Case Study: UCB achieves major Azure cost savings and streamlined Azure Virtual Desktop management with Nerdio

How UCB Pharma Found the Perfect Dose With Azure Virtual Desktop and Nerdi

UCB, a global biopharma with roughly 9,000 employees and 13,000 endpoints, was struggling with the cost and complexity of provisioning and managing devices—especially for contractors—and chose Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) to modernize its digital workplace. After OB‑V‑US built the AVD environment, UCB faced time‑consuming tasks like image maintenance, patching, and software deployment, so OB‑V‑US recommended Nerdio and its Nerdio Manager for Enterprise to close the resource gap.

Nerdio’s solution automated provisioning, image updates, patching, DTAP workflows and auto‑scaling of Azure servers, enabling a small team to manage an environment that previously would have required 10–15 engineers. By using Nerdio, UCB reported up to 80% savings on Azure VM costs (driving daily costs “to almost nothing”), supported 1,000+ shared VDI users, reduced operational overhead, and lowered its carbon footprint through dynamic resource scaling.

UCB

Ralph Schepke

Head of Digital Workplace Services