How Upwork Centralized Device Logistics Across 30+ Countries
Upwork · Work marketplace · Global device management with GroWrk
Upwork at a glance
Upwork is the world's leading work marketplace, connecting businesses with independent talent globally. It has been a pioneer in remote work for years — but as its hybrid workforce grew past 30 countries, a nine-person IT team started to feel the strain.
Upwork needed a scalable, efficient way to deploy and recover IT equipment worldwide, without relying on fragmented vendor relationships or manual processes. GroWrk gave the team one platform for provisioning, tracking, and retrieval — and gave hours back to every IT shift.
A nine-person IT team stretched across 30+ countries
Shipping equipment from the U.S. to global hires was slow and costly, while managing multiple regional vendors proved inefficient and hard to scale. We spoke with Shauna MacMillan, an IT Specialist at Upwork, about the roadblocks her team hit while looking for a better way to manage global device logistics:
- Shipping devices from the U.S. meant customs delays and paperwork.
- Managing country-specific vendors scattered communication, with no standardization.
- Inventory tracking relied on spreadsheets and manual updates.
- Offboarding and device collection were labor-intensive and often missed SLA deadlines.
This caused daily friction for the nine-person IT team. Employees were often left waiting for devices, and offboarding required hours of follow-up. Without a centralized platform or real-time inventory visibility, the team ran on spreadsheets and vendor email threads — which led to SLA breaches and operational stress.
"Before GroWrk, we spent hours coordinating device returns — and we were still missing SLAs."
One platform for provisioning, tracking, and retrieval
Upwork partnered with GroWrk to simplify device provisioning, tracking, and retrieval for its global workforce — centralizing device management and eliminating both manual processes and fragmented vendor relationships.
Shauna and her team rolled out GroWrk across more than 30 countries, supporting a growing international team without adding headcount or overhead:
- Access to GroWrk's global vendor network in 30+ countries.
- Seamless device provisioning using Autopilot and JAMF zero-touch setup.
- Real-time asset visibility and inventory reporting.
- Two-click collections for offboarding, fully managed by GroWrk.
- Okta integration for easy employee login and address confirmation.
Instead of a separate workflow per country, Upwork handles everything from the GroWrk platform. New hires log in through Okta, confirm their address, and track their shipment without opening a ticket. Devices arrive fully preconfigured, and offboarding takes a few clicks — no back-and-forth email required.
GroWrk also became a de facto asset manager for Upwork's international fleet. With real-time updates and full visibility, the IT team can generate compliance reports instantly — something that previously required a manual audit.
"We just press the collection button, and GroWrk takes care of the rest."
230+ onboarded, 100% SLA compliance on returns
GroWrk let Upwork standardize global IT operations, improve the employee experience, and reclaim real time for the IT team. Since implementing GroWrk, Shauna and her team have:
- Onboarded over 230 employees globally, with 60+ more in progress.
- Reduced time spent managing device logistics by more than two hours per IT shift.
- Achieved 100% SLA compliance for device returns in GroWrk-supported countries.
- Delivered fully configured laptops within days, even in remote locations like India.
- Eliminated lost and unreturned devices thanks to automated collections.
Those time savings and that consistency let the IT team focus on security, automation, and strategic initiatives — even as the team faced downsizing.
Looking ahead, Upwork plans to expand GroWrk's role to include U.S.-based employees, managing the entire device lifecycle — globally and locally — from a single source of truth.
"The value of GroWrk is giving back time to the IT team."
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