HID Helps Avolon Re-imagine Security By Focusing On User Buy-in

Making decisions about new security technologies can be complex at large organizations to say nothing about getting user buy-in.

In a recent webinar, Moving to Mobile Access Control, James Moore of IFSEC Global and Peter Walsh of HID Global spoke with Allan Dawson, Workplace Services Team Manager at aircraft leasing company Avolon, about his company’s recent rollout of HID Mobile Access®.

How did users respond to the new technology?

When people ultimately get on the platform and use it, they're fully bought in. It's great. From an initial rollout point of view, where it requires user action it can be difficult to get buy-in particularly if they have something that works. That’s why, as part of its migration, it kept everybody's old access card working, just so that there was no interruption with their ability to access the building.

But once an action was required once users had to look at an email, download an app, and put the code in, it was a bit more of a challenge to get that done. When the invitation is issued it will expire after 24 hours, and rightly so.

So, if the user doesn't input that code, you have to go in and reissue the invite again. And it's seen this across the board. It's not just with this solution. Any time you require an action from the user, if they don't have the motivation to take the action, it can be a challenge. Having said that, you just need to put pressure on people to take action. And momentum builds, too. We saw that a lot.

Getting user buy-in

If people aren't buying into it, you can take that step of just turning off the cards

If someone didn't have it on their phone got into a lift or were walking up to the building with someone who just pulled out their phone, gave it a twist, the door opens… They're like, “Wow, what's that? I didn't know about that!”. They would have received an email about that. And then all of a sudden, they're approaching us, saying, “I want that technology. That's fantastic. How do I get it?”. So, it does drive itself after a while.

If people aren't buying into it, one can take that step of just turning off the cards. Then very quickly, they'll come looking for it.

Seamless visitor management

Once everything is set up, the experience is perfect.

The visitors from other offices can come into HQ and have access to what they're supposed to have access to. If they don't have access to IT rooms or other secure rooms, same thing here. It's managed by the back-end access control. And that all is seamless, all the same. So, access levels persist, which is great.

If the IT teams are travelling out from Dublin to other locations, they can access the secure rooms in those other locations seamlessly. No problem. The convenience of the solution is great.