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The recent Global Security Exchange (GSX) event was an incredible opportunity to showcase our latest cyber-physical solutions, connect with industry personnel and discuss the newest innovations in security. Our GSX Customer Success event also enabled us to hear directly from our clients about how Alert Enterprise solutions are delivering total workforce access, security and safety while making security a true business enabler.
Read some of our learnings below, then check out our GSX Customer Success page for highlight videos, additional information and more.
Cornelius Tate, Senior Vice President, Security Operations Analysis Command Center
“Going to a mobile credential, we’ll be able to show the ROI immediately,” Tate said. “The cost of producing a card is approximately $16 per card and that does not count the cost of printers, the ink, the hours it takes to produce these badges, and then putting them in the overnight mail. So, I think it’s really going to revolutionize badging from a time perspective.”
“We are getting over 1 million card swipes a day that are being incredibly well managed by Alert Enterprise’s products.”
“In 37 years, I’ve never seen that level of commitment at the upper level of a company. And I think that’s truly important.”
Gary Todd, Associate Director, Cyber Security
As an electric utility company, PNM Resources has unique challenges exclusive to critical infrastructures, particularly when it comes to its diverse set of facilities that span both IT (company headquarters, administrative offices, etc.) and OT (industrial control facilities, substations, etc.).
Like other utility organizations, PNM Resources is also heavily regulated by The North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) standards. The NERC CIP audits PNM Resources every three years and if there’s even one instance of noncompliance during that period, “you don’t pass,” Todd said.
“At a certain point, it became very obvious that we needed to have automated access control.”
Because of their significance and connections within the critical infrastructure network, electric utility organizations are especially vulnerable to attacks – making the need for a strong physical access system paramount.
“With the substation attacks that were in the news this year and last year, physical access has taken on a whole new importance in our industry and will continue to be important,” Todd said.
For PNM Resources, the integration with Guardian has transformed manual, error-prone processes into smoother, automated systems that became “a natural part of business,” Todd said.
“Not only did it help our security, but it changed the dynamic from the manual phone call, email process, the individual heroics that typically happen.”
“It has made compliance and our security – both physical and electronic access – much easier to do and easier to prove. To be able to show who’s had access to which facility at a moment’s notice is invaluable to us.”
Jim Schmidt, CIP Compliance Systems Engineer
With over 1.2 million customers and nearly 3,000 employees, Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) is one of Indiana’s largest natural gas and electric organizations. Once inundated with error-prone, manual processes, this critical infrastructure organization needed an access control solution that could mitigate system inaccuracies, automate training, manage badging and improve auditing and reporting.
As the industry shifts from fossil fuels to renewable resources, utility organizations like NIPSCO are also expanding their physical footprint to accommodate remote stations – necessitating the demand for a united, enterprise-wide system.
With the Guardian Physical Identity and Access Management (PIAM) system, NIPSCO was able to move from manual to automated processes. Today, NIPSCO uses Guardian for badge management, access control, yearly training automation and maintaining CIP compliance.
“Seven years ago, we went to Alert Enterprise,” Schmidt said. “Now, everything’s handled electronically, and we’ve reduced the errors in the systems dramatically.”
Guardian has helped streamline NIPSCO’s access control and badging processes. Before implementation, new employees had to wait a couple of weeks to gain access to company facilities. With Guardian, they’re granted immediate access to the places they need to be – and that access can be removed as quickly as it’s given.
It has also helped “tremendously” with regular auditing and reporting.
“The last few audits have done very, very well and Alert Enterprise has been a big part of that success story,” Schmidt said.
“Our goal is to always have zero violations and we’re very close to that and have been doing very, very well with that. And a lot of that success is due to Alert Enterprise.”
Zebulon Moore Director Physical Security Systems
Ranking 25th on the Fortune 500 list, Centene Corporation is a managed healthcare organization that serves 28 million members across 29 states. Before implementing Alert Enterprise solutions, the organization was manually processing 250,000 tickets a year in up to five different access control systems. It was also plagued with over-access and unknown identities of badges that would stay in a perpetually active state.
After years of these manual processes and paper-based operations, Centene Corporation came to Alert Enterprise in search of a modern Visitor Management platform. It inadvertently uncovered a much-needed solution to enterprise-wide identity and access management, from contract workers and full-time employees to visitors.
