Quest satisfies Seneca Foods’ appetite for SAP single sign-on

We just published a case study on Seneca Foods use of our SAP single sign-on (SSO) solution. In a nutshell, here's the problem that Seneca Foods was faced with:

Seneca Foods runs its core applications, including its SAP applications, on about 60 Unix servers running IBM AIX. More than 500 employees must access the SAP applications from their Windows desktops, and many need to access as many as four or five different SAP applications. Each user had to log in to each SAP application separately, requiring them to keep track of multiple passwords or attempt to keep them in synch manually. Naturally, passwords were often forgotten, leading to lost productivity and a significant number of calls to the help desk for password resets. And because Seneca Foods has 25 manufacturing facilities throughout the United States, spread across all four time zones, requests for assistance could come at virtually any hour of the day or evening. This required help desk staff to be on call beyond the normal work day.

To make matters worse, as part of its commitment to IT security, Seneca Foods decided to implement current security standards that would increase password complexity. Now, not only were users going to have to use multiple passwords, they would also be more difficult to remember. IT staff recognized that the new security standards would result in more calls to the help desk for password resets than the current staff could handle, and also lead to increased frustration and loss of productivity on the part of employees unable to access the applications they needed.

For this reason, Seneca Foods decided to look for a single sign-on solution that would enable staff to use a single password for access to all of their SAP applications. Since each employee would have only one password to remember, the company could mandate more complex passwords. The organization also wanted the single sign-on solution to be easy to use and as transparent as possible.

I have always believed that identity management projects that have an effect on the every day user – like this one at Seneca Foods – are the most successful and easiest to justify. Seneca Foods is not only increasing employee productivity and security but they are also reducing help desks costs.

If you'd like more information on Quest's SAP SSO solution please visit http://www.quest.com/authentication-services/sso-for-sap.aspx.

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