BTP Consultants, a company specializing in building and civil engineering consultancy, technical offices, SPS coordination and property diagnostics, has moved from manual account creation to fully automatic integration.
BTP Consultants in a nutshell:
- 20+ years in business
- 610 employees
- strong growth with numerous company takeovers
- 4 subsidiaries
- accelerating under the impetus of the Digital IT Department
- BTP Force: a business tool developed in-house, enabling the company to significantly digitalize its processes, improve the daily lives of its employees and better serve its customers.
Requirements :
- Free up the time of the IT team, which was managing everything manually. Structure processes and automate account creation and suspension.
- Review your accounts with ease.
"It was very easy to get the hang of. Other tools on the market are more complex to grasp and often cover too wide a scope for our basic needs. Here, it was very simple.
Franck Jousse, CIO at BTP Consultants.
What was the situation before Youzer?
At BTP Consultants we have a fairly high turnover due to the construction consulting sector and very strong growth. We have a large number of new arrivals every month.
What's more, we have a major digitalization project underway, which is leading us to think in terms of nomadism and simplifying connections, with a security issue at stake as well. We're working on a hybrid system with applications on workstations, but also solutions in the cloud.
We had a small IT team and a lot of manual operations. Arrivals were all done by hand, the transfer of information was often oral - we exchanged with HR via a Google Sheet file.
What was the problem?
I couldn't answer simple questions like: how many users are there in the AD or on our applications, or even how many employees are there in the HRIS. It was a time-consuming calculation.
When I arrived, I asked for reports on licenses and applications, and questioned ten or so people who shared different reports with me.
Previously, the IS department had an image and quality problem with the deliverability of accounts. We had reached the limit between manual actions and the number of arrivals. We needed to integrate employees more quickly.
How did you go about choosing an IAM (Identity and Access Management) solution?
"I knew about IAM and all the major shortcomings of the big solutions on the market. Often IAM is used for many other things and often the tool goes outside its IAM spectrum and pulls a lot of things behind that go outside IAM."
Franck Jousse
So I was looking for a basic tool, I wanted SaaS so I didn't have to host it. I was looking for a fast implementation.
I compared 2 "pure" IAM solutions. I wanted a simple solution, to prove that it worked, that it could replace manual actions with great reliability. I wanted the solution to be agile, easy to plug in to market tools (like Salesforce) and home-made API solutions (BTP Force), and to manage workflows. No multi-year commitment, just a rental.
I needed a tool to review accounts and authorizations.
3 people in the IT Department were involved in these arrivals and departures, and we put a lot of pressure on the HR Department. I wanted to limit the number of low value-added tasks, so that my colleagues could focus on high value-added projects. My aim was to eliminate as many manual tasks as possible, so that I could integrate my colleagues as efficiently as possible.
I mixed up my needs and quickly made a decision.
Integrating Youzer into BTP Consultants
With Youzer, we connected Salesforce, which was our biggest application, and proved that it worked perfectly. This freed up the teams' time, and I was able to suggest other subjects to them.
We carried out an initial review of the accounts, with one-click reporting. This proved that there were malfunctions within the company, which reinforced the choice of Youzer. We then integrated other applications, including the latest one we were developing, BTP Force.
Our teams now rely on Youzer and have been freed from manual actions to concentrate on other, higher value-added tasks.
We started by working on the arrival of employees, then quickly moved on to off-boarding with the departure of employees, as well as internal migrations.
I strongly recommend taking things step by step within the team, so as not to rush into changing working methods.
What have you found when implementing Youzer?
Our Active Directory wasn't very clean, and our processes were oral. Youzer enabled us to structure and write down our processes and reformat them.
The HRIS was not connected to the AD. It works with a Google Sheet file. This file will disappear, but it had to be integrated, and this was one of the major problems.
"That's also why I chose Youzer, because I knew you'd be able to do it."
Franck Jousse
Youzer's teams have done a lot of work to integrate our file with specific developments. This Google file is very important for us, as HR, regional managers, IT and general resources interact with it.
There was no job repository, and everyone put their own name to it. We were able to structure this file.
Who uses Youzer?
Youzer's users are in the IT department (5 people) and use it on a daily basis.
Eventually, when the Google entry/exit file is phased out, it will be up to HR to enter additional information, general resources, accounting and also AMOA to add signatures and complete profiles.
How easy is it to get to grips with Youzer?
"Getting started is very easy, if not too easy. The rest of the market is very difficult, if not too difficult. Here, it was very simple."
The semantics are specific to Youzer, but you learn them quickly, otherwise I'll contact support.
Ergonomics and UX are easy to grasp for someone who has already touched an IAM. For an IAM novice, there's an obligatory apprenticeship and even some safeguards. It's easy to play with and make a few mistakes.
It's a powerful tool that deals with accounts and users. Even if it's simple, it can become too easy, and you can't play around with this kind of tool.
"True agility, it [the solution] is easily integrated, it's very good level."
Franck Jousse
We have privileged access to the teams [thanks to support] who really listen to us, which makes things easier and more convenient.
What kind of relationship do you have with Youzer?
We co-construct things, and the monthly release means we can see them online quickly. There's a very good response from the teams and support.
"I went from a world where we had a big American publisher, on which we had to contract an astronomical level of support that cost more than the product itself, and with releases every year. [With Youzer,] it's surprising and positive."
SaaS mode gives us agility, and we're immediately confident. You feed off our problems to implement them.
Would you like to receive our white paper on identity and access management?
What gains have you made with Youzer?
2 and a half people were working 50% of their time on arrivals and departures. I got one full-time person back, and the others significantly reduced the time spent on these operations.
What's more, we've recovered a large number of licenses.
The review of accounts is also one of the most significant time-savers. I used to do it once a year, and it took a full-time person a month.
Employee satisfaction is not measurable, but we're moving from uncertain (human) integration to something systematic and automatic.
Previously, we had quite a few problems with creating accounts, numbers and licenses. Today, we've largely eliminated these problems, and our employees and their managers are satisfied.
"I've had no negative feedback on user profiles. Youzer is the assurance of meeting needs. I can check that the applications are automated, that 4 days before everything is created and I can go and check all this in real time."
Franck Jousse
In ComEx, I can talk about the next units created, Youzer lives and the figures are correct.
Youzer's costs are very affordable, so the financial benefits are immediate: you're back in the black right away, and the savings are real.
What's the HR response to Youzer's arrival?
HR lost a bit of time at the beginning, because the constraints were strong since I imposed more rigor. Today, they see the benefit, as there's no longer any frustration at onboarding.
Having a rigorous HR department has repercussions on accounting, management control, bonuses and IT. The entry/exit file will disappear, and so their HRIS will become the benchmark, more rigorous and more secure. Information will be more reliable.
Your favorite features :
- account review
- for teams: workflows, authorization packages.
Would you recommend Youzer?
The operations manager, who has had experience of other IAMs, is very satisfied and finds it a real revelation, a tool that both facilitates and reassures.
The application manager can see that everything comes to the right place and that this makes things easier.
Everything used to be based on manual work, oral communication and interpersonal skills. Today, it's all based on automation.
I was able to unite the teams.
"I recommend Youzer, for the understanding of what an IAM should really be. We're not faced with a publisher who sells us everything in every direction and ends up with something in a drawer that doesn't work. You get an IAM for an IAM, and that's excellent.
I recommend it: for the support, for the cost, for the integration with the main market tools that exist, for the ergonomics and apprehension of the product, for its RGPD compliance, for the SaaS mode that doesn't require installation, for its reliability, I've never seen it KO, I've never seen an incident and for the pro-activity and spirit of co-construction."
