Customer: GBS
Industry: Higher Education
Solutions: Access Control, System Integration, Automated User Provisioning, Reporting & Analytics
About the Project
GBS is a leading higher education provider operating across ten campuses in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, supporting over 35,000 students.
With rapid expansion and high daily footfall across multiple sites, GBS required a scalable and secure access control solution capable of managing a constantly changing population of students and staff.
Semieta was selected to deliver a centralised access control platform, integrated directly with GBS’s internal systems to automate access management at scale.
Key Results
- Automated access for 40,000+ users
- Centralised control across 10 UK campuses
- Significant reduction in manual errors
- Scalable system supporting continued expansion
The Challenge
Managing access control across a large, fast-growing higher education estate created significant operational complexity.
Student enrolments, staff onboarding, and role changes required constant updates to access permissions. These were stored across multiple internal systems, requiring manual input to ensure accuracy.
This led to:
- High administrative workload
- Data quality issues caused by manual entry
- Delays in issuing or updating access
- Increased risk of incorrect or outdated permissions
As GBS expanded and introduced high-traffic environments such as speed lanes, manual processes became unsustainable.
The Solution
Semieta worked in close partnership with GBS to design and implement a bespoke integration between its Access Control platform and GBS’s internal systems, Zoho and Thesis.
This integration automatically synchronises student and staff data on a daily basis, ensuring all joiners, leavers, and updates are reflected accurately within the system.
The solution enables GBS to:
- Automatically assign and update access permissions
- Remove access instantly for leavers
- Maintain accurate permissions aligned to roles, courses and campuses
- Manage access centrally across all sites
- Monitor access activity across buildings, classrooms and shared spaces
By removing manual processes, Semieta ensures access control is always accurate, secure and scalable.
Operational Impact
Improved Security and Compliance
Automation ensures all joiners, leavers, and updates are processed accurately, reducing the risk of unauthorised access and strengthening compliance across campuses.
Scalable Access Management
The system supports a high-volume, fast-moving user base and enables efficient traffic management across multiple campuses — including environments using speed lanes — at a scale not achievable manually.
Reduced Administrative Burden
While GBS continues to refine underlying data quality, the integration has already reduced manual workload and significantly decreased errors caused by manual data entry, which previously compromised data accuracy.
Why GBS Chose Semieta
GBS selected Semieta based on its strong market reputation and cost-effectiveness, having already successfully deployed the system at its Greenford campus.
This existing relationship provided confidence in Semieta’s ability to scale alongside the organisation’s rapid growth.
A Scalable Foundation for the Future
This case study demonstrates how access control and automated system integration can transform access management in higher education by:
- Automating access for large, constantly changing student and staff populations
- Maintaining accurate permissions across multiple campuses
- Supporting high-traffic environments such as speed lanes
- Reducing reliance on manual processes and improving data accuracy
- Enhancing visibility across campuses, classrooms, and shared spaces
or higher education providers managing complex, multi-site estates, Semieta delivers a scalable, integrated access control platform designed to support growth, improve security, and streamline operations.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Semieta integrate with existing systems?
Semieta integrates directly with internal platforms such as Zoho and Thesis, automatically syncing student and staff data to ensure access permissions are always accurate and up to date.
How are access permissions managed across multiple campuses?
All access is managed centrally through the Semieta platform, allowing GBS to control permissions across all campuses from a single system while maintaining site-specific access rules.
What happens when a student or staff member leaves?
Access permissions are automatically removed as part of the daily synchronisation process, ensuring there is no risk of unauthorised access.
Can the system scale as GBS continues to grow?
Yes. The platform is designed for high-volume environments and can scale easily as new campuses, users, and access points are added.
Does automation reduce administrative workload?
Yes. Automation reduces reliance on manual data entry and oversight, improving efficiency and allowing teams to focus on higher-value tasks.
“Working with the Semieta team on our newly acquired access control system has been a true partnership. Their team didn’t just deliver a product; they took the time to understand our complex operational workflows and worked closely with our internal IT Integrations, Customer Services, Facilities and Project Delivery teams to ensure a seamless integration. Their proactive, collaborative approach has significantly improved our site security and operational efficiency.”
— Syed Haider, Senior Business Analyst, GBS
