The Economist Group

The Challenge

A complex and inflexible legacy experience

Complex requirements

The EIU needed to support a diverse range of customers (educational institutions, corporations, governments) and associated authentication technologies across multiple platforms, and with complex and granular entitlements.

Limited Single Sign-On

Access workflows required user registration, adding access friction to the user experience. Large enterprise customers expected their users to be able to login with their existing credentials.

Inefficient account management tools

Legacy account management tools relied on inefficient manual workflows that increased the burden on customer support.

Limited Analytics

The EIU needed a comprehensive business analytics solution that could capture a broad range of raw usage data from across their platforms and generate information and custom reports to help staff understand customer engagement.

COUNTER compliant reporting

Institutional customers were demanding COUNTER reports, as legacy usage analytics were not compliant with industry standards.

How We Helped

A flexible, comprehensive and personalised solution

Simpler access

A unified solution that provides users with best-practice access experiences, leverages existing Single Sign-On technologies when available, and supports legacy authentication methods.

Flexible workflows

An admin portal that provides support staff with easy-to-use workflows that have been customised for internal needs, such as simplified selection of user entitlements.

Centralized analytics solution

A single place to capture granular user engagement metrics across all platforms and devices, greatly simplifying implementation.

Custom usage reporting

A wide assortment of reporting ranging from customer-facing COUNTER compliant usage reports to custom internal BI, as well as an easy upgrade path as and when new reports are needed.

Specialist Expertise

Access to experienced resources who can provide specialist input on topics such as SAML and proxied access, and get their hands dirty when needed.

“It’s so simple it’s scary”

– Dorene Cano-Perales, Digital Operations Manager

The Implementation: A close partnership with the EIU and their key vendors

The EIU were in the midst of a long-planned development of a new publishing platform. They needed a solution that could be integrated into the new platform, but would also work across legacy platforms. And, with the new platform launch a few months away, they needed an integration that was simple and straightforward.

Implementation was phased during 2021, with the initial identity and access solution going live on their new platform within 3 months. While the access solution largely leveraged out-of-the-box features, the internal BI reports were highly customised and required close collaboration over several months as reporting requirements were scoped out, and data logging and report generation iteratively tested. The broad nature of the solutions being provided meant that implementation required close coordination with globally disparate teams from across The Economist Group as well as other external partners.

About Economist Intelligence

Economist Intelligence is the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, the sister company to The Economist newspaper. Created in 1946, we have over 75 years’ experience in helping businesses, financial firms and governments to navigate the ever-changing global landscape.

Please contact us to explore how we can help provide your users with a one-stop service for all resources.

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