JSC Ukrtelecom is Ukraine’s incumbent telecommunications operator. Committed to keep expanding the range of ICT services it offers customers, the company was being held back by legacy technology. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, forcing it to adopt a remote-work model, Ukrtelecom acted fast to revamp its digital capabilities and implemented Microsoft 365, Azure, and Windows Virtual Desktop. Now, the company is seeing a significant rise in efficiency and productivity while benefiting from bolstered security regardless of employee location.
Headquartered in Kyiv, JSC Ukrtelecom is the Ukrainian market leader in telecommunications services for B2B, B2C, B2O segments. Working to provide customers with nearly all types of services—including cloud Private Branch Exchange, lease of cloud IT infrastructure, Distributed Denial of Service attack protection, data transmission services and fiber-broadband internet access—Ukrtelecom is on a mission to bridge the digital divide in Ukraine.
“We had a lot of legacy workplace solutions in our company,” begins Kirill Goncharuk, CIO of Ukrtelecom, “But they were outdated and not as secure as we needed them to be. Plus, our employees didn’t have a single unified environment. When the pandemic broke out, it accelerated our digital journey. We suddenly needed to build a virtual office for both internal and external users, so they could safely work from anywhere.”
Enabling effective and secure remote work
Upon weighing the options, Ukrtelecom chose Microsoft Azure and Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) as the way forward. “We have a very distributed infrastructure around Ukraine, with fiber optic and broadband services in more than 3320 cities,” explains Goncharuk. “We needed the right, most secure technology to support our employees, no matter where they are.”
After a month-long proof of concept and three-month-long implementation with partner Metinvest Digital, Ukrtelecom’s employees made the shift to Azure and WVD, enabling fast, reliable connection for everyone and the secure access, storage and sharing of data. “Suddenly, all our employees had the same digital experience, no matter where they worked from. After trying out the new solution, and receiving training, our employees agreed that the overall digital experience was much better, that they wouldn’t ever want to go back.
Easy collaboration
In addition to WVD and Azure, Ukrtelecom relies heavily on Microsoft 365 tools, day to day. “We use everything we can get from the Microsoft 365 suite,” says Goncharuk. “We’ve also replaced our old communication services with the Teams environment. It has great compatibility with tools our employees use daily, such as PowerPoint and Power BI. We also use Teams for collaborating with external subcontractors, because we can be certain that everything is secure.”
With plans to migrate the company’s business support systems to Azure, Goncharuk is very satisfied with the progress the company has made thus far. “From an IT perspective, the new tools have helped us work more efficiently and centralize a lot of functions. On top of which, we pay only for what we use, meaning we save on costs. Our security has improved dramatically and we’re also able to include more and more data from Azure and Microsoft 365 in our management system. It has all been of great value to the company and will help us thrive going forward.”
Our employees agree that the overall digital experience is much better. They wouldn’t ever want to go back.
Kirill Goncharuk: CIO, Ukrtelecom
