When you are a major insurance organisation such as the Professional Provident Society (PPS), knowing exactly who your external clients are and how they are accessing your Web portal is vital. Apart from the obvious security aspect, identity and access management (IAM) is important from the perspective of governance and compliance as well.
When PPS decided to externalise a number of its applications, with the aim of enabling customers to perform transactions and obtain information via the Web, it needed an IAM solution that would be robust, effective and still remain easy to use for the company's 125 000 members.
With these requirements in mind, says Mandy McKernan, head of IT at PPS, the organisation turned to Puleng to deliver a state-of-the-art IAM solution. Puleng delivered a cost-effective and secure solution using IBM Tivoli Identity & Access Management tools.
“PPS sought to streamline our IAM processes by implementing a cost-effective solution that would offer both external clients and internal users the convenience of registering once for major applications. This would also enable us to manage the auto-provisioning and de-provisioning of transactions across major systems more proactively. Doing so would obviously reduce the number of failures attributed to human errors and existing manual procedures,” says McKernan.
“There were no real challenges in respect of the implementation; the biggest issues we faced during this process were those around change management. We needed to put a lot of effort into informing our customers of the high levels of security around the new process, in order to ensure they were comfortable with using the new system.”
According to Muhammed Mayet, Head of the Security Division at Puleng, the system was designed for ease of use, coupled with strong security features. For example, he says, it offers customers the self-service capability to reset their passwords, while also utilising a similar registration process to that of the banks, making use of a one-time PIN to add an additional layer of security.
“There tends to be a fear in the marketplace, driven by customers mostly, that IAM is long-winded, high risk and not really applicable to project delivery. However, the methodology that Puleng brings to the table, coupled with the IBM Tivoli stack and its ability to both secure data and provide registered access to it, means we are able to alleviate these concerns,” continues Mayet.
“From Puleng's perspective, we have been doing IAM implementations for a number of years, and have a very mature methodology for design and implementation. Our focus is always to execute an implementation plan that will achieve short-term value milestones for the client. In this way, the customer realises value and thus a return on investment in a short space of time.”
McKernan says PSS was very happy with this approach from Puleng, as it enabled the business to get buy-in from the executive level. This was due to the fact that it was easy to demonstrate how the investment would quickly return value.
“The implementation demonstrated value both from the point of view of our external users, who received better quality of service and an improved user experience, and in respect of improved internal operational efficiencies. Moreover, because the system now utilises automated processes, it removes the manual aspect and the potential for human error that accompanies this.
“More importantly, from a governance and audit point of view, we know for certain that the people registered are the genuine article, as the IAM solution integrates seamlessly into our back-end systems and is able to match the person entering the system with the information we have on file. Of course, since security is something that never stops, we will be continuously developing the IAM and ensuring that this remains an ongoing part of our strategy. After all, the nature of our business means that we always have to stay ahead of changes in the marketplace. Therefore, we see security as a journey, rather than merely as an implementation,” she concludes.
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