Voices of experience – real-world benefits of identity security

Regardless of what industry you’re in, identity security must be a component of your overall cyber security strategy. Identity security is a critical line of defense against cyber threats, enabling the management and governance of access for every digital identity in an organization.

Digital identities, such as email addresses or login credentials and pin numbers, are unique identifiers that help computing systems confirm what users and systems (both internal and external) are permitted to access. They are used to provide workers with approved access to data and systems and prevent unauthorized access.

Yet, while identity security is first and foremost focused on reducing risk, ensuring appropriate access to data and systems, and increasing overall corporate security, it turns out there are many real-world benefits that come from implementing an identity security strategy beyond those critical security capabilities.

In fact, at Navigate 2022, in London, IT leaders from various industries shared the specific real-world benefits that their companies have obtained from deploying identity security solutions, including the following:

• Preventing data loss: A chief technology officer at a large manufacturing organization noted that because of identity security, his organization had been able to confront a data breach without losing any data.
  
• Protecting key assets: A user lifecycle supervisor at a construction company shared that by using identity security, his company is able to protect key assets because they’re able to guarantee that the right person can access the right asset at the right time.
  
• Improving responsiveness to business needs: In today’s highly competitive business environment, more agile organizations that can respond faster have a definite advantage. For an engineering manager in access services at a large company, an identity security solution is an important component of a more responsive IT organization. In his case, identity security allowed his organization to release a number of self-service and automated provisioning solutions that shortened the timeframe between user requests for access and putting those access requests in place.
  
• Proving a single point of control: When it comes to security, complexity creates problems. That’s why using identity management to have a single point of control for managing provisioning across his company’s application portfolio was a significant benefit for an identity and access governance director at a manufacturing company.
  
• Securing global access for enabling remote work: In today’s environment, workers expect to work anywhere. But to allow that, it’s critical that organizations have the right systems and security in place. For a senior domain portfolio delivery manager at a large telecom company, that’s the real value of identity security. “Because of Identity security, Vodafone has been able to implement a globally standard centralized platform which enables the entire workforce to be able to work from any location for any part of the business, providing value and ensuring that we’ve got secure access to all of the assets and tools and systems within the company.”

• Enabling a clearer understanding: For a security architect in finance, the most important benefit of implementing identity security at their organization has been the ability to obtain an excellent foundation for understanding what’s actually happening within their systems. As a result, they’ve demonstrated the maturity of their identity governance and administration systems and obtained measurable data to back it up.

• Increasing corporate effectiveness and improving the user experience: For the head of identity and access management at a telecommunications company, the benefit of identity security comes down to increased effectiveness. “Because of identity security, we have improved the overall company effectiveness. We have been able to automate many operations that were previously managed manually and are now fully automated end to end, improving the overall user experience.”

• Delivering better governance: When an organization has a lot of transient workers, such as in the retail industry, strong identity management can pay big dividends. “Because of identity security, we’ve been able to see who’s got access to what and what access these individuals have,” reported the head of technology risk for a retail company. “We’ve had a lot of issues within our organization where people have moved jobs and have just taken their access with them.” He goes on to note that identity security provides better governance, allowing his organization to control who’s got access to what and to ensure that each user has the right access.

When an organization invests in a technological solution, it should definitely obtain the technical value it expects. For example, investing in a security solution should increase security or reduce risk. But there are some solutions that go beyond that to deliver business benefits as well. In fact, as the IT leaders above highlight, their real-world implementations of SailPoint have resulted in a wide range of positive business benefits, from improved responsiveness to increased effectiveness and better governance.