Case study: Automating joiners, movers, leavers at large scale for THG

THG is a global, digital-first consumer brand, specialising in health, beauty, and nutrition. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in the UK, THG has grown rapidly by combining proprietary technology with a portfolio of leading direct-to-consumer brands.

With a presence in over 160 countries and a team of more than 10,000 employees worldwide, THG is a benchmark for how technology, data, and vertical integration can drive success in the digital economy.

The Challenge

THG wished to address its processes around staff joiners and leavers. The scale of the organisation and its fast growth meant that on average, around 150 new starters were joining the business every single week. A solution was needed to address this, ensuring THG was able to provide a positive joining experience for new employees and give their technical teams space and time to innovate.

The Solution

THG and Ultima partnered to deliver a tailored automation solution using IA-Connect to simplify and connect THG’s joiners and leavers process. IA-Connect is Ultima’s AI & Automation platform, which leverages Microsoft Power Automate and Microsoft Azure to help customers automate repeatable business processes.

With THG’s significant scale across multiple departments and systems, both legacy and modern, a solution was needed that could work with both cloud or on-premises applications.

Key components of our solution for THG included:

• Automating joiner and leaver processes across Entra ID, traditional Active Directory, Exchange, and core business applications in terms of access and permissions, leveraging a mixture of API and non-API automation
• Automating communications to new starters and line managers to for a hands-off process
• Providing auditable logging for confirmation
• The ability to run within Power Automate flows so that Microsoft Power Automate skills are utilised in conjunction with IA-Connect automation & AI workers running in THG’s Microsoft Azure environment

The Results

Our engagement delivered significant operational improvements for the customer:

• Saving 2.2 manual days of effort every week
• Able to handle high scale 24/7/365
• Reduction in errors meaning first impression for new starters is significantly improved
• THG technical team can refocus on higher value work

What THG says about The Ultima Effect

“There’s that fast paced, innovative, get-stuff-done type attitude with Ultima. We can build something new that’s not been done before. I think that’s brilliant.”
Jo Drake, CIO, THG

“Ultima understand the joiners, movers, leaver process from not just a tech perspective, but from a business perspective, and it’s been brilliant to have that close relationship with them.”

Richard Dodd, Senior System Administrator, THG

Find out more

To hear direct from THG about how we transformed their organisation through automation, watch the video.