Best Of
Our Business Change and Adoption toolkit
Turning strategy into sustainable change
Rolling out new technology is only half the story. The real challenge is making sure people actually adopt it. That’s why the Business Change & Adoption (BC&A) team at Advania uses a Change and Adoption Toolkit: a practical, repeatable set of assets, activities and approaches that help organisations move from launch to lasting impact.
So, what’s in the toolkit?
- Discovery & readiness: We start by understanding where people are today: attitudes to change, current behaviours, and what success looks like. This allows us to shape a change approach that fits the organisation, rather than relying on a one‑size‑fits‑all model.
- Structured change management: Using proven methodologies such as ADKAR, we focus on awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and reinforcement to ensure change sticks, not just lands.
- Targeted enablement and training: From role‑based training and practical scenarios to promptathons and champion networks, we help users build confidence and capability in their day‑to‑day work.
- Adoption measurement and feedback: The toolkit includes ways to track usage, sentiment and impact, combining data with real user feedback so organisations can clearly see value and adjust where needed.
- Reinforcement and continuous improvement: Change doesn’t stop at go‑live. We support ongoing reinforcement through communications, recognition, feedback loops and iteration.
Why this matters?
We regularly see organisations invest in great technology, but without a clear change and adoption approach, value is left on the table. The BC&A Toolkit helps bridge the gap between technology delivery and real behaviour change.
Over to the community
What change and adoption challenges are you seeing with your clients or teams? Which adoption activities have made the biggest difference for you?
Let’s keep sharing what works and continue raising the bar for meaningful, people‑centered change 💪
Nainika
How TD Bank built a people-first intranet that their 95,000 employees actually love
When TD Bank set out to overhaul its intranet, the challenge wasn’t just technical - it was human. With 12 landing pages, 40 separate sites, and over 150,000 documents, employees were experiencing what Abby Webster, AVP of Colleague Digital Experience, called “learned helplessness.” Navigating the system required insider knowledge, and frontline staff often struggled to find answers while customers waited.
In the latest episode of Fresh Perspectives, Abby shares how TD Bank flipped the script by putting employee experience at the heart of their digital transformation. The result? TD Central, a SharePoint-based platform that now handles over 1 million daily visits and serves 95,000 employees across multiple countries.
🔑 Key Takeaways
- End users first: TD Bank prioritised the needs of employees over the convenience of content editors. “The maintenance piece is a few people managing the site. The end user is the majority,” Abby explains.
- Conversations over complaints: Instead of just collecting feedback, Abby’s team asked deeper questions like “What does your day look like?” to understand the real context behind frustrations.
- Smart budgeting: Rather than requesting new funds, TD Bank redirected existing upgrade budgets to support their cloud migration, positioning the project as modernisation, not expense.
- Automated personalisation: Using nightly HR feeds, the platform dynamically adjusts content based on location and role changes, no manual group maintenance required.
- Build vs Buy validation: TD Bank prototyped their own SharePoint intranet before committing to a vendor, ensuring they understood the complexity and could negotiate effectively.
- Phased rollout strategy: The team used existing landing pages to segment the rollout, reducing risk and allowing for targeted communication.
- Celebrate small wins: Even minor improvements were shared widely, reinforcing momentum and showing employees that their feedback mattered.
🎧 Why It Matters
TD Bank’s transformation is a masterclass in user-centred design at enterprise scale. By listening deeply, planning strategically, and communicating relentlessly, they turned a frustrating legacy system into a beloved productivity tool.
Whether you're leading a digital workplace initiative or rethinking your intranet strategy, this episode offers practical insights you can apply today.
👉 Listen to the full episode here: Podcast - How to build a people-first intranet in SharePoint
✨Season of Sharing: Celebrating our Community champions
Today, we want to shine a light on some of the individuals who have helped shape the Advania Community in its first year.
From early contributors, to thoughtful commenters, to those who shared feedback during our soft launch - your input has helped us build a stronger, more valuable space for everyone.
Today, we are recognising a few of our 2025 Community Champions.
🏆 Employee Shoutouts of the Year
☁️ The Azure Oracle - @Damian Reffin
For consistently sharing sharp Azure updates and going deeper with thoughtful insights and articles in the Community Library. If it’s happening in Azure, chances are Damian’s already written about it (and explained why it matters).
