Energy company Tibber has been using technology and digital solutions in its operations since it was founded in 2016. The company's digital approach quickly attracted new customers and accelerated expansion into new markets. This success brought with it challenges in managing the rapidly increasing number of staff. Identity and access management is now governed by the Zero Trust model based on solutions from Okta and VMware, implemented with Advania's support.
Tibber buys its customers the cheapest available hourly electricity and provides them with smart technologies that help reduce energy consumption and lower costs. Examples include charging electric cars at night, when prices are more competitive, or real-time monitoring of household electricity consumption.
Tibber's digital tools quickly transformed the Swedish domestic market, and with their popularity the company expanded to Norway, Germany and the Netherlands. The strong growth in staff numbers presented challenges.
Tibber knew it needed an enterprise identity management solution that would scale as the company grew. Jon Westholm, who is responsible for information security for the entire Tibber Group, was already convinced of the possibilities offered by Okta in his previous job.
"We chose Okta for Tibber because I knew from experience that it could increase security and streamline our processes without increasing my workload," says Westholm.
Westholm was supported by a team of certified Okta experts from Advania Sweden to take the project forward. The Okta infrastructure was designed and deployed in 1.5 months!
Okta together with VMware's Workspace ONE modern device management
As growth continued, Tibber's goal was to manage the entire employment lifecycle to get new employees up and running quickly and securely. The aim was to introduce the Zero Trust access management model, and specifically a solution that integrates with Okta.
Advania Sweden knew that their Finnish counterparts had experience in device and access management solutions.
"We first looked at the technology already in use at Tibber to see how we could improve the situation. We showed Tibber a demo of Workspace ONE and its integration with Okta. The choice of solution was then made," says expert Peter Giesa of Advania Finland.
At Tibber, you can manage endpoints running Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. Devices are centrally managed and user-based authentication is in place. When a new employee logs on to a device under device management, they have access to all the necessary systems.
The process is also quick when an employee leaves the company: removing rights requires a single operation. The device can be reset and installed for a new user in minutes.
Carbon Black Cloud has been implemented and integrated with Workspace ONE Workflows to provide next generation anti-virus and behavioural EDR functionality which keeps the Tibber's environment secure even from advanced modern threats like never-before-seen attacks, whether they are malware, fileless or living-off-the-land attacks.
"The user experience when a new device is deployed or a user changes is smooth and IT can be confident in the security of the services," says Giesa.
Giesa states that the implementation is never complete, but has to adapt as the business changes. Scalable products such as Okta and VMware Workspace ONE provide the flexibility and scalability needed.
"The Finnish team is very knowledgeable. They knew the products well and immediately knew how to integrate all the services to suit the end users. We also got a lot of tips on how to further improve the implementation," says Tibber’s Westholm.
"The solutions we have in place enable the use of automation. That's why our IT team doesn't need to be big."
If you can't see the embedded video, please click here.
