Case Study the Absolut Company - Easy access for Absolut with Always Online and a single password

The Absolut Company, which is part of Pernod Ricard, has close to 400 employees, of whom 150 travel around the World on business. The Absolut Company also provides IT services for Pernod Ricard’s Scandinavian organisation, operating in Finland, Norway and Denmark. A large number of different web applications are used for administrative purposes.

“Previously there was a separate login for each individual application,” says Håkan Bergshjorth, Senior Project Manager IT for The Absolut Company. “This meant that users had to keep track of a number of different usernames and passwords, and the IT support team constantly received enquiries from users who had forgotten their passwords and needed help logging in,” he explains. 

In summer 2013 The Absolut Company started discussing the matter with neXus, after having taken part in a breakfast seminar on BYOD, Secure Login and Federation.

“We wanted to make it easy for users to access the applications they needed for accounting, travel management, time reporting and so on. Many of the applications were cloud-based solutions that were not connected to the company’s IT infrastructure,” continues Bergshjorth.

The Absolut Company chose the remote-access solution neXus Hybrid Access Gateway, which with Federation and Single Sign-On provides simple and secure login to multiple resources, especially in the cloud. This solution became part of The Absolut Company’s corporate concept Always Online – that users should only have to log in once on their computer.

The rollout began in autumn 2013, and the system came into full operation after Christmas. Users now have immediate access to all of their applications via one login and one password. The authentication to the various applications is handled automatically. All the applications now used within The Absolut Company are included, and it is easy to add new applications to the system. Users can access all the applications from any computer via the same web interface.

The solution provides secure access to applications, whether hosted on the company’s own internal servers or in the cloud. Thanks to this secure authentication solution, employees can also log in from mobile devices and from outside the company’s network without jeopardising security. The next stage is to consider the possibility of also connecting client–server applications, such as logistics systems, to the solution. Even so, Håkan Bergshjorth can already see many benefits.

“We have been able to minimise the administrative time spent when users forget their passwords. Fewer users are now being denied access, and the need for support has been reduced dramatically. And as you can imagine, the fewer passwords the staff have to remember, the happier they are,” he concludes.

About Absolut Company

The Absolut Company has global responsibility for the production and marketing of Absolut Vodka, Malibu, Kahlúa, Wyborowa, Luksusowa and Frïs. Absolut Vodka, the fourth-largest international spirit brand in the world, is produced in Åhus in Skåne in southern Sweden. Malibu is sold in 150 countries, and is the world’s No. 1 coconut-flavoured rum. Kahlúa coffee liqueur is also the world leader in its category. Since July 2008 The Absolut Company has been part of the Pernod Ricard Group. The Absolut Company employs around 400 staff, and is headquartered in Stockholm.

The remote-access solution neXus Hybrid Access Gateway provides simple and secure login to multiple resources, especially in the cloud, thanks to Single Sign-On and Federation, which involves creating a trusted identity that is recognised throughout an organisation or a group of organisations. The Absolut Company has about 15 Active application accesses at present, and more are in the pipeline. About half of these are pure web services, while the rest are Oracle solutions, mail systems and so on. There are multiple access-control levels, based on organisational affiliation and access groups. It is planned to use the service for other organisations within Pernod Ricard that are not connected to The Absolut Company’s infrastructure. The solution is currently based on a Linux server that sits in The Absolut Company’s DMZ.