The myBBC Story Accenture puts security at the heart of myBBC’s digital user experience.

Sign in solution, and have been integrated THE MYBBC STORY SOLUTION across all of BBC online including BBC In the digital age, the BBC’s mission To deliver the new platform, News, BBC Sport, BBC Weather and to ‘inform, educate and entertain’ Accenture partnered with ForgeRock, BBC iPlayer as well as on web, mobile remains as important as it’s ever been. a leading provider of customer-facing and tablets that require sign-in to But how people use the BBC, interact digital identity solutions. Following access content and personalisation with it online and use digital channels a competitive tender for an internet features. Users can now personalise for viewing catch-up content on scale consumer identity solution, the and organise their experience in different devices is a huge change. joint proposal was selected in early a highly secure environment. An myBBC is, in many ways, the future 2015, and work started in July. advanced identity capability gives of how all of the BBC’s audience will the BBC free rein to develop its eventually engage with its content and myBBC needs to underpin the whole digital strategy and extend viewers’ services. Not only does digital offer of BBC online as well as marketing and experiences, preferences and choices. the chance to reach and communicate audience activities. Accordingly, the with audiences in many different new identity solution – BBC Account ways, it also opens the possibilities of – had to do the same, making sure HOW WE DELIVERED building truly one-to-one relationships. that everything about the online user BBC Account was a highly And at the core of achieving that goal experience works seamlessly from collaborative project. Accenture’s is the ability to support a unique online user registration and single sign-in. leading digital and security identity for every one of the many But identity is not simply about access capabilities, the best-of-breed digital millions of BBC service users. management. myBBC required fine- identity platform from ForgeRock, grained identity capabilities to enable and the BBC’s architecture, user Phil Fearnley, Director of Homepage and personalisation, multi-device support, experience and front-end expertise myBBC outlined this vision, describing a parent-child permission settings, formed a powerful delivery team, personal BBC tailored to the individual, portable ‘pick up where you left off’ giving the BBC the skills required, and with identity as the core organizing session management, and advanced the confidence it needed to handle principle: “We are transforming the BBC consent management to ensure users’ personal information. online – this time to focus on you, the data privacy. These capabilities are viewer… So we will invite you to register all underpinned by the ForgeRock with us and sign in. By signing in, we will be able to find out about your interests tastes, preferences and consumption patterns so that we can help you discover more content. We’ll learn from you and recommend things you may love, to bring you even greater value.”

OPPORTUNITY

As the BBC moved forward with “The BBC is rapidly transforming their business by securely myBBC, it became apparent that connecting millions of customer managing unique user identities at identities across the digital world. scale would become an ever more Built on the ForgeRock Identity critical capability. myBBC achieved its Platform, the new BBC Account initial launch using an existing identity delivers the highly personalized, relevant and secure experience to management solution. But in order to drive digital customer engagement.” ensure that it could grow in-line with myBBC’s evolution and rapidly rising Mike Ellis, CEO of ForgeRock adoption, the BBC realised it needed a new, next generation identity platform that could also meet new privacy and access requirements. The new platform would also have to be able to expand and scale as the BBC’s digital user base grows, with frictionless, secure access a key element of the digital customer experience myBBC provides. “We brought the best thinking of Accenture, combining our world-class digital and security expertise, to provide an innovative approach to cloud With people based in the UK and India, language. And extensive use of deployment. This gives myBBC work began in July 2015 and swift standard APIs in the build means new the resiliency, scalability and progress was made to launch the new applications can be easily adapted trusted infrastructure to respond rapidly to unpredictable traffic platform in late September. A robust and integrated, creating a seamless and user load, while keeping solution, at scale, was essential to transition to the new platform. And users’ personal data secure.” handle one of the BBC’s highest-profile this, for example, will give the BBC Kelly Bissell, Global Managing digital events: the start of voting for its increasingly sophisticated abilities Director, Accenture Security hit show Strictly Come Dancing. That to enable and restrict new services was one of the first real tests to put the according to changing licensing new platform through its paces after requirements over time. It really is a launch, when people signed in to vote platform built for the future. on the show, creating an instantaneous peak in traffic that placed big demands on the new system. RESULTS myBBC’s new identity platform is For the people at the heart of the BBC’s Phil Fearnley summed up the project’s highly innovative, and its innovation services – its audience– the new BBC impact: “The BBC Account platform is is matched by the technology Account platform offers much more the backbone supporting a seamless supporting it and the way that we than just a standard sign in process. user experience that delivers supreme worked to deliver it. Automation was Rather than providing a barrier, the ease of use and convenience in a key feature of solution deployment, BBC’s identify platform is a digital user a personalised, private setting. enabling 99.95% availability. We’ve experience in its own right. The new Together with the BBC, Accenture delivered a hugely responsive, future- identity infrastructure implemented and ForgeRock have provided ready cloud-based infrastructure by Accenture, ForgeRock and BBC the technology that’s enabling that is able to resize itself according architecture and engineering teams is us to create 21st century digital to the variations in user load. It’s powering a wide range of new features experiences for BBC audiences. The also ‘self-healing’ so that when a and capabilities for myBBC viewers, BBC Account is a major step in the problem is detected the infrastructure and enabling the BBC to fulfil core digital transformation for the BBC, it automatically starts fixing itself. tenets of its royal charter. It has the is the gateway to a better richer and We used an IBM Watson chatbot to ability to shape a more personalised more personalised experience of manage and deploy infrastructure, BBC experience, support users across everything that the BBC has to offer.” which means that the solution can all of their connected devices while understand commands in human keeping its audience’s personal data safe and secure.

THE NEW BBC ACCOUNT AT A GLANCE

The ability to support millions of users at once is fundamental. The new platform is designed to handle both a huge volume of users, and sudden peaks in demand in response to specific events on the BBC:

Millions of existing The system supports Following extensive In a matter of user accounts have thousands of user performance minutes the platform been successfully sign-ins, new user testing and infrastructure can transitioned to the sessions and access optimisation, the automatically scale new platform control decisions platform has been to many times its every second proven to handle business-as-usual tens of thousands capacity of requests per second in response to peak demand ABOUT ACCENTURE

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions— underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network—Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With more than 394,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

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