🔐 The Cyber Sentinel - @Tristan Watkins
From in-person conversations with community members and online AMAs, to keeping us all alert with the latest cybersecurity threats and updates. Tristan has been our calm, trusted voice in a fast-moving security landscape.
📊 The Data Decoder - @Emma Lobley
For making data analytics accessible, engaging, and genuinely useful. Through regular videos and monthly recaps, Emma’s helped the community stay on top of what’s happening in the world of data - without the jargon overload!
⚙️ The Automation Enabler - @Steve Worrell
Not just sharing great automation content through videos, but actively engaging with members, asking questions, answering them, and helping conversations move forward. A true example of what community participation looks like.
📣 The Communications Expert - @Rebecca Jenkins
For an impressive run of unified communications updates: fast, frequent, and always relevant. If there was anything worth noting, Rebecca made sure the community knew about it.
🚀 Rising Star - @Jon Jarvis
A Microsoft MVP, Jon recently joined the Community and quickly made his mark by launching his own Endpoint category and sharing high-value updates, event recaps, and insightful perspectives. A trusted voice today and one to watch in the year ahead!
🏆 Client Shoutouts of the Year
🥇 The Community Strategist - @timjeens
Our highest-scoring client contributor this year and for good reason! From thoughtful posts and comments to sharing strategic perspectives that spark wider discussion, Tim brings a true strategist’s mindset to the community. Recently featured in our Community Spotlight… and very much just getting started.
🌱 The Founding Member - @AJT
One of our original community members and a familiar face since the very beginning. Anthony has stayed consistently active throughout the year, contributing across discussions and earning a well-deserved Community Spotlight along the way.
🤝 The Insight Bridge - @NicolaFisher
For consistently bringing thoughtful perspectives from real-world collaboration into the Community, through in-person conversations, parallel client initiatives, and ongoing engagement. Nicola is a great example of how building with clients and listening closely to their input strengthens the Community as a whole.
❓ The Curious Contributor - @5MH
A frequent visitor to the Community and one of our most inquisitive members, Scott has actively asked questions and shared perspectives helping drive meaningful discussion and knowledge-sharing across the Community.
📝 The Thoughtful Participant - @IanMcLav
While posting a few times, Ian has been a consistent presence in the Community, contributing posts and returning regularly. A great reminder that engagement comes in different forms - and all of it matters!
🚀 Rising Star - @rhughes
A more recent addition to the Community, but already making his mark. From joining in-person meetings to actively participating in online discussions, Rhys has quickly become a familiar and welcome presence.
A huge thank you to everyone who’s contributed, shared, commented, joined discussions, or simply shown up in the community this year, every interaction makes a difference.
We can’t wait to see what 2026 has in store, and we hope you’ll keep sharing your perspectives, questions, and experiences with the community in the year ahead.
Thank you for helping us grow, experiment, and learn - we appreciate you!
Top 5 Endpoint Strategies You Can’t Ignore in 2026
With 2026 around the corner, it is time to plan ahead and your endpoints are the centre of it all! Organisations that fail to adapt risk falling behind in security, productivity, and cost efficiency. Here are five essential moves every IT leader should prioritise this year:
1. Say Goodbye to Entra ID Hybrid Join
Hybrid Join has served its purpose, but it’s time to embrace the future: Entra ID Join. Start small—run a proof of concept with a subset of devices. This shift simplifies management, strengthens security, and aligns with a cloud-first strategy. The sooner you begin, the smoother the transition.
2. Windows 365 Reserve: Your Rapid Response Lifeline
Announced at Microsoft Ignite 2026 and now GA, Windows 365 Reserve is a game-changer. It’s a cost-effective way to keep Cloud PCs ready on standby, enabling you to deploy a temporary device in minutes when a user’s laptop fails. No downtime, no disruption—just seamless productivity. The cost of a Windows 365 Reserve Cloud PC is roughly $20 per year. Having a host of these at your disposal just makes sense.
3. Agents Aren’t Coming. They’re Here.
Welcome to the era of AI Agents. Microsoft’s Security Copilot is now free for M365 E5 customers, delivering 400 SCUs per 1000 users enabling organisations to use intelligent automation and proactive threat response. If you haven’t explored these yet, you’re missing out on a major leap forward in security operations.
