Some customer stories stick with you long after the project ends, and for our team at Saviynt, LIXIL’s identity transformation journey is one we will always remember. Not just because of the scale (70,000 identities across 150+ countries is no small feat), but because of the partnership, trust, and cultural learning that made it such a success.
Meet LIXIL: A Global Leader with Local Expertise
LIXIL, headquartered in Tokyo, is a global leader in water and housing products, known for its innovative solutions and renowned brands such as INAX, GROHE, and American Standard.
What makes LIXIL unique is its deep local expertise in every market it serves, each with its own language, culture, and construction industry nuances. This requires tailored customer service, on-time delivery, and highly specialized products. To stay ahead, LIXIL constantly seeks ways to drive operational efficiencies across its global footprint.
One of those efficiency opportunities? Identity governance.
Identity Governance in Japan: A Unique Approach
From our very first conversations, it was clear that LIXIL’s identity processes had outgrown the tools they had in place. But this wasn’t your typical modernization project, this was Japan, where identity governance has its own unique flavor.
In Japan, many organizations manage identities following affiliation management principles — meaning access rights are closely tied to an employee’s department, role, and seniority. This approach works well within Japanese organizational structures, but it can become complex when companies need to standardize identity governance across global locations.
Another aspect is the reliance on scratch-built systems, a Japanese term for bespoke identity solutions developed in-house over many years. These systems are highly tailored to local needs, but they can also be difficult to maintain, adapt, and integrate with modern cloud environments.
More than Technology: A Strategic Enabler
LIXIL’s global footprint is massive, 150+ countries, 54,000 employees, and a whole network of third-party vendors and partners that need secure, governed access. Sure, Saviynt’s Identity Cloud had the technical muscle to handle LIXIL’s global scale. But technology alone doesn’t guarantee success, relationships do.
From day one, our Expert Services team and LIXIL’s security leaders treated this as a true partnership. We knew there would be challenges, navigating language requirements, aligning with compliance teams across multiple regions, and ensuring we didn’t disrupt critical business operations. It wasn’t always easy. There were late-night calls, moments where translation tools became our best friends, and a lot of creative problem-solving along the way. But every challenge we faced together made the final outcome even more rewarding.
Partnering with LIXIL, we embarked on a transformative journey to modernize their identity management system using Saviynt's Identity Cloud. This collaboration resulted in a smooth multi-phase deployment that addressed LIXIL's unique challenges. Our cloud-native solution provided the flexibility to modernize legacy processes without disrupting operations, meeting global needs, including compliance with GDPR data residency requirements and support for Japanese-language user interfaces.
With Saviynt now live, LIXIL’s team benefits from:
- Improved User Experience: Streamlined employee onboarding/offboarding and self-service provisioning for over 70,000 internal and third-party users.
- Granular Identity Visibility: Centralized and granular visibility across a diverse and expanding application ecosystem.
- Proactive Audit Readiness: Automation, standardized controls, and enhanced reporting capabilities made audits faster and easier.
- Global Compliance and Security: Simplified governance processes and improved reporting mitigated compliance and cybersecurity risks.
- Efficient Third-Party Access Governance: Seamless integration of third-party access governance within a single platform enabled easy extension of capabilities to a global network of vendors and contractors.
We could talk about technology all day, but at the heart of this project were the people.
People like Sandy Halim, LIXIL’s global information security leader, who trusted us to help solve challenges that had been building up for years. He shares:
“Prior to the implementation we relied on manual processes and localized automation tools for many tasks such as employee onboarding and offboarding, attestations, reporting, and audit controls. Now we have automated account and access granting processes, along with centralized visibility across the company.”
And our own Expert Services team brought deep expertise but also cultural empathy and a willingness to adapt every step of the way. This story reminds us why we do what we do at Saviynt, because great technology is only as powerful as the relationships that make it work.
Ready for Digital Transformation?
LIXIL’s journey reflects the challenges many global enterprises face today — and shows how a collaborative approach can support their digital transformation. To get the full details, explore the LIXIL Customer Story
If your organization is also thinking about modernizing identity governance, we would love to discuss how Saviynt Identity Cloud can help you achieve the right balance between tradition and transformation.
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