How Illumio Simplified Global IT Procurement Using GroWrk

 The challenge

Illumio is a global cybersecurity company with employees distributed across Japan, Brazil, the EU, and the United States. As the company expanded internationally, its IT team faced increasing challenges in managing hardware procurement across borders. Without legal entities in several key regions, sourcing and shipping devices quickly became a major bottleneck.

We spoke with Gianfranco Spatola, who oversees global hardware procurement and onboarding logistics at Illumio, about the roadblocks his team encountered while supporting a growing international workforce.

• Only being able to purchase laptops in the U.S incurred extra costs for onboarding international employees
• Vendors in key regions like Japan were unresponsive and hard to manage
• Outdated product catalogs delay the quoting process
• No real-time inventory visibility created
• Manual workflows slowed onboarding and required workarounds

These challenges slowed down new hire onboarding and placed a growing burden on Illumio’s IT operations. In some cases, the team had to ship loaner devices,  which added complexity and reduced the employee experience. Without a centralized system, the process was reactive, inconsistent, and difficult to scale.

 The solution

To overcome these procurement and deployment challenges, Illumio partnered with GroWrk to streamline device purchasing and provisioning across its global workforce. The goal was to centralize all hardware logistics, reduce manual IT effort, and remove the dependency on local entities or country-specific vendors.

Gianfranco and his team rolled out GroWrk across key international markets, including Japan, Brazil, and the EU—allowing them to support global hires without adding internal complexity or expanding vendor relationships.

• GroWrk enabled seamless hardware procurement in countries where Illumio has no legal presence
• Hands-off device deployment and security through ABM and Intune-based zero-touch enrollment
• A responsive account manager who went above and beyond to ensure that Illumio always knew lead times and order statuses.
• Extensive geographic coverage enables onboarding for their distributed teams wherever they need it.

Instead of managing procurement country by country, Illumio now handles everything through the GroWrk platform. Orders are placed centrally, and devices ship directly to new hires preconfigured and ready to use.

 The results

GroWrk allowed Illumio to simplify international procurement, reduce onboarding delays, and eliminate the need for local vendor management, freeing up IT resources and improving consistency across global operations.

Since implementing GroWrk, Gianfranco and his team have:

• Procured and deployed devices in multiple countries without legal entities
• Reduced onboarding-related IT workload by eliminating manual order tracking
• Achieved sub-1-hour response times from GroWrk reps—versus days with past vendors
• Delivered preconfigured laptops to employees in hard-to-serve regions like Japan and Brazil
• Eliminated the need for loaner devices and reactive workarounds

The improved speed and reliability have enabled Illumio’s IT team to focus more on strategic initiatives, such as enhancing internal workflows and supporting security compliance, without increasing their headcount or vendor list.

Looking ahead, Illumio plans to expand HR’s access to the GroWrk platform, leverage its Okta integration, and utilize its device retrieval and storage services to streamline global IT operations further as they expand their headcount.