Schuler-Haas Electric Corp. needed to increase security and improve account management. At the time, their Microsoft 365 accounts were managed in two directories: Active Directory for on-premises employees and Azure Active Directory for those in the field. This was costing them additional management overhead. The company also had Active Directory accounts for former employees as well as over 50 active Microsoft 365 accounts for former employees.
When field users were issued a device, they were given a password. After logging in the first time, however, they didn’t know what the password was and would continue to use their devices by staying logged in. There was no easy way for users, especially those in the field, to reset their passwords without IT assistance, which meant that field users were losing time during the workday. Additionally, Schuler-Haas’s password policy didn’t meet security best practices. They wanted a more robust security policy, including multifactor authentication.
“A couple of our suppliers and contractors got hit by cyberattacks, and when we investigated, we learned that they didn’t have basic levels of protection in place,” says Pete Longhany, CIS manager. “With those real-life examples to show people, we were able to motivate our team to push forward with our security initiatives.”
Schuler-Haas selected ProArch to address and deploy remediation for the challenges Schuler-Haas was experiencing with their security, password policies, and IT partner.
“Our previous IT provider was doing things in a patchwork and was not offering the support we would have liked,” Longhany says.
“The team at ProArch did an evaluation and proposed some ideas for us. It was clear they knew what they were doing, and we were confident moving forward with them.”
