CASE STUDY: KABEL DEUTSCHLAND
Kabel Deutschland, a Vodafone Company,
achieved stable and high-performance
access with ForgeRock OpenAM
Provides this both externally to its end customers as well as internally to sales support portals
Challenges
The project challenges were complex and reflected the strategic importance of
implementing a highly reliable internally and externally facing access management solution
without business disruption.
The challenges included:
■■ Upgrade existing OpenSSO solution to OpenAM
■■ Upgrade existing identity store and perform the necessary data migration
■■ Substitute existing IAM components in 7 WEB portal staging environments
■■ Cutover execution by running low risk (2-phase rollout)
■■ Training of Kabel Deutschland’s support team for new IAM components
Solution
Benefits
Kabel Deutschland has transformed its historically
■■ Boosts sales with a self-service portal that encourages
inward-facing IT platforms into customer-centric systems
customers to purchase additional products from the
by introducing single sign-on for its customer care portal
comfort of their own home
with ForgeRock OpenAM identity relationship management
(IRM) software. Now, millions of customers have an
easy-to-use single touch-point for ordering new services
from Kabel Deutschland’s portfolio of television, Internet
and telephone offerings. The company’s sales and customer
■■ Surpassed initial scale and performance goals, supporting
over 2 million online customers, overall 20,000 employees
and partnering associates and 150 logins per minute
■■ Easily scales up to support increased user numbers,
support teams also access the portal to view information on
providing Kabel Deutschland with room to grow to meet
subscriber accounts, enabling them to respond faster
the needs of its 8.3 million connected households
to customer queries.
FORGEROCK.COM || KABEL DEUTSCHLAND
CASE STUDY: KABEL DEUTSCHLAND
In a crowded media and telecommunications market, attracting and retaining customers relies largely on offering high-quality
services at the right price. Service providers that fail to make it quick and easy for customers to purchase new offerings risk
losing out to more agile competitors.
To boost its share of this dynamic market, Kabel Deutschland is making it easier for both new and existing customers to order
services from its broad product portfolio by launching single sign-on capabilities for its customer care system.
The new solution plays a critical role in the company’s digital business strategy and enables Kabel Deutschland customers
to purchase additional services, helping Kabel Deutschland grow its sales and seize greater market share. With rich information
on subscriber accounts, support staff can provide detailed, customized responses to customer enquiries, boosting satisfaction
and loyalty, and building closer relationships with its customers.
Ambitious growth strategy
Kabel Deutschland currently serves around 8.3 million households in Germany, and is aiming to win a greater share
of the domestic market for cable television, Internet and telephone services.
Matthias Rübel-Otterbach, Head of Web Application Development
at Kabel Deutschland, explains: “As part of our digital business
and growth strategy, we are focusing on differentiating our
offering from competitors by enhancing all aspects of the
customer journey.
“To accelerate service adoption, we wanted to allow
customers to browse and purchase products from
our portfolio of television, Internet and telephone
services on a self-service basis. To provide
better assistance to assist customers
who require additional help, we wanted
to equip call-center staff with information on
subscriber accounts, so they could provide more
personalized, higher-quality support.”
“To meet these twin aims, we needed to go beyond
an employee-centric solution and grant our customers
secure access to the relevant parts of our internal
systems. We had to find a flexible platform that could handle
identities for our internal and external users, ensure that each
person only gained access to the relevant parts of the systems,
and scale to support millions of users. We chose ForgeRock to
provide a state of the art, customer IAM solution
with a highly reliable support structure.”
FORGEROCK.COM || KABEL DEUTSCHLAND
To meet these twin aims, we
needed to go beyond an
employee-centric solution and
grant our customers secure
access to the relevant parts of our
internal systems. We had to find a
flexible platform that could handle
identities for our internal and
external users, ensure that each
person only gained access to the
relevant parts of the systems, and
scale to support millions of users.
We chose ForgeRock to provide
a state of the art, customer IAM
solution with a highly reliable
support structure.”
