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Navigate the Digital ID Ecosystem to Enhance Customer Experience

Beyond the hype: How can it help you become more customer-focused?

  • Amid the pandemic-fueled surge in online services, organizations require secure solutions to safeguard digital interactions. These solutions must be uniform, interoperable, and fortified against security threats.
  • Although the digital identity ecosystem has garnered significant attention and investment, many organizations remain uncertain about its potential for authentication and the authorization required for B2B and B2C transactions, and in turn reducing their cost of operations and transferring their data risks.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Limited / lack of understanding of the global digital ID ecosystem and its varying approaches across countries handicaps businesses in defining the benefits digital ID can bring to customer interactions and overall business management.
  • In addition, key obstacles exist in balancing customer privacy, data security, and regulatory requirements while pursuing excellent end-user experience and high customer adoption.
  • Info-Tech Insight: Focusing on customer touchpoints and transforming them are key to excellent experience and increasing their life-time value (LTV) to them and to your organization. Digital ID is that tool of transformation.

Impact and Result

  • Digital ID has many dimensions, and its ecosystem's sustainability lies in the key principles it is built on. Understanding the digital identity ecosystem and its responsibilities is crucial to formulating an approach to adopt it. Also, focusing on key success factors drives digital ID adoption.
  • Before embarking on the digital identity adoption journey, it is essential to assess your readiness. It is also necessary to understand the risks and challenges. Specific steps to digital ID adoption can help realize the potential of digital identity and enhance the customers' experience.

Navigate the Digital ID Ecosystem to Enhance Customer Experience Research & Tools

1. Navigate the Digital ID Ecosystem to Enhance Customer Experience Storyboard – Learn how to adopt Digital ID to drive benefits, enhance customer experience, improve efficiency, manage data risks, and uncover new opportunities.

This research focuses on verified digital identity ecosystems and explores risks, opportunities, and challenges of relying on verified digital IDs and also how adopting digital identity initiatives can improve customer experience and operational efficiency. It covers:

  • Definition and dimensions of digital identity
  • Key responsibilities and principles of digital identity ecosystem
  • Success factors for digital identity adoption
  • Global evolution and unique approaches in Estonia, India, Canada, UK, and Australia
  • Industries that benefit most from digital ID development
  • Key use cases of digital ID
  • Benefits to governments, ID providers, ID consumers, and end users
  • Readiness checklist and ten steps to digital ID adoption
  • Risks and challenges of digital identity adoption
  • Key recommendations to realize potential of digital identity
  • Taxonomy and definitions of terms in the digital identity ecosystem

Navigate the Digital ID Ecosystem to Enhance Customer Experience

Beyond the hype: How can it help you become more customer-focused?

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

Common Obstacles

Info-Tech’s Approach

Amid the pandemic-fueled surge of online services, organizations require secure solutions to safeguard digital interactions. These solutions must be uniform, interoperable, and fortified against security threats.

Although the digital identity ecosystem has garnered significant attention and investment, many organizations remain uncertain about its potential for authentication and authorization required for B2B and B2C transactions.

They still wonder if digital ID can help reduce cost of operations and transfer data risks.

Limited or lack of understanding of the global Digital ID ecosystem and its varying approaches across countries handicap businesses in defining the potential benefits Digital ID can bring to customer interactions and overall business management.

In addition, key obstacles exist in balancing customer privacy (including the right to be forgotten), data security, and regulatory requirements while pursuing desired end-user experience and high customer adoption.

Digital ID has many dimensions, and its ecosystem's sustainability lies in the key principles it is built on. Understanding the digital identity ecosystem and its responsibilities is crucial to formulate an approach to adopt it. Also, focusing on key success factors drives digital ID adoption.

Before embarking on the digital identity adoption journey, it is essential to assess your readiness. It is also necessary to understand the risks and challenges. Specific steps to digital ID adoption can help realize the potential of digital identity and enhance the customers' experience.

Info-Tech Insight

Focusing on customer touchpoints and transforming them is key to excellent user experience and increasing their lifetime value (LTV) to them and to your organization. Digital ID is that tool of transformation.

Analyst Perspective

Manish Jain.

Manish Jain

Principal Research Director

Analyst Profile

“I just believed. I believed that the technology would change people's lives. I believed putting real identity online - putting technology behind real identity - was the missing link.”

- Sheryl Sandberg (Brockes, Emma. “Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg: who are you calling bossy?” The Guardian, 5 April 2014)

Sometimes dismissed as mere marketing gimmicks, digital identity initiatives are anything but. While some argue that any online credential is a "Digital ID," rendering the hype around it pointless, the truth is that a properly built digital ID ecosystem has the power to transform laggard economies into global digital powerhouses. Moreover, digital IDs can help businesses transfer some of their cybersecurity risks and unlock new revenue channels by enabling a foundation for secure and efficient value delivery.

In addition, digital identity is crucial for digital and financial inclusion, simplifying onboarding processes and opening up new opportunities for previously underserved populations. For example, in India, the Aadhaar digital ID ecosystem brought over 481 million1 people into the formal economy by enabling access to financial services. Similarly, in Indonesia, the e-KIP digital ID program paved the way for 10 million new bank accounts, 94% of which were for women2.

However, digital identity initiatives also come with valid concerns, such as the risk of a single point of failure and the potential to widen the digital divide.

This research focuses on the verified digital identity ecosystem, exploring the risks, opportunities, and challenges organizations face relying on these verified digital IDs to know their customers before delivering value. By understanding and adopting digital identity initiatives, organizations can unlock their full potential and provide a seamless customer experience while ensuring operational efficiency.

1 India Aadhaar PMJDY (https://pmjdy.gov.in/account)
2 Women’s World Banking, 2020.

Digital Identity Ecosystem and vital ingredients of adoption

Digital Identity Ecosystem.

What is digital identity?

Definitions may vary, depending on the focus.

“Digital identity (ID) is a set of attributes that links a physical person with their online interactions. Digital ID refers to one’s online persona - an online footprint. It touches important aspects of one’s everyday life, from financial services to health care and beyond.” - DIACC Canada

“Digital identity is a digital representation of a person. It enables them to prove who they are during interactions and transactions. They can use it online or in person.” - UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework

“Digital identity is an electronic representation of an entity (person or other entity such as a business) and it allows people and other entities to be recognized online.” - Australia Trusted Digital Identity Framework

A digital identity is primarily an electronic form of identity representing an entity uniquely , while abstracting all other identity attributes of the entity. In addition to an electronic form, it may also exist in a physical form (identity certificate), linked through an identifier representing the same entity.

Beyond the hype: How can it help you become more customer-focused?

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