Digital transformation refers to different thinking, innovation and change of the current business models. This is possible by building up a digital strategy which is able to improve the experience of your organization’s employees, customers, suppliers, and partners. For the establishment of the new business and digital strategies, organizations need a strong IT infrastructure that supports all the upcoming changes with agility, productivity and security.
In the last several years a lot of organizations started their digital transformation, using Identity and Access Management technology. It ensures not only a safe and successful digital journey, but at the same time brings successful customer and employee experience.
Why IAM?
Identity Management plays a central role in the digital transformation, including all new business models, applications and ecosystems it supports. Identity Management provides the secure, flexible and adaptive IT infrastructure that every company, government agency or university strives to achieve. It helps to increase customer engagement through new digital channels, to streamline your business operations and to protect data privacy, and security to keep stable your reputation and finances.
According to Gartner, IAM is the security discipline that enables the right individuals to access the right resources at the right times for the right reasons. Therefore, the lack of a proper IAM process in place, puts the data at risk and this situation may lead to regulatory non-compliance or even worse – a data breach event. IAM addresses the need to ensure appropriate access to resources across increasingly heterogeneous technology environments, and to meet all rigorous compliance requirements. This security practice is a crucial measure for any enterprise. It is increasingly business-aligned, and it requires business skills, not just technical expertise.
Talking about transformation in the digital era, it is crucial for the companies to develop long-term technology infrastructure plans that inform how identities are established, maintained, secured, leveraged by applications and distributed within and out of an organization. That means that the major IAM themes in the enterprise’s strategy should include Privileged Access Management, Identity and the Internet of Things, Cloud-based IAM, Identity Governance and Customer IAM.
Which are the main IAM advantages in the digital transformation?
- Ability to manage digital identity for accessing information and resources:
Identity and Access Management solutions provide the ability to manage digital identity for accessing information and resources. That means that they secure content from unauthorized access by injecting authentication layers between the users and the critical apps and data. Protected target resources may include on-premises or SaaS applications and web service APIs across all business scenarios, from business-to-employee (B2E) to B2C. Besides, Identity and Access management solutions support bring-your-own-device (BYOD), through the use of social identity integration needed for registration, account linking and user authentication.
- Ability to quickly enable access to resources and applications:
According to our partner, IBM, IAM technology quickly enable access to resources and applications, whether in the cloud, on premises, or in a hybrid cloud. Whether you’re providing access to partner, customer or employee-facing applications, you’ll be able to offer the seamless experience your users expect.
- Ability to simplify activities:
Creating an identity-focused digital transformation strategy means choosing the right technologies that enable internal or external users to streamline actions, duties, or processes. When you create a strategy intending to enable users, you need to focus on which identities need access to the technology, how they use the technology, what resources they need and most important – how to control their access to prevent unauthorized access.
You are on the right way if your strategies closely align with the purpose of an IAM program. IAM and IGA (Identity Governance and Administration) programs define who, what, where, when, how, and why of technology access. When composing your enterprise digital transformation strategy based on an identity management program, you are ready to successfully manage the data privacy and security risks.
- Ability to enable digital interaction
Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) is a whole emerging area in the IAM. The increased number of sophisticated consumers need more simplified digital interactions which helps them to easily build up a better and deeper relation with brands. Furthermore, CIAM technologies help drive revenue growth by leveraging identity data to acquire and retain customers.
As mentioned above, IAM is a critical element of the digital transformation which makes it substantial for protecting sensitive business data and systems. When implemented well, IAM provides confidence that only authorized and authenticated users are able to interact with the systems and data they need to seamlessly do their job. Effective IAM solutions include Access Management – a solution that streamlines and manages multiple accesses, as well as Identity Governance and Administration – a solution that helps you monitor and govern the access.
