E.ON UK, the parent company of Powergen, is aiming to save
on helpdesk and administration costs by rolling out an identity
access system to manage passwords for 10,000 employees across the
UK.
The utility company plans to roll out the management system, based
on a Siemens Communications' Hipath DirX directory server, by the
summer. This will pave the way for giving employees single sign-on
access to company applications.
The project, which will provide E.ON with a central register of
employees and the systems they need to access, will allow the firm
to make significant savings on helpdesk and password management
costs, said John Middleditch, corporate applications strategy
manager at E.ON.
"We are looking to reduce the amount of effort helpdesks spend
doing password resets. We hope to reduce the effort we spend on
starters, leavers and joiners, and improve the accuracy of the
information we hold," he said.
It is common for employees to have three or four passwords, said
Middleditch. But with password resets costing an estimated £55
each, the costs incurred when employees forget their passwords can
quickly mount up. "People come back after a weekend or the
Christmas holidays and we get a big spike of calls to the
helpdesk," he said.
The system will also streamline the process for issuing passwords
to new employees and removing passwords for those that leave.
"Streamlining the starters, movers and leavers process will not
only deliver savings but will reduce the number of people involved
in the process. At the moment it is spread among human resources,
local management and the helpdesk. By streamlining that, we hope to
reduce the number of people involved," said Middleditch.
By creating a central register of staff, the IT network will be
better protected against unauthorised access, allowing any user
accounts that do not match the central list to be automatically
deleted or disabled.
The system could also allow E.ON to reduce software licensing costs
by helping it keep closer control over the applications that
employees have access to. It will also improve the accuracy of
internal staff databases and telephone directories.
E.ON plans to roll out the system, which runs on Microsoft Windows
Server 2003 on IBM xSeries hardware, for password provisioning by
the summer. Phase 2, of the project, which is still at the planning
stage, will mean moving E.ON's applications, which run on Microsoft
and Unix systems, over to single sign-on.