Global leader in construction and facility management software
Dalux is a global industry leader in BIM (Building Information Modeling) software for construction and facility management. Currently employing over 400 people in 22 different countries, with customer success and sales teams strategically positioned worldwide. While its development team is based in Denmark, Omar Couri, Head of IT, is tasked with managing a widespread hybrid remote workforce.
Dalux has achieved a consistent 60% annual growth for seven consecutive years. The company's emphasis on long-term strategies enables them to build strong foundations and deliver value to their customers consistently. Omar says, "Dalux makes sure to reinvest in their people and culture, we have a very flat, down-to-earth company structure.
Reshaping the IT infrastructure
Joining Dalux 9 months ago, Omar took charge of scaling the company's IT infrastructure in preparation for continued growth and expansion. Recognizing the crucial role of IT in achieving their objectives, Omar emphasized work towards ISO compliance and sought to establish a best practices approach to enhancing IT security. Ensuring a seamless end-user experience was of utmost importance to him. “A lot of this work requires a best practices approach, and this is where I come in” Omar explains.
When Omar started, he quickly realized that there was much work to be done in the IT department. Misconfigurations in Intune, incorrect usage of autopilot, scattered asset management, lack of a complete software overview, no device monitoring, no patch management, multiple antivirus solutions, and a costly underutilized TeamViewer license were among the blind corners that hindered efficiency. To alleviate these issues, Omar was determined to find a way to leverage automation to better streamline daily IT operations and unlock the company's IT infrastructure maturity.
"The features Ninja offers is one thing, when you add the way they look after their customers, the account management, the technical support – that is a leading example of how any company should be running their operations"
Searching for a complete solution made for growing environments
After having worked previously with MSPs, Omar had learned the value of a complete centralized endpoint management solution and how it contributed to a better end user experience. When searching for an alternative to Microsoft Intune, Omar sought to find a more unified platform that would aid his objective to build a more robust and scalable IT environment at Dalux. He looked at NinjaOne and another endpoint management solution. Upon further testing, Ninja seemed to be built better to handle growing companies.
Omar was captivated by Ninja's user-friendly interface, seamless scalability, and robust features like remote script running. The ability to provide support behind the scenes while giving end users a "hands-off" experience stood out to him. Additionally, Ninja's comprehensive endpoint overview impressed Omar. “The features Ninja offers is one thing, when you add the way they look after their customers, the account management, the technical support – that is a leading example of how any company should be running their operations” Omar states.
"Ninja's Endpoint Security gives me full insight and control of our security posture"
Hardening endpoints with Ninja
When asked about the deployment process Omar clarified that he chose to divide the company endpoints into two groups: developers and non-developers. The deployment process began by implementing Ninja agents on non-developer endpoints, ensuring compliance with data and security standards. This phase took approximately three weeks. Next, the focus shifted to deploying Ninja on developer endpoints, which was completed in just one day. “During the process of deploying Ninja to all company endpoints gave me some very good insight and exposure to compliance levels and vulnerabilities” says Omar. The implementation helped Omar set new standardized configuration models for any new endpoints that would be added moving forward.
Omar utilizes Ninja's Endpoint Security to achieve better control and isolation in case of an attack. “I wanted a tool that could act as security analyst, digital forensic, incident respondent, malware reverse specialist, CTI specialist all in one” Omar explains. With full alerts and reports, he can monitor security incidents, assess security posture, and protect endpoints from human errors. Ninja enables quick detection and response, allowing Omar to swiftly address security threats. Additionally, he implemented internal IT security trainings required by all staff to complete to further strengthen endpoint protection. Ninja's integrations provide a proactive approach to endpoint security, ensuring comprehensive monitoring and rapid incident response. “The Bitdefender GravityZone integration in Ninja gives me full insight and control of our security posture, vulnerabilities and antimalware standpoint”.
"Ninja helped us go from 50% to 100% of our endpoints being fully compliant, managed and secured"
Laying the groundwork for what's next
Omar tells us that switching to Ninja has brought significant improvements to Dalux's endpoint monitoring and management. The consolidation and conciseness of device monitoring, along with efficient automated patch management, has enabled better compliance adherence. “The control panel allows me to take direct support with a single click and I can run ready-made scripts effortlessly” Omar claims. The unified view offered by the dashboard streamlined operations.
Since adopting Ninja, there have been notable changes in Omar's day-to-day. It has provided him peace of mind by uncovering a significant amount of pending work, helped facilitate team growth and implement best practices. "The most noticeable measurable benefit from switching to Ninja is that we went from having only 50% of our endpoints fully secure, compliant and managed to 100%".
Had Omar not made the switch, time would have been a major challenge. Dalux's endpoint management function would still be under development, and building the IT environment would continue to be a work in progress. "This would have put our security posture and compliance at greater risk, as only 50% of our endpoints would have been secured and monitored." Omar explains.
Overall, the decision to switch to Ninja brought about transformative improvements, ensuring comprehensive endpoint management, enhanced security, and improved compliance across the organization. This has allowed Omar Couri, Head of IT, to lay the groundwork and foundation for Dalux's ambitious company goals in growth and providing excellent products to their customers.
Customer Story
