Don’t Get Lost on Your Identity Journey

Posted on 19 September 2019

As more organisations implement identity and access management solutions, it’s crucial to stay on track – but how can they guarantee to get to where they’re going?

It’s official: identity is the new control plane, and organisations are scrambling to launch themselves on a transformative identity journey. As with any journey though, there’s a very real risk of getting lost, leaving A to never arrive at B – or worse, arrive over-budget and very, very late.

Fortunately, there are preparatory steps that can be taken to ensure it’s not a wasted identity journey. Our team of identity experts have been working tirelessly to formulate a process which helps organisations to get to their destination with ease.

How, you ask? It’s simple, when taking into account the following ideas:

You Need to Know Your Current Position First…

It’s hard to discern how to get to your destination if you don’t know where you’re starting your identity journey from. This is the idea behind the first idea: get to grips with your current identity positioning first.

To do this, you need a thorough review, measuring the maturity of your organisation’s identity and access management processes. The results of said review can then be weighed against the gold standard, to paint a more complete, measured picture.

With a better idea of where you’re starting from, it’s much easier to work out the journey ahead of you.

…Then Understand What the Destination Looks Like…

Of course, you also need to know where you’re heading, and every organisation’s idea of how their identity journey unfolds will be different. Although we mention destination, it’s vital to think of it more in terms of where you’d like your organisation’s identity journey to lead you within a set time, rather than conjuring an actual endpoint; after all, the journey can evolve and continue long into the future.

The gold standard mentioned above is always a good starting point for this, as well as talking to an identity expert who can assist in designing what your identity journey could look like. Together, and with a good grasp of the organisation and its aims, you can set particular goals.

…And Work Out How to Get There

The best thing about this idea is that, if you’ve already figured out where you are and where you’re going, then figuring out how to get there should be straightforward – especially if using the results of the maturity assessment and knowledge of the gold standard to inform your strategy.

Taking on board recommendations from an identity expert is also a solid idea, and they can work alongside you to better plot the steps that need to be taken, and even help to implement new solutions that get your identity journey back on track.

A Journey We All Need

If the above makes it sound like there’s a challenging road ahead, remind yourself of why it’s necessary to ensure your identity journey is a success.

The 21st Century has brought us a great deal of technological innovation and has elevated big data from some sparse binary into a hotly contested resource. Alongside all this greatness, however, threats have also evolved – and organisations need to be positioned to contend with those threats.

So, we know our organisation’s identities (as well as our own) are important, and we need to protect them – and that we don’t have physical boundaries keeping our data safe. We also know that we want slick onboarding processes, reduced IT support calls, and greater control over who has access to our data and resources.

Well, now we know where to start, and all the places to be visited on the identity journey.

Have You Had an Identity Maturity Assessments?

The Identity Experts team has developed an Identity Maturity Assessment that helps organisations to achieve the above. Working closely with customers, we’ve been able to review current identity processes and compare them to the gold standard, as well as uncovering areas of risk and improvement within their organisations, and discerning their capability for balancing identity, security and governance.

The result is greater visibility around current identity positioning, presented alongside a score in a detailed report. From that assessment, we’re also able to piece together recommendations for how organisations can get from A to B on their identity journey – and we’re happy to help them on that journey if they need it.

The long and short of it is simple: organisations need to partake in an identity journey, but as with any epic quest, it’s not something to be rushed into. Taking time to review where you are, where you’re going, and how you’ll get there is essential to success – and we’ve made it easier than ever to do exactly that.

Want to find out more? Get in touch with us at Identity Experts – we’d be happy to take you on the first step in your journey to Identity maturity.

 

A few people we've already done it for
X