About the client
AmRest is one of the leading publicly listed restaurant companies in Europe. Since 1993, the company has been developing their portfolio of popular brands such as KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks on a franchise and joint venture basis. AmRest is also the owner of the La Tagliatella brand , developed both by the holding’s restaurants and through a franchise. In 2012, two Chinese brands joined the AmRest portfolio : Blue Frog and KABB. In 2018, the company took over the Bacoa chain of restaurants in Spain and Sushi Shop in 12 countries in Europe and Asia, employing jointly over 50,000 employees.
Main challenge
Due to the rapidly growing employment rate and the need to conduct training on a dedicated online platform, there was a need to standardize the equipment used for training purposes. Previously, AmRest maintained a fleet of devices without centralized management and monitoring.
This gave rise to many challenges for users and people responsible for managing the devices. It was necessary to update the system image with specific drivers for each laptop.
The FOTC team immediately entered the project, selected an appropriate license type for us, as well as helped to integrate Chrome Enterprise with SSO login using Azure AD, which we use globally as a company. From the very beginning of our cooperation with FOTC, we felt supported almost at every step of the process.
Solution
During the negotiations, AmRest representatives expressed interest in a solution based on the Chrome OS system. It turned out that Chromebooks meet the expectations of training laptops. The decision to buy them was finally made when AmRest learned about Chrome Enterprise and the device management capabilities of the platform.
Google consultants who carried out the tests of devices recommended FOTC as a trusted partner who could provide licenses and support in the implementation of cloud solutions.
Results
The employees of the AmRest chain of restaurants praise Chromebooks for their simplicity, intuitiveness and fast performance. These laptops give them access to training platforms which are very important for the operation of the restaurants. The young staff are familiar Chrome browser and Android applications.
Device managers especially praise the simple configuration and intuitive interface of the Chrome Enterprise platform. They had never used the system before, and yet were able to implement it efficiently with no problems.
Full control
From an administrators’ point of view, a fleet of devices with a Chrome Enterprise license perfectly meets the needs of a centrally controlled system. Chrome Enterprise allows you to configure setting policies for each organization. AmRest uses this functionality to adapt groups of devices to the needs of each restaurant brand in a given country.
Troubleshooting
The administrator added a column with the location and extension number of each restaurant in the list of devices in the Chrome Enterprise administration panel. Thanks to this, support technicians can respond to problems in seconds.
Security
Sensitive information stored on Chromebooks, such as classified company know-how or personal data, is now protected by the stringent security features of the Chrome Enterprise system. The authentication services that AmRest had previously used, were also seamlessly integrated into the Google system.
Device enrollment ensures complete data security in the event of loss or theft. In addition, AmRest Chromebooks cannot be used for other purposes (even if an unauthorized person performed a hard reset) until the company retires the device.
Future perspectives
The possibility to run Android apps on Chrome OS creates many new possibilities for AmRest. The company is in line with the latest trends and is in the process of creating mobile applications for internal use. Employees will be able to successfully use emulations of these applications on company Chromebooks.