MATTHIAS RÜBEL-OTTERBACH, Head of Web
Application Development, Kabel Deutschland
CASE STUDY: KABEL DEUTSCHLAND
Enhancing key customer-facing systems
To support these new initiatives, Kabel Deutschland decided to enhance its existing customer care portal, and deployed an
identity relationship management solution based on ForgeRock OpenAM software. The solution provides secure access to
different company systems, based on whether the user is an employee, partner, or a customer.
With OpenAM, Kabel Deutschland’s over 2 million online customers and overall 20,000 employees and partnering associates
enjoy rapid access to several systems for browsing and purchasing its products, without having to enter their login details
multiple times. The solution also monitors access to several account services offered through external partners, such as
web-based email accounts provided to customers, with the help of OpenAM’s cross domain single sign-on. The initiative
incentivized Kabel Deutschland to enhance traditional identity and access management towards a new identity relationship
management approach, which involves not only granting customers access to some parts of its internal IT systems, but also
driving revenue by encouraging customers to purchase additional items.
OpenAM also provides Kabel Deutschland with the flexibility to enforce different password policies, authentication strengths,
and self-service registration capabilities for different types of users.
Martin Schikowski, Project Manager for Web Applications at Kabel Deutschland, adds: “One of the key reasons for choosing
ForgeRock was the outstanding support offered by the company’s support and professional services group. Initially, we had
planned to implement the project ourselves, but we soon realized that investing in access to its excellent support staff would
pay off extremely quickly.
“ForgeRock helped us integrate the OpenAM solution into our highly complex, heterogeneous IT environment quickly and
easily. In fact, the launch was so smooth that some users did not even realize it had taken place. The ForgeRock University
team also provided training sessions to help our staff learn to use the solution quickly.”
The tool’s rock-solid reliability helps Kabel Deutschland avoid downtime for the portal – one of its key customer-facing systems.
Winning new business
The easy-to-use portal plays a key role in encouraging customers to browse and purchase additional products and services
from the comfort of their own homes, supporting Kabel Deutschland’s ambitious profit growth objectives.
With newfound access to information on subscriber accounts, support staff can also provide detailed, highly personalized
responses to customer enquiries, fostering high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
ForgeRock helped us integrate the OpenAM solution into our highly complex, heterogeneous IT
environment quickly and easily. In fact, the launch was so smooth that some users did not even
realize it had taken place. The ForgeRock University team also provided training sessions to help
our staff learn to use the solution quickly.”
MARTIN SCHIKOWSKI, Project Manager for Web Applications, Kabel Deutschland
FORGEROCK.COM || KABEL DEUTSCHLAND
CASE STUDY: KABEL DEUTSCHLAND
Supporting future initiatives
Currently capable of supporting up to 150 logins per minute, ForgeRock OpenAM provides plenty of headroom
to scale upwards as Kabel Deutschland wins more customers. In addition, the company can easily integrate
the solution with any other systems that it might choose to implement in the future.
The fact that ForgeRock’s software stack is open source allows Kabel Deutschland not only to look into
the code to troubleshoot when necessary, but also to examine the product’s roadmap information and
work with the open ForgeRock community to better plan for future capabilities.
Matthias Rübel-Otterbach concludes: “We have built a true partnership with ForgeRock, and we
know that we can rely on the consultants to provide excellent support whenever we need it.
We are confident that ForgeRock OpenAM will play a key role in supporting our corporate
growth by securing the customer access management.”
About Kabel Deutschland
The Vodafone Company Kabel Deutschland (KD), Germany’s largest cable
operator, offers its customers high definition (HD), digital (SD) and analog
TV, Pay TV and DVR offerings, Video on Demand, broadband Internet
(up to 100 Mbit/s), WiFi services and fixed-line Phone services via
cable. Kabel Deutschland also distributes mobile services.Situated
in Unterfoehring near Munich, the Company reported revenues of
€1,900 million and an Adjusted EBITDA of €910 million.
To learn more about Kabel Deutschland, please visit:
www.kabeldeutschland.de
FORGEROCK.COM || KABEL DEUTSCHLAND