Century-Old Utility Giant Streamlines Security with Modern IGA

The Opportunity

A Legacy System Hindering Modernization

A century-old water and power provider has been the cornerstone of state infrastructure in the American southwest since the 1900s. As one of the nation’s largest public utilities, it manages a sprawling network that serves almost a million customers. However, with technological evolution, it faced a critical challenge: modernizing its existing solution (IBM) Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solution to safeguard its extensive network against evolving digital threats.

The utility’s legacy IGA solution, built on an outdated on-prem platform, was rapidly approaching obsolescence. The system, burdened by technical debt and lacking cloud-based capabilities, struggled to keep pace with the organization’s evolving needs.

This presented a unique opportunity to overhaul its IGA framework to enhance security and compliance and streamline operations across its vast employee and contractor base.

As the utility considered leading solutions, it realized that key vendors only offered a partial cloud solution with limited use cases. It turned to Saviynt for its full suite of capabilities, including role-based access controls and Separation of Duty Controls.

The Solution

Embracing Cloud with Saviynt

The utility’s quest for a state-of-the-art IGA solution led them to Saviynt. With a focus on a cloud-first strategy, Saviynt’s Enterprise Identity Cloud offered a perfect fit. The solution was implemented to manage over 5,300 identities, integrating quickly and seamlessly with critical applications like SAP, Azure AD, and ServiceNow. In the first 3 months after go-live, the utility was able to automate entire end to end processes with little to no oversight, completing 52 campaigns, and securing 24k entitlements for 30k accounts.

The Solution

Revolutionizing Operational Efficiencies

Since implementing Saviynt IGA, Syneos Health has experienced a dramatic increase in user lifecycle management efficiency. Not only is it quicker and easier to onboard and offboard employees, but change requests can be accomplished in 75% less time, thanks to Saviynt’s low-code/no-code workflows. The organization has been able to replace PeopleSoft and Oracle EBS, secure 240,000 entitlements and intergrate 39 applications. Ultimately, it has eliminated standing privileges for more than 30,000 users, while building out a quick and effective automated process for fulfilling access requests when needs arise. This efficiency is a win at every level of the organization.

The Results

Post-implementation, the utility witnessed a remarkable transformation in its IGA capabilities. The time to onboard new applications was significantly reduced, and manual processes were replaced with automated workflows, leading to a substantial decrease in help desk call volumes. 

Compliance processes were streamlined, ensuring tighter security controls over critical infrastructure. In part two, the utility plans to expand their compliance capabilities with Saviynt, focusing on certifications for all ERP applications and leveraging SoD controls.