Identity & Access Management (IAM) is all about giving the right people access to the right systems, applications, resources, and data. Let's paint a picture of the concept.
Digitalization of working life and work processes is a condition for almost all companies today. And it has been that way for a long time. Collaborative platforms, mobile technology and cloud environments play a major role in improving workforce productivity and efficiency - but the more applications and systems a company implements, the more complex its IT environment becomes.
In fact, a larger company (with more than 2,000 employees) has deployed an average of 175 applications, while smaller companies have an average inventory of 73 applications. Over the past years, the number of applications has increased by 22 percent – across industries and company sizes.
The rapid growth in applications means that it is easy to lose track of the IT environment. Many therefore experience a concrete need to strengthen, simplify and automate the administration of employees, their roles, rights and access to systems, applications, and data. This is where Identity and Access Management comes in.
What do we mean when we say Identity & Access Management?
Identity Management, Identity Administration, User Management, Access Management, Identity and Access Management. Many terms, all related to the same concept.
Identity & Access Management is an umbrella term that combines the two disciplines of Identity Management and Access Management. The term is often abbreviated to IAM.
It covers the organizational processes, policies and technologies associated with managing the company's IT users and their access to applications, systems, data, workgroups and more. IT users can be, for example, employees, external partners, suppliers, or customers.
Simply put, the discipline is about ensuring that the right IT users have:
- access to the right resources,
- at the right times,
- for the right reasons.
An Identity & Access Management platform therefore includes both functionalities to create, verify and authorize the user so that they are granted the correct access and rights in the company's applications.
Identity & Access Management has been a critical part of companies' IT infrastructure for many years, as the discipline plays a key role in facilitating the ability of IT users to work.
How does an Identity & Access Management platform work?
At its most basic level, an Identity & Access Management platform is traditionally based on three core elements:
- Administration and governance
- Authorization
- Logging and control
Administration and governance include processes to manage the lifecycle of IT users as their job roles (and thus their access needs) continuously change. It includes granting, maintaining, and terminating access and entitlements.
Authorization is about the platform validating or verifying the rights of an IT user to access a specific application or system. This verification takes place based on the characteristics of the user's digital identity on the platform and the company's policies, which are translated into roles and rules in the platform.
An Identity & Access Management platform logs and monitors user-related actions in the IT environment so that it is possible to establish an audit trail or perform ongoing controls on the use of applications and systems and the access distribution of IT users.
For example, a huge number of companies struggle to answer three key questions: Who has access to what? Why do they have that access? Is there a need for them to have that access?
An Identity & Access Management platform can answer these questions. Simply by providing functionality to manage and document IT users' access across the IT environment.
Why Identity & Access Management is essential for business
Identity & Access Management has for many years been a discipline that belonged to corporate IT departments. However, the discipline not only makes the work of the IT department easier but has many tangible benefits – for the entire company and for key business parameters.
The discipline is closely linked to both the security of the enterprise and its productivity. Therefore, considering Identity & Access Management platforms as simple IT tools is a misunderstanding of dimensions. It is, above all, a strategic tool that can support key business needs.
Reduce the administrative burden
As a business grows, so does the number of applications, servers, and databases. This means there are more users who need access to more things. Or rather: More users whose access needs must be assessed. Identity & Access Management automates and streamlines the processes related to rights and access assignment, reducing the administrative burden.
Digital onboarding is automated
As your organization changes – and either scales up or down – Identity & Access Management automates and streamlines digital onboarding so that employees have all the access they need to do their job on day one, while guaranteeing that no one has access to company systems after their employment ends. This improves both organizational productivity and security.
Making it easier to enforce access policies and strengthen IT security
An Identity & Access Management platform also makes it easier to enforce access policies. This means that no employee will have more access than they need. If the employee changes job roles or positions, the platform will automatically revoke the accesses that are no longer needed. This is one of the best ways to protect IT users and company data. User identities are one of the biggest targets for hackers and cybercriminals. This is because in many companies, there is a tendency for accesses to accumulate. Therefore, hacking a user provides an easy entryway into the company's business data.
Boosting business productivity and efficiency
With streamlined and secure user management processes in place, your business can be confident that all accesses are created and active at the moment they are needed. This puts IT users in the best position to work effectively and be a productive part of the organization.
Documenting processes becomes easier
An Identity & Access Management platform ensures that only the right people have access to the right resources at the right time for the right reasons. With logging functionality built into the vast majority of platforms, it will become easier to document and create transparency around how the organization manages IT users and works to protect critical business resources.
SIVIS Enterprise Security is one of the leading Identity & Access Management platforms on the market. SIVIS Enterprise Security automates the processes of creating, managing, and terminating employees and their access to the entire IT environment, and can save you a significant amount of time normally spent on user management.
SIVIS Group
