Officeworks stands up its own enterprise identity platform

Officeworks is in the process of standing up a new enterprise identity services platform that it hopes to deliver by the end of the year.

Head of cyber security Christie Lim told a recent SailPoint ‘Back to the Future’ virtual summit that before 2020, the retailer “had the luxury of relying on Coles, who was our managed service for identity.”

“It was very much managed as a ‘black box’,” Lim said.

“In 2020, everything changed as Officeworks departed from our Coles managed identity and HR system. 

“That gave us the first opportunity to start owning identity as a core capability of our cyber security strategy, and led us to where we are today, in the middle of implementing SailPoint IdentityNow as our first enterprise identity solution.”

Officeworks was originally part of Coles Group, which was snapped up by Wesfarmers in 2007. Wesfarmers has since demerged from the Coles Group, but Officeworks remains in the Wesfarmers stable.

Lim said that Officeworks spent “12 weeks, if not longer” scoping and documenting its identity needs. It also ran market research on three identity solutions as part of its due diligence.

She said the system needed to be able to connect to on-premises and cloud-based Active Directory, to the retailer’s SuccessFactors HR system, and to a range of legacy systems.

Lim added that the use of SailPoint’s IdentityNow platform is in line with a broader strategic direction by the retailer to use as-a-service products where possible.

“We do have a SaaS-first model in our technology strategy direction,” she said.

“More and more, our business is looking to reduce the footprint in our data centre, so certainly we put forward a SaaS-based identity solution as being preferred.”