Albertsons' Seamless Omnichannel Shopping Experience for Over 30 Million Customers

Albertsons Companies is one of the largest food and drug retailers in the United States, with both a strong local presence and national scale. Operating in 20 states and the District of Columbia, Albertsons Companies is comprised of over 20 well-known banners including Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, and Jewel-Osco. The company serves over 30 million customers each week. Albertsons' customer demographics are as varied as the communities it serves. Everyone needs food, but customer demands are shifting in multiple directions. Albertsons aspires to be the favorite local supermarket of its customers and has grown through acquisition over a number of years.

Albertsons Companies, one of the largest grocers in the US, serves over 30 million customers each week through 19 different banners. The company faced the challenge of shifting customer demands and the need to provide a seamless shopping experience, whether in-store, online, or mobile. Albertsons' customer demographics varied greatly, and the company needed to meet the diverse demands of its customers. The company had multiple user IDs and passwords, which increased the attack surface of its IT infrastructure, making it more vulnerable to breaches. Albertsons needed to create a seamless, consistent IT experience in both the four-wall and no-wall environments, while maintaining the look-and-feel of the individual banners. The organization saw it as an opportunity to offer their customers a better experience.

Albertsons decided to modernize its infrastructure by choosing Okta’s Customer Identity Products. The company hired Okta’s Professional Services team to help them through the strategy, training, and implementation processes. Albertsons developed a custom program that would automatically migrate customers to Okta when they signed in and at the same time, automatically shut down their credentials in the legacy system, eliminating duplicate identities. Albertsons and Okta’s Professional Services team worked together, developing a strategy that would get the job done, while minimizing risk and reducing complexity. Okta’s APIs allowed Albertsons to make the backend connections necessary for authentication during the migration. Albertsons deployed API Access Management, which eliminates security gaps across Albertsons' digital environment, as well as gives Albertsons the flexibility to make significant changes in the future, without affecting the customer experience.

• Albertsons now has a stronger security posture, increased control over access requests, added scalability, and a lower cost-of-ownership. These benefits, along with the enhanced analytic capabilities made possible by Albertsons’ newly unified infrastructure, allow the grocer to provide shoppers with more appropriate offers. For customers, this all adds up to a customized grocery experience, with a company they can trust. With Okta in place, Albertsons is able to react to seasonal demands by scaling its loyalty and e-commerce platforms as necessary. Albertsons appreciates the solid foundation that Okta provides, along with consistent reliability. The company plans to extend the unified customer experience to newer innovations, like OneTouch Fuel.

• Unified, streamlined experience for millions of customers

• Scalability to accommodate M&A growth

• Increased visibility into access requests and analytics