MSP yellow arrow achieves 100% internal adoption

Founded: 2017

Industry: IT Services

Location: The Netherlands

Number of Seats: 750+

Based in the Netherlands, yellow arrow is a managed service provider (MSP) supporting organizations in the education and financial industries. The company focuses on enabling a modern workplace, achieving progress through data and process automation, and fostering security so customers can prioritize their business goals with peace of mind.

While yellow arrow knew it needed to strengthen internal security and protect its customers, the company relied on a basic password manager and phone-based MFA. However, as the organization grew and security threats increased, it became clear they needed significant improvements. The existing solution lacked the comprehensiveness and degree of protection yellow arrow desired for both internal operations and customer environments. "We knew our company and our customers deserved a much more robust password management strategy," said Tim Krijgsman, chief information security officer (CISO) and managed service team lead at yellow arrow. "To help narrow it down, we focused only on solutions that were clearly built with privacy in mind."

After considering competing options, yellow arrow chose Bitwarden for its open source infrastructure, zero knowledge architecture, and competitive pricing. An additional factor that influenced its selection was centralized multi-factor authentication (MFA) token management, which allows yellow arrow to manage access to client environments in a secure, scalable, and controlled way.

Krijgsman also cited the need for a secure method to share API keys and passwords with customers, which yellow arrow found in Bitwarden Send. With Bitwarden Send, users may securely transmit text up to 1000 encrypted characters or files up to 500 MB (or 100 MB on mobile). Every Send is given a randomly generated and secure link, which can be shared with anyone via text, email, or other communication channels.

"The overall security, ease-of-use, and outstanding features differentiate Bitwarden from the competition," said Krijgsman. "Specific examples include the Bitwarden single sign-on (SSO) architecture, secure password sharing, MFA capabilities, and the ability to utilize enterprise-grade central policies within Bitwarden."

“One of the many things we appreciate about Bitwarden is its system for cross-domain identity management (SCIM) connection, which we can sync with Entra ID to enable SSO,” said Krijgsman. “Because we are an MSP and we are a Microsoft-focused company, all of our customers are using Entra ID as the basic identity provider.”

Login with SSO is the Bitwarden solution for single sign-on. Using login with SSO, organizations utilize their existing identity provider (in this case, Microsoft) to authenticate users with Bitwarden. The Microsoft Entra ID SCIM integration can be used to automatically provision and de-provision members and groups within a Bitwarden organization. Krijgsman believes the Bitwarden SCIM has reduced the time yellow arrow IT admins spend provisioning and de-provisioning user accounts and granting access permissions.

“Our internal adoption of Bitwarden, which is now at 100%, went incredibly smoothly,” said Krijgsman. “We were able to work out kinks early on, although it’s safe to say Bitwarden was easy to implement and not overly technical.” Krijgsman noted that a number of customers were using Excel spreadsheets to save passwords and that making the transition to Bitwarden was an immediate improvement over the status quo. According to Krijgsman, the Bitwarden extension and SSO integration made Bitwarden adoption even more intuitive and straightforward for customers. “Naturally, many customers want the path of least resistance when it comes to deploying new solutions,” said Krijgsman. “Between the Bitwarden extension and its SSO and MFA capabilities, Bitwarden continues to make a strong case for its value to our customers.”

Krijgsman said yellow arrow approaches customer deployment by first identifying ‘ambassadors’ who share their positive Bitwarden experiences with their colleagues. This initial phase is followed by a pilot of Bitwarden and then full adoption. “Having champions who can speak to the considerable benefits of Bitwarden works very well,” said Krijgsman, who believes yellow arrow will continue to see adoption among the many customers focused on cultivating a more secure modern workplace.

"There are a lot of other solutions. But there are not a lot of solutions that even come close in terms of functionality. Choosing Bitwarden is a no brainer."

Interested in becoming a member of the Bitwarden partner program? Find out more here. You can also learn more about what Bitwarden can do for your business and sign up for a free 7-day trial!