By choosing Ilex International’s IAM platform to secure access to its business applications and improve workstation ergonomics, Leroy Merlin optimized its personnel efficiency as well as customer experience.
The solution implemented:
Sign&go Global SSO
Strong and adaptive authentication, access control, global SSO (Web SSO and eSSO), identity federation and mobile SSO
The challenges
- Modernise its access system to the IT tool
- Facilitate mobility and daily work for sales advisers
- Improve service quality within the stores
A people-centred and dynamic company
with more than 120 stores in France
As the founding enterprise of GROUPE ADEO, today Leroy Merlin is the leading DIY company in France on the market of home and living environment improvement solutions. GROUPE ADEO is the third worldwide actor in the DIY area, and the first in Europe. Leroy Merlin has more than 20,000 employees in France over more than 120 stores.
At Leroy Merlin France, employees are the main actors of the company’s future, and their well being is at the heart of the company’s HR policies.
A changing information system
and a need for security
Access to the information system from workstations in stores did no longer meet the employees’ new needs. Workstations shared by several sales advisers caused security and organisation problems. Sales advisers were attached to a fixed location within the store and were less efficient. The system in place did no longer reflect the company’s dynamism.
As a consequence, in 2011, the ISD launched a project in order to revisit the workstation infrastructure and access management within its French stores.
The end of free access workstations, Leroy Merlin goes contactless SSO authentication!
In 2011, the IT Management team decided to address this issue and launched a project aimed at redesigning the workstation infrastructure thanks to virtualisation technologies, and revisiting access to workstations within the stores. Making the job of sales advisers easier, by freeing them from IT constraints, will improve customer experience and will help provide optimum quality service.
The objective is to find a solution combining performance, ergonomics and security. Sales advisers must be able to access their business applications very quickly, from any workstation in the store. Over with the shared work session opened all day long! Every sales adviser has to be mobile and be able to assist the customer all along the purchase process.
« We soon chose the path of RFID authentication which allows access to customised virtualised sessions. The idea was to equip every sales adviser with a contactless badge allowing access to their own work session. The session is instantaneously locked or unlocked upon the badge insertion or removal. Sales advisers move from one workstation to another and can view their sessions such as they had left them. »
Ilex International meets the challenge
by relying on our IAM expertise
Leroy Merlin made the decision to entrust their access management to Ilex International, a software provider with more than 20 years of experience in Identity and Access Management (IAM).
As a key player on the market, we offer an advanced and renowned technological expertise. Our Sign&go Global SSO solution provides total compatibility with the chosen virtualisation solution (Citrix).
« The virtualisation of desktops and applications, combined with authentication, helps standardise the computers in our stores. Since the RFID badge is for individual use, sales advisers are guaranteed a fast and secured access to their usual and personal work environment, independently from the workstation they connect to. Thus, sales advisers can put their badges on the closest readers and then access their personal work sessions, such as they had left them, with all their business applications. »
Thanks to the SSO functionality, sales advisers do no longer have to enter a password when launching their applications.
« This solution is simple and fast. The badge must not be a constraint, but must become a time saving tool. »
A pilot site, enthusiastic users
and a large scale SSO deployment
The opening of a new store, located at Gonesse, near Paris, was the opportunity to launch the project and set up a pilot site. The implementation of secured virtual workstations within the Gonesse store took place in October 2011. Firstly, 15 workstations were installed. Then, this number increased progressively until the store was opened to the public. Assistance was provided to sales advisers in order to help them adjust to this change in their work tool as best as possible.
« We wanted to take the opportunity of this pilot site to perform tests and refine our technical and functional needs. This pilot also allowed us to gather feedback from sales advisers, who were primarily concerned by this project. This easy to use and fast solution appealed to them because it met exactly their needs in the field. Thanks to this new infrastructure, they save time and can connect anywhere in the store securely! »
Building on the successful launch of the pilot store, the IT management team carries on with the deployment of more than 9,000 secured virtual workstations throughout the 120 French stores of the company. Currently, about 3,000 people use the solution daily in 23 stores. The company wants to equip 50 stores by the end of 2013.
The benefits
- Data security and confidentiality
- Standardisation of the workstations in stores
- Employee mobility
- New ergonomics
- Enhancement of the sales advisers’ productivity and of customer satisfaction
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