TNT saves £1m from using CA IdentityMinder to automate password resets
Self-service also helps increase productivity and enhance security
By Anh Nguyen | Computerworld UK | Published: 11:30, 22 June 2012
TNT has revealed how automating its password resetting system has saved the company more than £1 million a year. The courier has been using CA IdentityMinder to enable self-service in its password reset process for about two years.
Prior to the implementation, TNT staff would have to call the IT helpdesk to request a new password, which would take time.
The company had no way of tracking how many of these requests were being made, but it had a “reasonable idea” that it was “too many”, Mark Lawley, identity management infrastructure team leader at TNT told the CA Expo conference in London.
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By implementing CA IdentityMinder, TNT found that it was receiving an average of 2,500 password reset requests a week. It estimated that each call cost the business £10 in resources, which meant that over a year (130,000 resets), the password reset was costing the business £1.3 million.
“[We estimated the automation] would save us 85 percent (£1.1 million) of that cost,” said Lawley.
There was also a security risk attached to the manual way of processing resets, since the helpdesk staff would have no way of checking over the phone that the person requesting a password reset was who they claimed to be.
The software has helped to solve this problem, Lawley said.
“Having a self-service system can verify the person resetting the password. [It] gives us much better auditability of what users are doing, being able to know who was resetting each password,” he said.
TNT can also now more rigorously enforce password policies, and has increased the productivity of staff by releasing some helpdesk staff to do “more meaningful” work, while business users no longer need spend time calling the helpdesk for a reset.
As part of a project where TNT implemented an application that encouraged collaborative working, the company has been using CA SiteMinder for the last 18 months to enable use of single sign-on. This makes is easier for end users to access applications, and is another way of reducing the number of calls to TNT’s helpdesk, said Lawley.
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