How many Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) success stories have you heard?
Probably not many.
At 2017’s #GartnerIAM Summit, Gartner analyst Felix Gaehtgens described the typical approach to IGA projects as relying on “Medieval concepts” to address the challenges of managing IGA programs.
Clearly, organizational thinking about how to deploy these technologies is not keeping pace with the realities of IGA in the Cloud, loss of the IT perimeter, and the need for effective access controls. Felix outlined four steps to manage complexity to maintain control of your IGA program:
- Requests
- Archeology
- Policy Enforcement
- Fulfillment
Most recognize that attempting to automate everything is a poor strategy, but knowing where and when to place the focus can be a function of:
- Time
- Intelligence and Experience
- Control
- Automation Risk
Each organization may weight these areas differently, and so the IAM Program will need to align its efforts with the desired IAM maturity level.
Risk, Value, and Cost Metrics Must Drive IAM Program and Strategic Initiatives
IAM/IGA Projects are measured on deliverables, but the Program must have overall key performance indicators that demonstrate the business value is achieved. However, these programs will continue to be challenged if ROI is the only measure vs risk mitigation and other non-monetized factors. As IAM professionals, we are responsible for how we measure, present and demonstrate the value of an identity management program across all digital transformation initiatives.
“Organizations that fail to prioritize IGA as an integral part of the business risk being caught in an endless cycle of inefficient, technology-driven processes.” The Anatomy of an Identity Governance and Administration Disaster
IGA presents a number of challenges for organizations because they treat Identity Governance Access (IGA) as a technology play, when, in reality, it is a complex program, not an implementation project. Learn more about the top challenges that companies face when implementing Identity & Access Management and how to overcome them in our new book:
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