Challenge
Peoplecare is a national, member-owned health insurer that delivers benefits to around 70,000 Australians. The organisation is governed by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), ensuring financial safety and stability to protect the interests of its members.
Like many organisations, Peoplecare has existing on-premise Windows architecture, combined with newer cloud ecosystems—creating a complex mixed operating environment with identity and access challenges.
Neil Cameron, Head of Information Security and Strategic Sourcing at Peoplecare, explained, “One of my pain points when I took on the role was that I didn’t have visibility of our access into both our on-prem and cloud ecosystems. I had no visibility at all into how access was enacted, who had access, what they had access to, whether we had toxic role combinations, whether segregation of duties was correctly implemented.”
Solution
As a new Head of Information Security and Strategic Sourcing, Neil wanted to enable the business to function in the most secure way possible. But first, he needed to establish a baseline from an access perspective, so he could understand what people were currently doing.
“In late 2023, I wrote a strategy paper that outlined what Peoplecare needed to achieve its next capability. One of the strategic pillars of this paper was identity and access management (IDAM),” Neil said.
“I started talking with Craig Davies [Gathid’s CISO] and the Gathid team at the AISA CyberCon in late 2023. I had a demo of the platform and everything I was shown, in my head, fixed all the access problems I had been struggling to solve,” Neil said.
“It was a real Alleluia moment. Gathid could transform our access governance and management.”
After working closely on a proof of concept with Gathid’s specialists, Peoplecare purchased a license to leverage the solution as their primary tool for identity and access governance. “As a new Head of Information Security and Strategic Sourcing, Gathid was my first cab off the rank,” Neil said. “We implemented Gathid before we even started looking at PAM or any other automation.”
“Our priority was privileged access because that is more risky than basic access. We focused on ensuring that Gathid could automate a lot of the processes around privileged access, giving management the ability to just click a button and tick yes.”
“We had no visibility around our identities or access, until Gathid equipped us with a singular lense that enables us to identify and then remediate faults. With Gathid’s support, we’ve fortified our organisational baseline and will now be able to advance toward automated Privileged Access Management (PAM)—a crucial strategic component.”
“Gathid serves as a technically verified source of truth, pivotal for raising alarms when discrepancies arise. Gathid assures the integrity of our authorisation processes.”
With the help of the Gathid team, Peoplecare has started setting up “centres of excellence” within the business—adopting an incremental approach toward best practice that prioritises areas with the greatest security vulnerabilities and operational inefficiencies.
Results
Significant Time Savings
The Gathid solution harnesses powerful graph technology that models data from any source whether on-premise or in the cloud—automating what was once a time-consuming manual process. This means that employees can be redeployed into higher-value areas of the business.
Neil said, “Prior to the implementation of Gathid, we spent at least 170 hours per month—the equivalent of one and a half full-time employees—completing access audits for privileged access only. Nothing else. With Gathid deployed, we’re spending just one hour per month—if that, once my centre of excellence is up and running.”
“To get that time back is huge for the organisation. It means that I can redeploy employees into other areas that are concerning me.”
Comprehensive Visibility
Gathid’s Identity Graph delivers unparalleled visibility into the intricate web of identity data within an organisation—by creating a dynamic identity and access model that enables organisations to map and visualise complex relationships between identities, access permissions, and systems. With a single unified view and updates every 24 hours, organisations receive fast, actionable insights to rapidly improve their identity and access posture.
“The visibility across people that Gathid delivers is fantastic,” Neil said. “It is this strategic journey and the results that Gathid is able to deliver that our executives are most pleased about.”
Dedicated Support
The foundation of any successful partnership is trust—from the outset, Gathid’s experts became an extension of the Peoplecare team, quickly establishing mutual trust and understanding. Throughout the process, the two teams conducted fortnightly meetings to ensure they shared the same vision and goals.
According to Neil, this support model has proved incredibly effective. “I was completely transparent with my challenges, and the team at Gathid collaborated with me and my team to ensure the solution works for us, rather than shoehorning Peoplecare into a pre-determined model. Gathid and Peoplecare have embarked on a journey together and worked together as a unified team, aligned with our strategic objectives. It was like we sung the same song. It has been a fabulous experience all round.”
With dedicated support and guidance at every step, Peoplecare had peace of mind throughout the implementation of Gathid’s solution.
“Gathid is not far from the best team I’ve ever worked with. And I’ve worked with global companies, right through to one-man bands. I was already very impressed with what I saw in the demo. And then I was introduced to Alicia Wheatley [Gathid’s Head of Product] who has been nothing short of awesome. I’ve worked with Alicia very closely over the last few months. Any worry or concern, Alicia was very quick to say, ‘not a problem’ and resolve.”
Powering Future Growth
While Gathid has already delivered substantial cost benefits to Peoplecare, there are more efficiency gains ahead. “We haven’t even realised the full benefit of Gathid yet, as we’re still building our centres of excellence,” Neil said. “When it comes to future plans, we have some aspirational strategies at Peoplecare, chief among them is the growth of the organisation. Gathid will be instrumental in supporting corporate growth and in supporting the design and maturity of a robust joiners, movers and leavers process.”
”Speed. Automation. Visibility. That’s what Gathid delivers.”
