Franke’s Cloud Identity Solution

Before the launch of the CIAM project together with ELCA, all services were maintaining their own user management: some were custom built, others were standard user management directories. As a result, Franke customers acquired more and more identities within the group as they were dealing with multiple divisions, even within divisions it was sometimes the case to have multiple identities. Consequently, the risk of breaches increased with each new user repository. The objective of this project was therefore to implement a state-of-the-art identity provider within the company and to provide integration solutions as well as an application programming interface (API) for existing and future applications.

Technologically, ELCA and Franke have chosen Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) B2C as the key identity system for access management and single sign-on (SSO) for all B2C identities of Franke applications. In order to meet Franke's global requirements, ELCA and Franke decided to use Azure AD B2C’s identity experience framework with custom policies. Custom policies allowed for establishing customized and flexible user flows. As Azure AD B2C supports all industry standard protocols it enables powerful identity management on a variety of platforms. With Azure AD B2C ELCA managed to meet Franke’s security, scalability and compliance needs as well as to provide a great user experience.

Benefits of a single and highly secure cloud identity solution for a central user repository include:

• massively improved user experience
• become and stay GDPR compliant
• higher security
• simplified auditing and reporting
• increased productivity
• drastically reduced identity management costs
• better scalability

By creating a single account with Franke Management Ltd., the user will have a centrally managed account to log in to all websites and applications of the Franke Group and its associated brands linked to the user’s Franke ID. Thus, understanding the current state of maturity of Franke’s CIAM capability was an essential element in determining the transformation program requirements and establishing the business case for change. Through a comprehensive analysis of the requirements and by using the methods of AgileIT, ELCA was able to understand the CIAM vision of Franke and lay out the path to attain it.

The successful completion of the project was possible thanks to ELCA’s broad range of expertise in cybersecurity – especially in identity and access management -, in cloud-based architecture as well as in UX design. As an IT powerhouse, it is one of ELCA’s many strengths to be able to offer a wide range of competencies in technology as well as in project management.