4. Zero Trust Is Non-Negotiable
Endpoints are often the weakest link as historically EUC teams do not have to think about security. Enforce Zero Trust principles by ensuring every device is enrolled, compliant, and meets your security standards before connecting to corporate resources. In 2026, Zero Trust isn’t a buzzword it's the fundamental.
5. Unlock the Power of Intune Suite
The Intune Suite is now included in Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 licenses. For E3 customers, Remote Help can replace costly third-party tools. For E5 customers, Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) is a game-changer for reducing risk without sacrificing productivity.
Endpoints are the front line of your organisation’s security and productivity. These five strategies will help you reduce risk, cut costs, and empower your workforce in 2026 and beyond.
Understanding and controlling Shadow AI
In some of our earlier AI governance, risk and compliance content, I've briefly mentioned Shadow AI risks. I've always been conscious that there is a lot ambiguity surrounding this topic, and ultimately once we get to the heart of the matter, we find that getting it under control is one of the more straight-forward AI security problem spaces. But it takes some dissection to arrive there. I'll do my best to get you there in 14 minutes of your time.
📢Major Microsoft 365 Licensing News: Intune Suite & More 📢
Hot off the press! Microsoft have announced major licencing changings in the Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 licences!
In the near future Defender for Office 365 p1 alongside Remote Help and Advanced Analytics in the Microsoft 365 E3 licence bringing greater value to the SKU.
Alongside this Intune Suite has now been announced to be included in Microsoft 365 E5! As you may have seen my previous announcement from Ignite, this means as a Microsoft 365 E5 customer, you will now get Intune Suite and 0.4 Security Copilot SCUs per user.
This of course will mean an increase in cost for both licences with Microsoft 365 E5 increasing by $3 per user per month. You can see the new pricing matrix below:
For me, the value of the licence makes Microsoft Intune an absolute no brainer for any organisation. Here is a round up of the new features in each licence:
If you have any questions about Intune Suite, please reach out to me!
Jon Jarvis
Moving from MDT/WDS to Autopilot – Real-World Lessons, Wins & Gotchas
Hi all,
We’ve been moving away from an ageing WDS + MDT setup and over to Windows Autopilot, and I thought I’d share a few key lessons and experiences from the journey. In case anyone else is working through the same transition (...or about to).
Why the change? MDT was becoming unreliable, drivers/apps would randomly fail to install, WDS is on the way out, and we needed a more remote-friendly approach. We also wanted to simplify things for our small IT team and shift from Hybrid Azure AD Join to Azure AD Join only.
We’re doing this as a phased rollout. I harvested existing device hashes using a script from a central server, and manually added machines that weren’t online at the time (most of which were just unused spares, we haven't introduced new hardware yet).
If you want a copy of this auto-harvest, please see my next post, this script is useful as it'll just go off and import the hardware hashes into Intune, and can run against multiple computers at a time. (I will add the link to the post once made).
Some of the biggest hurdles:
• 0x80070002 / 0x80070643 errors (typically due to incomplete registration or app deployment failures)
• Enrollment Status Page (ESP) hangs due to app targeting issues (user vs device) and BitLocker config conflicts
• Wi-Fi setup with RADIUS (NPS) was complex, Enterprise Certificates and we're still using internal AD for authentication, so user accounts exist there and sync over to Azure.
• Legacy GPOs had to be rebuilt manually in Intune, lots of trial and error
• Some software (like SolidWorks) wouldn’t install silently via Intune, so I used NinjaOne to handle these, along with remediation scripts in Intune where needed
We also moved from WSUS to Windows Autopatch, which improved update reliability and even helped with driver delivery via Windows Update.
What’s gone well: Device provisioning is more consistent, updates are more reliable, build time per machine has dropped, and remote users get systems faster. It’s also reduced our reliance on legacy infrastructure.
What I’m still working on: Tightening up compliance and reporting, improving detection/remediation coverage, figuring out new errors that may occur, and automating as much manual processes as possible.
Ask me anything or share your own experience! I’m happy to help anyone dealing with similar issues or just curious about the move. Feel free to reply here or message me. Always happy to trade lessons learned, especially if you’re in the middle of an Autopilot project yourself.
Cheers,
Timothy Jeens
timjeens