TVNZ Automates User Provisioning and Access Management
40 hours per week saved through identity lifecycle automation.
Client Snapshot
Organisation: TVNZ
Industry: Media and broadcasting
Workforce: 1,300+ permanent, freelance and casual staff
Environment: Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange and enterprise collaboration tools
Use Case: Identity lifecycle and user provisioning automation
Solution: Activate Identity Lifecycle
TVNZ is New Zealand’s largest free-to-air television and digital media company, serving as the nation’s publicly owned broadcaster. With over 1,300 permanent, freelance and casual staff spread across major centres nationwide, primarily in Auckland and some based overseas, managing IT access and user provisioning was becoming increasingly complex. Manual processes led to delays, inconsistencies and a heavy workload for the IT team.
To address these challenges, TVNZ implemented Activate’s Identity Lifecycle solution to streamline identity and access management. This enabled faster, more accurate user account provisioning and de-provisioning, improved security and compliance and significantly reduced the administrative burden on IT teams, ensuring staff could focus on delivering quality content without delay.
The Challenge
TVNZ’s Technology Service Manager saw a significant discrepancy between the 3,000 user accounts on record and the actual number of staff employed. They recognised this as a potential security risk and a driver of rising user licensing costs, with around 2,000 obsolete accounts still active.
To improve and simplify user management, they sought an automated solution that would support their staff rather than create additional hurdles. Having previously worked with Activate’s user provisioning system, both were confident it was the right solution.
At the same time, New Zealand was beginning to feel the impact of the global recession. As media organisations are often among the first to be affected, TVNZ was facing financial pressure and impending staff redundancies.
Despite expectations that deploying Activate would be delayed due to cost-saving measures, the significant time and cost efficiencies it promised convinced the executive team to proceed with the purchase.
TVNZ needed a solution that would:
Automate user account provisioning and deactivation to reduce security risks and control licensing costs
Streamline administrative tasks to free up the service centre for higher-value work
Support staff management during organisational changes, including redundancies
Ensure compliance with policies and integrate seamlessly with existing IT systems.
The Solution
Activate’s Identity Lifecycle solution offers a complete suite of self-service provisioning products designed for enterprise IT environments, enabling business users to manage their own IT needs without relying on manual IT support.
Users can easily request, approve and automate access to IT systems, from managing email distribution lists and shared data to handling passwords and automatically creating new user accounts. By simplifying and automating these processes, Activate reduces costs, improves service levels and strengthens security and compliance.
To automate technology service centre requests, TVNZ’s project team defined user defaults for each department, specifying which Shared Folders, Email Lists and Sharepoints sites new staff should access.
Immediately, Activate delivered efficiencies that allowed the service centre team to focus on higher-value technology tasks.
Our customer explained,“Instead of juggling our resourcing, we’re now getting the right people to do the right jobs, such as taking back administrative work that was given to the third-level support team because the first and second-level support teams didn’t have the capacity.
Our aim was to allow everyone in the service centre, regardless of experience, to be able to perform administrative tasks. Activate enables everyone to perform tasks consistently and correctly all the time. We used to rely on one or two people to set up user accounts manually in Active Directory. Now that we’ve put this process into Activate, anyone can do it. What’s more, it’s all fully auditable.”
TVNZ’s Support and Infrastructure Manger, added, “TVNZ is a 24/7 business with staff present on site all the time, but the technology service centre only operates five days a week between 8:00am and 5:00pm. Outside of these hours there is an after-hours call out number. Automating user management processes with Activate, such as setting up a new user account or providing networking access, means that managers can now provide casual or freelance staff with access to the office system without having to wait for the service centre to open on a Monday morning.”
Before Activate, setting up a new user took an hour, involving multiple steps such as assigning distribution lists and folder access. Now, the process takes just minutes.
Key Benefits:
Automated user account provisioning and access management, reducing manual effort
Consistent, error-free administration accessible to all service centre staff
Faster onboarding of permanent, casual and freelance employees
Improved auditability and compliance through tracked processes
Increased service centre efficiency, freeing staff for more strategic work
Extended availability of access provisioning beyond service centre hours.
“Back then, our eight-person service centre team was so overwhelmed with administrative tasks that we had little capacity for more value-added work,” - TVNZ representative
The Result
Activate Identity LIfecycle has helped TVNZ to establish defaults for their new user workflow and all the manual tasks involved in setting up new users are now automated. This not only helps the service centre plan their day much better, but it also addresses a common IT problem, granting user access to the same groups as a colleague in the same department without knowing if they are entitled to access every group, or if those groups are still active.
The solution has also enabled appointed staff in each department to self-manage the email Distribution Lists (DLs), allowing them to add and remove people as required.It has also given visibility into who has access to the DLs.
“While we haven’t sat down and listed all the benefits and ROI, we know that Activate is saving us roughly 40 hours every week of manual system administration. We also hear from managers how they love the difference the new system has made to their work and how much faster everything is,” said our customer.
Since the initial implementation, they’ve been looking for other processes to automate, like the process for staff to sign the ‘conflict of interest declaration’ form.
TVNZ has seen that Activate offers significant business benefits while enabling them to leverage existing investments in IT systems like Active Directory and Exchange.
Key Outcomes of Activate Identity Lifecycle solution:
Automated user setup workflows, reducing manual effort and errors
Improved service centre planning and workload management
Reduced risk of inappropriate access through more controlled user group management
Enabled department staff to self-manage email Distribution Lists with clear visibility
Saved approximately 40 hours weekly on manual system administration
Automated and streamlined document signing process for HR compliance
Enhanced tracking and reporting of key workflows and approvals
Maximised value from existing IT infrastructure investments.