Automating User Provisioning: A Case Study of Landis+Gyr

Technology Category

Drones - VTOL & VTOL Hybrid Drones
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Hybrid Cloud

Applicable Industries

Buildings
Cement

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Use Cases

Leasing Finance Automation
Time Sensitive Networking

Services

System Integration

The Challenge

Landis+Gyr, a smart-grid and smart-metering company, was facing a significant challenge with its user provisioning process. The company's in-house IT system included forms for requesting new user accounts, but the manual entry of account provisioning led to inconsistent metadata in Active Directory accounts. The system also failed to address the back-and-forth communication with new employees, help desk tickets, and the various tasks involved in setting up a user account. These tasks could delay the onboarding of an employee, a critical issue given the company's growth and expansion into 30 countries. The company's help desk employees were also burdened with these tasks, diverting their attention from other important projects.

About The Customer

Landis+Gyr is a smart-grid and smart-metering company that operates as an independent growth platform of Toshiba Corporation. The company boasts more than $1.6 billion in annual sales and employs over 5,200 people across 30 countries. Since its inception in 2002, Landis+Gyr has experienced significant growth, including company acquisitions and expansion into multiple countries. The company's core business involves the manufacturing and provision of smart-grid and smart-metering solutions.

The Solution

To address these challenges, Landis+Gyr turned to Nintex and its partner WebVine to automate its user provisioning process. The solution involved automating employee onboarding workflows, Office 365 subscriptions, licenses, and the creation of Office 365 accounts, as well as Active Directory setup and the provisioning of hardware, software, and IT services. Using SharePoint and Nintex on-premises, the team developed three forms using workflows to generate Active Directory information and push provisioning to Office 365. This hybrid solution also set up email and Lync accounts for new employees with standardized information pulled in by department and location. The solution also included a termination form and a change user form, allowing for easy management of user accounts.

Operational Impact

The automation of the user provisioning process brought about significant operational benefits for Landis+Gyr. The solution improved data consistency and standardized processes across departments, eliminating the inconsistencies that were prevalent with the manual system. The automation also freed up the help desk employees, allowing them to focus on other pressing needs while the work got done efficiently and correctly. The solution was well-received by the IT department, with positive feedback received during the development and testing phases. Despite a temporary hold on the deployment of the solution due to considerations from the HR department, the company is hopeful of moving ahead with the Nintex deployment.

Quantitative Benefit

Decreased provisioning time from one to two weeks to less than an hour
Expected to save AU$548,000 over two months in employee time
Processed 63 new user requests, 190 user changes, and 37 disabled user accounts in a 60-day window