIS to administer.

The SoftwareOne team was incredibly helpful and professional in setting up the environment. We had four or five two-hour workshops where they went through each individual component piece by piece and explained it in a very thorough, easy-to-digest manner.

Madhu Machala

Director of Information Technology, WIS International

After the workshops, WIS and SoftwareOne built the new environment alongside Citrix. The team tested desktop images and applications, created new host pools, and assigned remote applications to users. Running both platforms in parallel allowed WIS to validate the new setup and move employees gradually.

SoftwareOne also supplied training materials that WIS adapted for its users. WIS communicated the change, monitored adoption, and kept Citrix available until nearly everyone was working in AVD. This controlled transition preserved access to more than 100 applications and avoided disruption.

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Lower costs, stronger security, and simpler support

For users, the experience was deliberately evolutionary. The interface and launch process changed, requiring some training and new internal documentation, but the applications and essential capabilities employees relied on remained available.

Behind the scenes, the operational model improved considerably. Nerdio automatically powers down unused Azure machines and starts capacity again when demand returns, reducing Azure consumption outside busy periods. Once autoscaling policies are configured, they require little routine intervention. Comprehensive logs help the IT team identify failures, while centralized session information makes it easier for first-line support staff to find users, see which host and application they are using, and take corrective action.

The move also strengthened security. WIS could introduce multifactor authentication, which had not been enabled in the previous Citrix environment. When external contractors require access, IT can now provision a controlled virtual desktop instead of allowing a contractor-owned device to connect directly to the organization.

“I would highly recommend the AVD and Nerdio combination for any organization. There may be a little training and a different way of working, but overall, if somebody is considering it, I would highly recommend doing it. They will see the benefits.”

Madhu Machala

Director of Information Technology, WIS International

The financial return is equally clear. Compared with WIS's annual Citrix cost before the proposed license increase, the complete AVD and Nerdio environment reduces the yearly run rate by approximately 33%. Compared with the higher Citrix renewal WIS was facing, the saving is approximately 65% - almost two-thirds. Autoscaling creates additional Azure consumption savings, although WIS has not yet isolated these as a separate percentage.

SoftwareOne also secured Microsoft funding that covered the implementation cost for WIS. As a result, the lower annual run rate did not have to offset an upfront project outlay before generating a return.

For WIS, a potentially disruptive licensing challenge became an opportunity to modernize a business-critical platform, preserving the access employees needed while creating a more automated, secure, and cost-effective foundation for remote work.