Another challenging project with successful completion and one more satisfied client – Sdu and PING Identity implementation case study.

For a moment we think of writing an article on our website, but as Nathalie Roskam, Projectmanager at KWD Resultaatmanagement had already wrote a wonderful text we have nothing more to add and published it on KWD’s website . 

https://www.kwdrm.nl/case/customer-journey-ping-identity/ 

For this reason we are sharing the original text:

“Customer journey & PING identity – Sdu

Sdu supports professionals in their daily work in the application of laws and regulations using software, websites, training and content. 
Innovation and speed are of great importance to Sdu. Streamlined Identity & Access Management is a precondition for bringing the right knowledge to the right person at the right time, in the right way. So that Sdu’s customers can be successful. Now and in the future. 
In October 2018, KWD was commissioned to set up a new Identity & Access Management process from the Sdu. The aim of this program was to give the customer faster and better access to all available Sdu platforms.

The result

The transition to PING Identity was successfully completed in mid-March 2020. This provides seamless and secure customer authentication for the entire portfolio of Sdu. The project also included improving the customer journey and creating a personalized customer experience. In addition, the PING Identity solution has been set up in a scalable manner, making it usable for all entities of Lefebvre Sarrut, the European group of which Sdu is a part. The new Identity & Access Management solution makes it possible to create a secure and reliable connection between devices, channels and services via Multi Factor Authorization.

The assignment

Sdu is part of the Lefebvre Sarrut Group (LS). In addition to the Netherlands, LS is represented in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, England and Germany. With 200 years of experience, Sdu understands like no other what customers need to be successful. In addition, Sdu works actively with customers to make daily work more fun, effective and efficient with smart innovations. More than 80,000 customers make intensive use of Sdu’s products. This involves a lot of technology, which ensures that customers can access the right information at the right time. In order to continue to innovate, it was necessary to convert the previous generation of technology to PING Identity. This initially led to a fairly technically driven approach, but during the project the customer journey was also greatly improved.  

When KWD was commissioned, this journey was defined as the main starting point in order to establish the business value of the program. Because several authorization and authentication systems were in use at Sdu, it was necessary to put the program in three parts in order to bring business value and technical components together.

In the first part, the focus was on analyzing the various old systems and technically ensuring that a migration could take place silently for the customer.

Jeroen van den Horn overall architect and head development Ping: “Proper architecture construction for the program was critical in the initial phase, in which we worked closely with the group’s architects as well as the Sdu architects. The challenge was to ensure that a seamless transition could be made to the Ping solution and also to use the latest technologies. Based on the group solution, we opted for a service-oriented architect using container technology. With Kubernetes in the cloud, we were able to deploy our micro-services. Due to the pipeline Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI / CD) and the focus on automated tests, we were able to guarantee the quality of our development track and thus also guarantee a stable solution in the DevOps phase.“

The second part focused on the portfolio to which the customer should have access. Before the transition to PING Identity, this portfolio had to be made suitable for the new technique. This required a transition of 64 different online products that had to be migrated one by one, requiring a lot of attention and effort from various suppliers.

Peter Tanis (and suppliers of Clearstone): “Clearstone has been intensively involved in Sdu’s Identity & Access Management systems for more than ten years. When Sdu had opted for the transition to PING Identity, the challenge arose to be able to ‘convert all online systems to the OpenID Connect protocol’ while the store remained open, without impact for the customer. A Big Bang scenario quickly turned out to be undesirable. As a solution, Clearstone has implemented a temporary OpenID Connect layer on top of the existing Sdu authorization and authentication systems for the online. This made it possible to realize and implement the new technology for each online system one by one, while the link to the existing systems remained intact.“

Customer journey

As mentioned earlier, the customer journey was the most important strategic starting point for the program, with the choice of PING Identity as a common thread running through it. Together with a strong business working group, in which marketing, sales, customer service and architects were represented, a new journey was designed that could give customers faster and seamless access to the portfolio. The composition of this group created space to share opinions and new ideas arose in which the customer could also become more central. A self-service portal now enables customers to manage users quickly and directly. In addition, the set-up of the working group ensured that the solution was widely supported within the Sdu organization.

In the final phase it became clear how important it was to divide the program into three parts, each with a clear result. Using the technology in this way, it was possible to transfer all 64 online products in just four hours, using a small team. This ensured a very controlled go-live, with a very limited impact for the customers. In addition, the go-live was realized in a period when the whole world was no longer running, but this team turned full steam at home to ensure that innovation can continue for Sdu!”