BT has saved around £4.5m a year by implementing a single sign-on platform from CA. The system, called CA SiteMinder has so far saved the company about £18m since its 2004 rollout.

SiteMinder has enabled BT to centralise its user authentication and authorisation across its main web applications. BT has four web portals and processes around 36 million transactions every day, including those on its flagship site BT.com. This enablers BT’s customers to view and pay bills and place orders.

BT believes the platform has reduced the risk of unauthorised access to customer accounts. “Customers expect us to get security right and don’t want to worry about issues such as identity theft. Any problems with identity and information management could be very damaging to our reputation as one of the UK’s most trusted brands,” said Robert Temple, chief security architect for BT.

The implementation of SiteMinder has resulted in a decrease in IT administration, application development, password reset requests and support of auditing and compliance.

“By using CA SiteMinder we have been able to decrease the number of internal passwords by enabling simplified sign-on, which has helped to increase efficiency and reduce the volume of password resets,” Temple said.

Chris Miller, CA UK & Ireland Senior Vice President and Area Manager, said: “SiteMinder has enabled BT to greatly simplify user authentication and authorisation and significantly cut overall administration costs. In the current economic climate, CIOs have to ensure their IT operations are leaner and meaner while maintaining customer service delivery.”

“CA SiteMinder is helping BT achieve this balance by ensuring the right people gain trouble-free access to the right level of information assets, whether customers who want to manage their account or BT’s staff, developers and partners who want rapid information access to complete their daily tasks,” Miller said.

BT is looking to cut costs after its most recent financial figures revealed an annual loss of £134m. It plans to cut 15,000 jobs during 2009 – in addition to the 15,000 it had previously announced. The telecoms giant is also pushing ahead with its £1.5bn plan to introduce a next-generation super-fast broadband network to 10 million homes by 2012.