“With GroupID I can relax because managing our distribution lists is automated. We easily create distribution groups, add users, and make announcements through emails.”
About
Novartis is the third-largest pharmaceutical company in the world. This multinational corporation has 110,000 employees, and has been driving innovative science to address some of society’s most challenging healthcare issues for over 25 years. Yet, they were stifled by the challenges of managing groups spread all over the world.
Background
Before GroupID, Novartis was under immense pressure to secure its data and manage its ever-growing workforce. The company was struggling with the management of distribution lists, which were used for internal communication and companywide announcements. In addition to this, they needed to reduce the number of calls to their IT so that admins could focus on more productive tasks rather than catering to support calls all day.
Novartis required a tool that followed their defined hierarchy so that when new user accounts were created in Active Directory, they would have a manager who would approve requests and ensure that accounts are active and in use. This way, the organization could remove inactive accounts from the directory and minimize unauthorized access to sensitive corporate data.
Challenges
Creating and Managing Distribution Lists:
With approximately 110,000 employees, the pharmaceutical company must create and maintain proper distribution lists to communicate effectively within the organization. Plus, the distribution lists should represent the hierarchical and organizational structure of the corporation so that announcements can be made easily for each department.
Solution: GroupID Automate
GroupID Automate enabled them to make smart groups and dynasties that mimic the organizational and hierarchical structure of the organization so that effective communication can take place within the company. The smart group membership feature automatically updates the data in the directory whenever a user updates his/her profile. This helped the pharmaceutical company maintain up-to-date and accurate information at all times.
Group Glut in Active Directory:
The company wanted to clean up the mess in its Active Directory by removing all the unnecessary groups because such groups can be a threat to the organization’s security. Moreover, the company wanted to make sure that groups only exist for as long as they serve a purpose and are automatically removed when they are no longer required.
Solution: GroupID Automate
GroupID Automate offers a distinctive life cycle policy for Azure AD and Active Directory groups, which ensures that no group outlives the purpose of its creation. GroupID automatically expires and deletes unneeded groups from the directory, and even increases or reduces the life of groups based on usage.
Over-Privileged Users:
Since their research and development arms deal with highly confidential information, the company wanted to ensure that access is limited. Additionally, they are highly regulated and they needed to be sure regular users do not have over-privileged access to the corporate resources.
Solution: GroupID Automate
By improving the consistency of the groups and automating their management and creation, GroupID Automate ensured that users are members of the right group and do not have over-privileged access to corporate data.
Inaccurate User Information:
Due to outdated and inaccurate user information in the directory, the pharmaceutical company was open to risks such as data theft and access abuse. The company wanted to ensure that user data, the groups they are members of, and the permissions granted to them are accurate and up-to-date.
Solution: GroupID Self-Service
With GroupID Self-Service, users can update their own profiles, maintaining up-to-date and accurate information at all times. In addition to this, the IT department could now focus on more productive tasks rather than updating user profiles all day long.
Frequent Support Calls to IT for Administrative Tasks:
The company wanted a tool that enabled users to manage their groups and allowed them to opt-in and opt-out of groups with the owner’s approval.
Solution: GroupID Self-Service
GroupID Self-Service solved the issue by giving users the ability to create groups, join and leave groups, and manage their profiles themselves. This way, the company was able to reduce the number of support calls to IT significantly.