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Powering seamless digital access for over 1 million customers in Hong Kong
As part of their transformation to become a more customer-centric, agile, and data-driven organisation, Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) partners with Zühlke to modernise its identity management platform, delivering a more streamlined and optimised digital experience for their users.
- As part of their digital transformation journey, HKJC set out to modernise its identity management platform to meet rising user expectations for secure, seamless, and intuitive digital access.
- Together with HKJC, Zühlke delivered a new future-ready Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) platform with enhanced security, scalability, and flexibility, integrated seamlessly into its digital ecosystem.
- The new CIAM system now ensures frictionless access for over one million users, with enhanced security and a unified digital experience across all customer touchpoints.
The challenge: A next-generation system designed for a modern digital experience
Founded in 1884, the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) is a world-class sports and entertainment organisation that acts continuously for the betterment of society. Through a unique integrated business model, it generates economic and social value for the community and supports the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government in combating illegal gambling. Today, it is on a bold transformation journey to become a more customer-centric, agile, and data-driven organisation, with a vision to blend its rich heritage with a digital future.
“Our vision at HKJC is to honour our heritage while evolving into a digitally connected institution serving our members and customers — securely, seamlessly, and at scale. Our next-generation identity platform is a critical step in future-proofing our digital operations. Zühlke not only understood the complexity of our environment, but also shared our ambition.”
A cornerstone of this transformation is modernising HKJC’s Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) to meet rising expectations for secure, always-on access, delivering convenience and trust at every digital touchpoint for over a million customers.
With massive spikes in logins during major sporting events, the system must perform flawlessly around the clock. Even a moment’s delay or downtime could disrupt the experience at the most critical moments.
“The Club’s CIAM solution needed to meet bank-grade security standards given the sensitive nature of customer data. During major sporting events, login volumes surge dramatically, requiring both uncompromising security and exceptional performance. Striking this balance was critical to ensuring seamless access and an optimal customer experience.”
Strategic modernisation to achieve Hong Kong Jockey Club’s vision
Alongside HKJC, Zühlke set out to deliver a new modern, robust CIAM solution built on ForgeRock (now part of Ping Identity) — a unified identity platform that offers access management, identity management, and directory services. The project called for close collaboration with both HKJC and external vendor teams to overhaul the existing system and deliver a next-generation platform built for speed, security, and scale.
Aligned with HKJC’s long-term vision, this modernisation not only focuses on technical upgrades — introducing new extensions, APIs, and integrations, but also represents a significant mindset shift in how projects are done at HKJC.
With teams across the globe working in sync, the project was able to move at pace and deliver impact despite the complexity and scale of the challenge.
Working hand-in-hand with HKJC’s teams, we maintained a laser focus on progress, addressing issues proactively and facilitating seamless communication across multiple groups. Extensive testing phases for each release were rigorously managed to meet our ambitious go-live timeline.
All in all, the end outcome is a modern, flexible, and user-centric platform that could deliver seamless and secure digital interactions.
Trust, agility, and flexibility in winning together
As the project progressed, we identified ways to address technical gaps and introduce additional integrations to unlock greater value. The project scope evolved as HKJC recognised the platform’s potential, enabling the solution to deliver even broader benefits than originally envisioned. This required coordination across different relevant departments (governance, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, frontend and backend teams), ensuring that these integrations were executed efficiently and effectively.
Together, we designed a platform that not only met the immediate demands of the users, but also positioned HKJC to thrive in a fast-changing digital landscape.
“Working side-by-side with HKJC’s teams — both on-site and through regular weekly alignments, enabled open information flow, faster decision-making, and a deep understanding of evolving needs. This close collaboration fostered trust, agility, and flexibility, allowing us to fine-tune solutions in real time and maximise outcomes within the project timeline.”
The result: a rock-solid foundation for future gaming
This collaborative firepower paid off: the new CIAM platform now powers hundreds of thousands of simultaneous logins on HKJC’s digital platform, delivering a rock-solid foundation for modern, user-friendly digital experiences.
“Zühlke’s team became an extension of ours, working hand-in-hand to bring the new CIAM platform to life on a demanding timeline. Together, we worked smarter with Zühlke, collaborating in DevOps and development testing, and PMO, which was crucial for the success of the CIAM programme. Their dedication and collaborative spirit ensured we hit every milestone without compromising quality, delivering a secure, high-performance system.”
Looking ahead, HKJC is poised to unify their digital ecosystem with a centralised architecture and a seamless, single-login experience across platforms — a roadmap into the future made possible by the robust system we built together.
We’re excited to continue working with HKJC as it advances its digital transformation journey, making headway in their vision of a more streamlined and optimised digital experience for their users.