Centene Corporation implemented the Guardian Physical Identity Access Management (PIAM) and Visitor Management systems, which provided the organization with a clear picture of who was entering their faculties – and what they did upon arrival.
“Security starts with access control,” Moore said. “If you do not know or understand who is coming into your facilities, anything else you do is likely secondary.”
With Alert Enterprise, Centene Corporation was also able to streamline monthly audits and assessments. Before deployment, employees were spending an “astronomical” amount of time sifting through spreadsheets and paper notebooks to find necessary information.
In the future, Centene Corporation is looking to implement mobile access with NFC Wallet Mobile Credentials, as well as physical access control solutions
With Alert Enterprise, Centene Corporation can efficiently manage visitors and its entire workforce, from hire to retire. A converged identity management solution also made audits easier, going from 20-25 findings per audit to nearly zero.
And it all had an impact on the bottom line: “If it’s not true ROI in terms of money saved, it’s ROI in time saved or future money that we haven’t lost because of mistakes or being out of compliance,” Moore said.
And these solutions proved to scale alongside Centene Corporation as it grew: Within one day of acquiring a 20,000-person organization, all employees were onboarded into the system with access to the necessary offices. The governed, automated approach was “night and day” compared to a similar, pre-Alert Enterprise acquisition, Moore said.
“We quickly came to realize how powerful Alert Enterprise was for us.”
“I can’t speak enough about the customer support, technical support and response time.”
Jim Schmidt, CIP Compliance Systems Engineer
Draper Laboratory is a nonprofit research and development organization in the aerospace defense business. With nine decades of innovation, Draper plays a large role in solving complex challenges through technology for the United States.
But when it came to its own security systems, there was much work to be done: prior to implementation, the physical and logical sides at Draper Laboratory were working in
silos. This caused security gaps and emphasized the demand for a converged cyber-physical security solution, something that Keohane calls “a blend of art and science.”
“I’ve been trying to become an Alert Enterprise customer for about five years now because I saw the need,” Keohane said.
Draper Laboratory currently houses around 2,000 employees with the goal of reaching 4,000. With Guardian, the organization can now successfully scale without sacrifice.
“I made the case that the only way to scale is to have more efficient, self-service tools,” Keohane said. “And Guardian provides that automated, systemic way.”
Alert Enterprise will also play a role in growing Draper Laboratory’s SOC as it continues to focus on nurturing collaborative insider threat committees.
“We really looking forward to bringing on Alert to normalize our physical security SOC,” Keohane said.
“The only way to effectively manage insider threat is to have all the different bits and pieces at the table.”
Frank Capello, Enterprise Director of Security
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) Airport is categorized as a Category X airport, which means it’s one of the most threatened airports in the United States – and consequently, one of the highest regulated.
But meeting TSA’s regulatory requirements wasn’t the only issue FLL was dealing with; before deployment, the airport was battling slow processing times, slow and error-prone manual processes, inflexible workflows and multiple data sources. It was also a paper-based facility, leading to inefficient and costly operations.
“You could fit about 12 average-sized houses of files that were in rooms in my credentialing center,” said Frank Capello, FLL Enterprise Director of Security.
After an employee used an access badge to smuggle a gun into the airport, FLL sought a multi-faceted security solution that could transform their operations, while keeping employees, passengers and crew members safe.
The airport landed on Alert Enterprise’s Guardian Identity Management System (IDMS), which completely removed security silos, multiple data sources – and all the paper.
Since rolling out three years ago, FLL has achieved many security milestones with Alert Enterprise. It reduced the number of trips to the credentialing center from 3 to 2, lowered wait times to nearly zero, and automated background checks. As for the file cabinets? They’ve been replaced by a few servers, leading to more efficient operations and ample cost savings.
“We took a totally paper process and completely digitized it,” Capello said.
“have the Alert Enterprise team on speed dial.”
“I was one of the first that took a chance on Alert in the airport setting and everybody at Alert knows how satisfied I am.”
Vikas Chauhan has been with Alert Enterprise since 2012 and currently serves as Head of Engineering and Customer Success. As host of the 2023 GSX Customer Success event, he and his team are leading the way for current and future customer achievements with Alert Enterprise.
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