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Mature Your Identity and Access Management Program

Securely manage identities and their access from identity creation to deactivation.

Weak identity and access management (IAM) practices result in considerable risk to the organization because IAM plays a role in most things in IT.

Common reasons behind weak IAM practices include:

  • There is no central ownership of IAM. Owners of IAM actions outside of IT (e.g. provisioning an account in an HRIS) may be resistant to adopting change.
  • IAM processes are ad hoc and reactionary. Organizations do not have a high-level understanding of how identities and access are managed at the organization.
  • The organization lacks technology to better manage their defined IAM processes. IAM software remains expensive and is often implemented before the people and processes to support that technology have been identified.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

To have a successful identity and access management program, you must first identify who will be the owner(s). Then, in collaboration with the owner(s), create processes that support the organization’s goals. Lastly, consider how technology can assist in enabling or automating defined processes.

Impact and Result

Info-Tech provides a high-level framework that helps organizations ensure they are following best practice at all stages of an identity's lifecycle.

  • Identify the drivers behind improving your IAM practices.
  • Develop best practice processes for each section of the identity lifecycle.
  • Understand the benefits of using IAM software.

Use our research to start your journey to mature the IAM program at your organization.


Mature Your Identity and Access Management Program Research & Tools

1. Mature Your Identity and Access Management Program Deck – A document that walks you through how to identify people, process, and technology changes that will improve the overall identity and access management program.

Use this storyboard to learn how to improve the governance and operations of identity and access management at the organization. This blueprint uses the identity lifecycle as a framework to approach the improvement of how the organization manages identity and access.

2. IAM Initiative Tool – A maturity assessment designed to identify and prioritize gap-closing action items.

Use this tool to build an identity and access management improvement roadmap.


Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

9.2/10


Overall Impact

$15,527


Average $ Saved

9


Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

University of Johannesburg

Guided Implementation

9/10

$12,999

10

Great guidance from Petar to take us through the process.

Kappa Delta Sorority

Guided Implementation

10/10

$6,499

20

Victor's attention to detail and guiding me through each area of the process was much appreciated since this is not my area of expertise. I appreci... Read More

Federated Co-operatives Limited

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

10

Best part is it made us take time and focus. The tool made it easy to keep in track, work through it logically and break it apparent as to what th... Read More

San Diego County Office of Education

Guided Implementation

8/10

$12,999

10

I understand you do not provide the technology side to this conversation which is a big piece of this project. However, that being said, It was he... Read More

College of Westchester

Guided Implementation

9/10

$61,749

20

Victor has been a huge help and saved us a lot of time and effort!

Sycuan Casino

Guided Implementation

10/10

$6,499

16

Petar took the time to explain each line item in detail during our guided implementation. This guide definitely has already increased my companies ... Read More

Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board

Guided Implementation

10/10

$2,000

5

I like the timely advice I received.

Spartan Controls Ltd.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$25,000

5

Appreciated the advise and experience provided. Also helped validate my current direction.

High Liner Foods Incorporated

Guided Implementation

8/10

$10,000

2

Renown Health

Guided Implementation

8/10

N/A

3

Ian is very knowledgeable in the IAM space and provided some best practices in this area.

Joe Hudson's Collision Center

Guided Implementation

9/10

$2,000

2

We did a poor job of delivering requirements ahead of time. The presenter recovered nicely.

Federated Co-operatives Limited

Guided Implementation

8/10

$2,000

1


Workshop: Mature Your Identity and Access Management Program

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Assess Identity and Access Requirements

The Purpose

  • Understand the drivers, goals, and scope of the IAM improvement project.
  • Explore the IAM challenges and risks that exist for the organization.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • A list of goals for improving the organization’s IAM practices, based on the existing drivers and defined project scope.
  • A list of the IAM challenges that the organization faces.
  • A list of the inherent IAM risks because of the organization’s IAM challenge, and the risks that exist due to current IAM practices.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Define the goals and scope of the IAM improvement initiative.

  • List of IAM drivers and goals.
1.2

Identify the IAM challenges and risks that exist for the organization.

  • List of IAM challenges and risks.

Module 2: Identify Initiatives Using the Identity Lifecycle

The Purpose

  • Identity areas of weakness within existing IAM practices and create improvement initiatives.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • A better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s current IAM practices.
  • A list of initiatives for improving the organization’s IAM practices.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Investigate current and desired onboarding practices.

  • IAM current and future state assessments for onboarding practices.
2.2

Investigate current and desired authentication practices.

  • IAM current and future state assessments for authentication practices.
2.3

Investigate current and desired authorization practices.

  • IAM current and future state assessments for authorization practices.
2.4

Investigate current and desired identity and access auditing practices.

  • IAM current and future state assessments for identity and access auditing practices.
2.5

Investigate current and desired offboarding practices.

  • IAM current and future state assessments for offboarding practices.

Module 3: Prioritize Initiatives and Build a Roadmap

The Purpose

Prioritize initiatives for improving IAM practices at the organization and incorporate them into a roadmap.

Key Benefits Achieved

The development of a roadmap for improving Identity and Access Management at the organization.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Conduct cost/benefit analysis on initiatives.

3.2

Prioritize gap initiatives based on cost, time, and alignment with the business.

3.3

Build an effort map.

3.4

Determine initiative start times and accountability.

3.5

Finalize IAM roadmap and action plan.

  • Roadmap for IAM program improvement.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

MEMBER RATING

9.2/10
Overall Impact

$15,527
Average $ Saved

9
Average Days Saved

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.

Read what our members are saying

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

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Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 7 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Assess identity and access management requirements
  • Call 1: Identify the drivers, goals, and scope for improving the IAM program.
  • Call 2: Identify the unique IAM challenges and risks that exist for the organization.

Guided Implementation 2: Identify initiatives using the identity lifecycle
  • Call 1: Identify initiatives to improve onboarding processes.
  • Call 2: Identify initiatives to improve authentication and authorization processes.
  • Call 3: Identify initiatives to improve offboarding processes.

Guided Implementation 3: Prioritize initiatives and build a roadmap
  • Call 1: Prioritize initiatives using a cost/effort and benefit analysis.
  • Call 2: Build an IAM improvement roadmap based on prioritized initiatives.

Author

Ian Mulholland

Contributors

  • Chen Heffer, CEO, CyTech
  • Rob Marano, Co-founder of The Hackerati
  • Dave Millier, CEO of Sentry Metrics
  • Defense Industry Technology Executive
  • Sheldon Malm, Vice President – Business Development, Sentry Metrics
  • Jennifer Hong, Independent Management Consultant
  • Five anonymous company contributors
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