FORVIA HELLA: 125 locations with a unified authorization system
FORVIA HELLA GmbH & Co. KGaA, headquartered in Lippstadt (North Rhine-Westphalia), was founded in 1899 and has been part of the French FORVIA Group—the world’s seventh-largest supplier of automotive technologies—since 2022. Within the group, FORVIA HELLA is responsible for three business divisions: Lighting, which covers vehicle lighting; Electronics, which covers vehicle electronics; and Lifecycle Solutions, which covers replacement parts and solutions for repair shops. Approximately 34,000 employees work for the company at more than 125 locations in 35 countries.
In an international company of this size, access control structures often evolve across years and locations faster than one can keep track of them, which has a significant impact on IT security. At this point, FORVIA HELLA began searching for a replacement for its existing access management software. This success story shows how the transition to BAYOOSOFT Access Manager was successfully implemented and why, of all things, an unassuming standard group ultimately delivered the greatest security gains.
A solution that had seen better days
Patrick Settle, who is responsible for file server and access rights management at FORVIA HELLA, has been familiar with the old solution for many years. The company has been using DIVA—access management software from the Munich-based manufacturer TESIS SYSware—since 2008. Since BAYOONET AG acquired TESIS SYSware in 2019, its products have been part of BAYOOSOFT, the business unit for management software within the BAYOONET Group. “At some point, DIVA simply wasn’t what you’d call state-of-the-art anymore,” says Patrick Settle. “Its usability and look and feel no longer met the requirements of an international corporation, so we needed a successor product.”
The Decision-Making Phase: Why the Switch Was Easy
When it became clear that DIVA was nearing the end of its life cycle, the search for a successor product was not a leap into the unknown for FORVIA HELLA. The company had been using the previous solution for many years and therefore knew how well the partnership with the manufacturer worked. At the same time, the technical team at BAYOOSOFT was already thoroughly familiar with FORVIA HELLA’s environment and, consequently, with the company’s requirements—an advantage that a new provider would have had to catch up to.
The trust that had grown over the years made the decision to adopt the scalable architecture of BAYOOSOFT Access Manager—a solution for access control on file servers—relatively easy.
“It just felt right, and we quickly realized: This is a good fit for us,” says Patrick Settle, describing the decision-making process. The initial impetus came from confidence in a partnership that had already proven itself with the previous product. Ultimately, however, the product itself was the deciding factor, as the BAYOOSOFT Access Manager clearly outperformed the other solutions tested in a direct comparison of features.
File Server Migration: Step by Step Instead of a Big Bang
The migration has been underway since the end of 2025, and we have deliberately chosen not to do it all at once, but rather directory by directory. DIVA and the BAYOOSOFT Access Manager are running in parallel in the meantime. As long as employees do not request new permissions, nothing will change for them at first. FORVIA HELLA manages a total of about 8.5 petabytes of data in the old solution, which significantly determines the duration of the complete migration. From a technical standpoint, Patrick Settle describes the transition as straightforward: A migration tool reads the existing permissions from DIVA and uses them to create an import file for Access Manager. The real challenge lies elsewhere: “The time-consuming part actually involves communicating with the respective departments and clarifying how we will dissolve the old groups, of which everyone was simply a member until now.”
FORVIA HELLA is currently expanding the migration project team in a targeted manner to ensure rapid progress given the sheer volume of data involved.
The side effect that turned out to be a real security benefit
Perhaps the most important effect of the changeover wasn’t planned at all initially and was initially considered a minor detail, but it turned out to be the biggest benefit: In BAYOOSOFT Access Manager, the “Everyone” group can no longer be easily applied to a folder. This predefined group exists in every Windows environment and includes virtually all user accounts. Assigning it to a folder essentially opens that folder to the entire workforce.
The same logic now applies to newly connected locations as well: On-site administrators initially had to get used to the fact that they no longer automatically have access to all the data on the file server. Nevertheless, the feedback from data controllers and local administrators has been consistently positive.
A standardized workflow for all locations
Whether it’s file shares in Germany, Romania, or India: Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, the process in BAYOOSOFT Access Manager is the same everywhere for Patrick Settle and his team. For newly created directories, FORVIA HELLA is increasingly relying on role-based access rights: Automated permission profiles automatically grant users access to the areas they need for their work, based on their role. In the directories that have already been migrated—which have grown over time—permissions, however, are still mostly carried over based on existing groups and are only occasionally converted to roles. For Patrick Settle, it’s nevertheless clear that the trend there is also moving toward role-based profiles.
Reliable Partnership with BAYOOSOFT
This long-standing partnership is also evident in the area of technical support. Patrick Settle describes his experience as consistently positive: quick, well-informed responses from colleagues who are still familiar with even older products.
Outlook: Self-Service Password Reset as the Next Module
In parallel with the file server migration, FORVIA HELLA is preparing to roll out the self-service password reset module in BAYOOSOFT Access Manager. It will replace ASPR, a password reset tool that also comes from the TESIS SYSware portfolio and is increasingly reaching its technical limits. Employees will then be able to reset their passwords themselves around the clock without having to contact IT support. The goal is to complete the entire migration within the next year and a half.
Conclusion
Patrick Settle’s conclusion is correspondingly optimistic: “I think we’re doing a good job. The BAYOOSOFT Access Manager is exactly the module we need, and it works.” So far, he hasn’t encountered any problems along the way that ultimately couldn’t be solved.
From a historically evolved, increasingly unmanageable authorization structure, FORVIA HELLA has thus arrived at the same clear solution at each of its more than 125 locations worldwide: Anyone who needs access gets it, exactly to the extent that is necessary.
