Yodel rolls out Windows 10, Windows Phone and Surface 3 for over 5,000 employees

Microsoft seen as the best platform for the company's moble workforce

Yodel is to roll out Windows 10 across thousands of Windows Phone and Surface 3 devices, CIO Adam Gerrard has revealed to Computing.

Talking about the delivery firm's BYOD policy, Gerrard explained how the company - which is still recovering from the 2010 merger of DHL Domestic and HDNL - is using applications day-to-day that are not suitable for Android or iPhone devices that employees may want to use.

"Our end-user apps are not of the kind of calibre or capability to be rolled out as a BYOD solution at the moment," said Gerrard.

"Some of that stems from the legacy aspects of it, the fact that things are built in a very specific way, that you need to know how to use them. You don't download something to your phone and then expect to go on a three-day training course," he reflected.

While Gerrard said that some of the applications will be "sorted out" in the near future, and that BYOD isn't off the cards, Yodel is instead pursuing a Windows 8 and Windows 10-based device strategy across its 5,000 staff - a number that can rise to as many as 16,000 at peak times such as Black Friday and Christmas - that should allow legacy support of older applications as well as integrating with other services, such as Teradata, which Yodel is using for analytics.

"In terms of our own ability in general, we've gone down the Windows Phone route. We've started providing Windows Phones to everyone in the business, and we're building apps around that," said Gerrard.

"We already have Windows-based handheld device technology for drivers and sorters, and some of that will be refreshed as well."

Gerrard explained that "the Windows piece does make sense" for Yodel, where several Windows devices are already used, ranging from XP to 2000 to Windows 8, but mostly running on desktops and older, heavyweight laptops.

"But the way we work, with people having to leave their office to have conversations and then have go back to their office to carry on working, lends itself much more to mobility," he explained.

"What we're standardising on is a Windows 8-cum-Windows 10 way of working, with the mobile phone, tablet, laptops and desktops," revealed Gerrard.

"We're looking at Surface 3 wherever it best applies - not just for management. We've got use cases for [delivery vehicle] drivers - all the service centre managers already have [Surface 3s]. They're now fully mobile and can work at peak on the shop floor with their Teradata reports on the tablets."

Gerrard is also planning to expand the provision of in-house applications. Currently, Yodel mainly deploys "classic" applications running in the Win 32 environment, but he hopes to start moving them into the Windows 8-style Modern sandbox, which can also now run on the Win 32 desktop in Windows 10.

"We're building app-type wrappers around certain things," said Gerrard.

The full-length interview with Yodel CIO Adam Gerrard will appear in Computing shortly.