Case Study: Global Dairy Enterprise Chooses ITSM for Portal, Activate for Access Automation
Why This Enterprise Kept a Major ITSM Platform Together With Activate for Higher-Value Automation
Identity self-service at enterprise scale
A global dairy organisation needed a more efficient way to manage high-volume access requests without increasing service desk workload. Activate’s Access Automation solution was introduced to automate self-service access to email lists, secure folders, password resets, site induction surveys, and selected security systems, giving the organisation a scalable foundation for identity self-service and automated provisioning.
The challenge with IT-led access decisions
Before broader ITSM changes, the organisation needed to remove friction from access management and reduce the dependency on IT for routine approval and fulfilment tasks. Activate addressed this by using a smart approval model that shifted access decisions closer to the business, helping reduce delays and improve responsiveness for end users.
Why Activate remained central after the ITSM Platform.
Activate’s Access Automation solution originally operated as a separate portal alongside the organisation’s earlier service desk platform, with users directed there for specific self-service requests. When the ITSM platform was implemented as the primary user portal in 2016, that model evolved rather than disappeared. The ITSM plaform became the front door for requests and incident logging, while Activate remained the execution layer for specific identity-driven services.
How the co-existence model works
Today, users access the ITSM portal for general requests and incident logging. When they search for services such as distribution lists, secure folders, MS Teams DDI provisioning, or site surveys, the ITSM platform provides guidance and links them to Activate’s Access Automation solution. Users then complete their self-service request in Activate, where approvals, notifications, and provisioning are handled automatically without requiring a service desk ticket.
The ROI of automated access provisioning
This model allows the organisation to keep the ITSM platform as the central user portal while using Activate to automate the access services that benefit most from identity-specific execution. The result is lower service desk involvement, faster fulfilment, and a more scalable approach to access management and self-service provisioning.
Activate is currently processing more than 300,000 automated provisioning requests per year across approximately 12,500 users in this environment. That scale demonstrates the operational value of combining an ITSM portal with a specialist identity automation platform built to handle approvals, notifications, and provisioning automatically.
The bottom line
For this global dairy organisation, the value came from using each platform for what it does best. The ITSM platform became the primary portal for managing work, while Activate remained the platform for executing identity work across systems. That co-existence model helped the organisation improve efficiency, reduce ticket dependency, and deliver automated access services at scale.