Wärtsilä partners with Nixu to implement a modern Identity Governance and Administration solution on the ServiceNow platform

The partnership of Wärtsilä, a global leader in the marine and energy markets, and Nixu is a great example of planning and implementing a modern and secure cloud-based Identity Governance and Administration solution on an IT service management platform.

Wärtsilä is a global leader in innovative technologies and lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy markets. Its largest segments include Wärtsilä Energy delivering future-fuel-enabled balancing power plants, hybrid solutions, energy storage, and optimization technology such as the GEMS energy management platform, and Wärtsilä Marine Power focusing on engines, propulsion systems, hybrid technology, and integrated powertrain systems.

To give some examples, Wärtsilä aims at sustainable, reliable, and flexible power system operations through flexible gas-based generation and energy storage. The company contributes to the transition towards decarbonized operations with various solutions, such as the development of engines and technology utilizing green alternatives.

Both security and digitalization are of utmost importance to Wärtsilä in its global operations, which previously has led Wärtsilä to trust Nixu in ensuring the company’s cybersecurity.

Now, the cooperation has reached a new state as Wärtsilä has acquired the implementation and solution support for its ServiceNow-based Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solution from Nixu. The solution enables Wärtsilä to securely manage the identities of over 20,000 employees and external consultants who have access to various IT systems and other assets in more than 200 locations in 68 countries.

Secure and up-to-date governance as the target

The new IGA solution had to include easy-to-use capabilities for managing identities, requesting and granting access rights, and centralized analytics and reporting, which were missing from Wärtsilä’s previous solution, to keep up to date with everybody’s access rights. This brings transparency to who has access to what and ensures proper risk management.

It was also important to implement the solution on the ServiceNow platform, which Wärtsilä has used already for years in its IT Service Management (ITSM). These days, other companies are also getting interested in converging ITSM and IGA including company-wide service process automation, such as joiner, mover and leaver processes, and access reviews.

Wärtsilä chose Nixu as its partner for planning and implementing a customizable, automated solution utilizing Clear Skye technology, one of the few IGA solutions, built natively on the ServiceNow platform. The decision was supported by a thorough project plan, mutual commitment, and previous successful cooperation between Nixu and Wärtsilä. The project was kicked off in February 2022.

“Without exaggeration, I think that our project team now has top-level Clear Skye expertise and is certainly among the best teams in the region in terms of Clear Skye knowledge. I feel convinced and positive about our active cooperation and hope to continue to develop the solution further,” Ilkka Kuusisto, Product Owner, Identity Management, Wärtsilä.

Well-planned and implemented team effort

The project started with a tightly scheduled pilot phase in the customer environment. The team extensively tested the various capabilities of the IGA solution with 56 use cases, including company-wide service process automation, and access reviews. All success criteria were achieved.

The new features of the ServicePlatform such as the no-code feature allowed to develop the solution also without having to code, which inspired the team.

After the successful pilot, the project continued with a phased implementation project. The solution went live in autumn 2022, and additional capabilities are enabled, and integrations are built in subsequent phases.

Both parties have been satisfied with the project.

“The new IGA solution is becoming more visible to both solution owners as part of our IT Service Management on the ServiceNow Platform and managers using the service. The leaver process functions smoothly, which builds trust toward the new IGA solution,” says Ilkka Kuusisto, Product Owner for Identity Management, at Wärtsilä.

According to Kuusisto, the project has advanced extremely well since the kick-off. He has found it easy to commit to cooperating with Nixu as they made a very detailed plan and highlighted the commitment level needed from Wärtsilä. He thinks that Nixu’s experts have vast experience from the ServiceNow platform and a strong will to excel with Clear Skye. Nixu’s partnership with Clear Skye ensured that Wärtsilä received the needed support at every turn.

“Without exaggeration, I think that our project team now has top-level Clear Skye expertise and is certainly among the best teams in the region in terms of Clear Skye knowledge. I feel convinced and positive about our active cooperation and hope to continue to develop the solution further,” states Kuusisto.

"It has been rewarding to partner with Wärtsilä, who has had a very high commitment and ambition level and clear vision of how to modernize their Identity Governance and Administration solution,” says Miska Laakkonen, Head of Business for IGA and PAM at Nixu Corporation.

“We are extremely happy that Wärtsilä trusted us in this spearhead project, our first chance to work with Clear Skye technology, which complements our IGA offering and has enabled us to grow our ServiceNow expertise,” Laakkonen continues.