BlueWave Security provides America's largest department store chain with flexibility, scalability, and cost savings in a national, unified access control solution.

THE CHALLENGE

Macy's had multiple, disparate access control solutions for their 840 retail stores nationwide, each managed separately by regional managers and their staff. There was no consistency across regions or corporate-level access control policy. Nor was there insight into regional access practices. Additionally, thousands of labor hours were expended annually to add, change, delete and maintain user credentials and systems costing Macy's many tens of thousands of dollars annually. Macy's needed a unified, corporate-level access control solution that would 1) eliminate labor costs associated with regional management of various access control systems, 2) integrate seamlessly with the company's enterprise information systems, and 3) manage existing third-party access control hardware and software systems in order to reduce one-time conversion costs.

THE SOLUTION

The BlueWave solution is ideally suited to address Macy's needs. BlueView Enterprise is an enterprise-class network application that runs on a Windows server using standard Microsoft databases. To reduce Macy's labor costs, BlueWave integrated BlueView Enterprise with Macy's corporate HR database system, PeopleSoft. On a daily basis, BlueView automatically receives from PeopleSoft a list of additions/changes/deletes of employee information. BlueView then automatically updates the access control permissions on a national basis, thus providing 1) a higher level of security, 2) a significant reduction in database errors associated with status changes in a large workforce, and 3) cost savings measured in the tens of thousands of dollars annually.

Additionally, Macy's required their new access control solution to support third party access control software and hardware, both panels and locking hardware at the door. The BlueWave hardware and software architecture made it possible to seamlessly integrate support for Macy's legacy systems. Not only does the BlueWave architecture support central management of networked third-party access control systems, the BlueWave solution enabled Macy's to centrally manage and secure stand-alone doors as well, without the need for traditional access control panels. The flexibility and scalability BlueWave provides by eliminating the need for traditional panels by managing individual doors directly over Ethernet or Wi-Fi networks is unique in the industry.

Finally, Macy's required a massively scalable, centralized access control solution that could be managed from a single server. BlueView is specifically designed to be such a solution. The BlueWave solution for Macy's currently supports over 300,000 users/credentials and hundreds of stores, all managed from a single server, requiring a fraction of one person's time to maintain.

"The key to developing our business relationship with BlueWave is their can-do attitude and approach to solving our access control challenges with flexibility and adaptability," states Stephen Competello, Macy's Director of Operations/Technology for Central Loss Prevention. Additionally, Competello notes, "BlueWave is a customer centric partner. They have a 'we will win' attitude and we are pleased with our selection of BlueWave as our access control provider."

BlueWave Security provides Macy's with unparalleled flexibility in an enterprise-class, access control solution that integrates existing third-party access control systems and enterprise information systems, at a price point that is significantly lower than any other competitive solution on the market. For more information, visit www.bluewavesecurity.com