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Customer Success

The ChallengeAnticipating client needs and developing innovative solutions that transform sales and marketing from an art to a science have been the hallmark of global business services firm ZS Associates for over 30 years. So in 2008, it was no surprise that the company recognized that single sign-on (SSO) was an essential component in developing its JavelinTM software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.

For many companies, success hinges on the effectiveness of their sales and marketing operations. Since 1983, this has been ZS’s focus. The firm works with hundreds of the world’s top corporations to address critical sales-force effectiveness issues and optimize their sales and marketing efforts.

“Early on we recognized the potential value of the SaaS model to the clients we serve,” said Chris Weathers, SaaS Operations manager and director of SSO activities. “We planned to get ahead of the SSO adoption curve and provide centralized authentication for our clients who didn’t yet realize they needed this capability.”

Weathers said ZS wanted to be ready when clients started requesting SSO services from the company.

“We implemented our solution in 2009, and then helped our clients adopt SSO to access our SaaS applications. Two years later, clients began listing identity federation, specifically SAML-based, capabilities regularly as a standard requirement” said Weathers. “We felt extremely prepared.”

The Solution ZS chose the on-premises PingFederate identity bridge to power its standards-based SSO solution to the SaaS applications it offers customers. But the company didn’t stop there. ZS’s IT organization also found benefit in implementing SSO to support their own business needs. ZS began using PingFederate internally to enable secure SSO access to numerous cloud applications.

“Not only did we need to enable a full-featured SSO solution for our cloud-based services, but our internal IT group also wanted to begin moving our enterprise applications to the cloud,” said Weathers. “PingFederate is a secure, robust solution that we can use both ways.”

PingFederate enables federated SSO, secure mobile access, API security, social identity integration and automated user provisioning. It integrates easily with existing IT infrastructure and supports workforce, customer, partner and consumer identity use cases.

ZS is also setting up mobile access to many of its SaaS applications. PingFederate enables secure access from tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices. Web and native mobile apps leverage OAuth and OpenID Connect protocols.

Environment

■ IdM suite: Internal solution

■ Existing SSO: Internal solution

■ Directory: LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory

■ SaaS provider role: Javelin™ software suite (24 applications) and ZS ARTiS™ BI Solution

Challenge

Back in 2008, the need to get ahead

of the SSO adoption curve and better

support its growing SaaS client base

led ZS Associates to Ping Identity.

Solution

■ PingFederate®

Results

■ Leverage PingFederate for external clients and internal users

■ 20,000+ external SSO users

■ 2,000+ internal SSO users

■ Secure browser-based web and mobile access for Javelin™ and BI applications

■ Zero delay in deprovisioning client users

ZS Associates Drives Client Growth Using Ping Identity for Single Sign-On

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Customer Success

About Ping Identity | The Identity Security CompanyPing Identity believes secure professional and personal identities underlie human progress in a connected world. Our identity and access management platform gives enterprise customers and employees one-click access to any application from any device. Over 1,000 companies, including half of the Fortune 100, rely on our award-winning products to make the digital world a better experience for hundreds of millions of people. For more information, dial U.S. toll-free 877.898.2905 or +1.303.468.2882, email sales@pingidentity.com or visit pingidentity.com.

© 2013 Ping Identity Corporation. All rights

reserved. Ping Identity, PingFederate, PingOne,

PingEnable, the Ping Identity logo, and Cloud

Identity Summit are registered trademarks, or

servicemarks of Ping Identity Corporation. All

other product and service names mentioned

are the trademarks of their respective

companies.

“ Because of Ping’s reliance on

SAML and other vetted industry-

standard protocols, our security-

minded clients don’t question how

we handle SSO.”Chris WeathersQA Manager, ZS Associates

Scott Ewell, SaaS operations manager at ZS, remarked in the coming year, the company will explore other features PingFederate offers, such as dynamic user provisioning. PingFederate supports the lightweight, automated SCIM standard for inbound and outbound user provisioning to corporate directories and SaaS providers.

BenefitsZS serves clients across a variety of highly regulated industries including financial services, healthcare, high-tech, insurance and others, so providing a secure, reliable SSO connection to the company’s SaaS applications is critical. Ping Identity’s decade-long track record as a proven identity and access management (IAM) solution is a significant benefit to ZS’s IT team.

Weathers said, “Our selection of PingFederate has paid off. Our clients rarely question how we handle SSO. Because Ping Identity relies exclusively on industry-vetted standards and protocols, our clients are confident our solution will meet the security requirements of their company and their users.”

Weathers continued, “How our clients interact with us is changing. Their interest in SaaS applications is growing dramatically. To keep our clients long term, we need solutions that consistently perform. We can count on PingFederate to deliver the reliability our clients expect.”

The immediacy of deprovisioning users is something ZS’s clients particularly value. “There’s no delay between when a user leaves the company and when that user’s access to our apps is cut off,” said Weathers. “Due to the proprietary and sensitive nature of the information our applications might handle, the risk of any unauthorized access is nil.”

About ZS AssociatesZS Associates is a global leader in sales and marketing consulting, outsourcing, technology and software. For 30 years, ZS has helped companies across a range of industries get the most out of their sales and marketing organizations. From 20 offices around the world, ZS experts use analytics and deep expertise to help companies make smart decisions quickly and cost effectively. ZS comprises multiple affiliated legal entities. Learn more at: www.zsassociates.com.

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