Identity and Access Management: to what extent is it a business concern?

Businesses are increasingly expanding the number of their applications and systems. In turn, it has been reported that Identity and Access Management (IAM) has leaked into becoming a business problem, not just an IT problem. Many companies are struggling to provide integrated employee access to the extent of applications and systems.

The main problem is that ensuring all employees have secure access to applications is time-consuming. For example, the British Red Cross must manage access for 2,500 permanent internal users and a further 20,000 volunteers.

Furthermore, in the current cyber-security environment, single sign-on (SSO) is not enough. Two-factor authentication is the most secure way of providing employee access to your applications and systems. However, this can be easily implemented by following our step by step guide. In addition, two-factor authentication also meets Level 2 security compliance standards.

“The roll-out was completed in two phases for us,” said Phil Paul, head of service delivery at the British Red Cross: “We implemented OneLogin as a safer identity provider (IdP) to single sign-on, and then provided the two-factor authentication for our internet-facing, key business applications.

However, this is not reflective of the needs and resources of smaller UK-based companies with Identity and Access Management challenges. Small enterprises can be strained by the need to provide quick access for new employees to their business applications.

Independent analyst Rob Bamforth commented that historically IT was preserved for a small set of proficient users. More recently, there has been an increase in the diversity and geographical location of users who all need to access the growing number of applications and systems to support their daily work.

“It’s no longer a technical or an IT challenge I think that organisations are facing,” said Bamforth. “It’s a business challenge – it’s how they connect the people that need and are granted access to the things they need to access, and are allowed to access.”

Find out how Serviceteam IT can help you promote and access your systems with Identity and Access Management here.