Building Unified Identities from Multiple Sources of People Data

Secure, effective digital services require a consistent approach to identity across the organisation. Unfortunately, owing to the proliferation of platforms and applications, most organisations are forced to manage their identity data using different systems, information, and formats.

This makes it hard to manage identities consistently. Consequently, a critical capability of any Identity and Access Management (IAM) system is the ability to construct identities from multiple sources of information.

The Strategic Challenge of Fragmented Identity Data

People enter and interact with organisations in different ways, so their identity data does the same. Consequently, it is simply a fact of life that organisations will always have multiple sources of identity data: CRM systems, HR databases, marketing platforms, and various applications.

While organisations should keep these to a minimum, it is inevitable that they need a way of managing this data coherently. It’s obvious, but if data is distributed across multiple systems, it’s harder to manage.

Fragmented identity data creates two strategic problems for organisations:

• Cost. Data that is fragmented across many systems must be centralised to maximise its usefulness. This involves a cost to the business, particularly if it is labour intensive. Automation helps, but that needs developing and maintaining. The business can choose to live without centralisation, but that creates opportunity costs: what are the things that the business must live without because the data is uncertain or unavailable?
• Risk. Fragmented data leads to duplication and manual data entry errors. Duplicate accounts, conflicting permissions, and disjointed records not only disrupt workflows but can also introduce security vulnerabilities by leaving old or inaccurate permissions in place.

Making the Business Case for Unified Identities

It is easy to lose focus on the quality of data when other issues are more visible. However, data underpins all business architecture and, as the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. Delay means storing up problems for the future. The longer an organisation waits, the harder and more costly it becomes to unpick.

Creating unified identities from multiple sources of people data provides several important benefits:

• Improved User Experience: By consolidating identity data, organisations can offer a seamless, single sign-on (SSO) experience, reducing the friction of remembering multiple credentials and enhancing user satisfaction.
• Enhanced Security and Compliance: A unified approach enables organisations to apply consistent security policies across all applications, helping to prevent unauthorised access and reducing the risk of data breaches. This centralisation also aids in compliance efforts by enabling comprehensive reporting and monitoring of access-related activities.
• Operational Efficiency: With identity data consolidated into a single system, IT teams can more efficiently manage user access requests, handle onboarding and offboarding, and streamline workflows related to identity verification and role assignments.
• Data-Driven Insights: Unified identities enable organisations to gain a holistic view of each user, facilitating data-driven insights into user behaviour, access patterns, and potential risks. These insights are invaluable for optimising identity policies, improving security measures, and aligning access controls with business objectives.

How Able+ Can Help Unify and Centralise Identity Data

Able+ is an IAM solution by New Era Technology that brings together fragmented identity data to create a single, unified source of truth. This makes it possible to enforce consistent access policies, reduce redundancy, and streamline the user experience across all applications and systems.

• Data Integration and Interoperability: Able+ integrates with multiple data sources and applications, facilitating the seamless flow of identity data across platforms. Through API integrations and data connectors, Able+ centralises data from various sources, unifying fragmented information.
• Workflows: Able+ provides workflows that can process the data collected from the various sources. Workflows are highly flexible, meaning that almost any business process can be captured. This enables the organisation to make best use of its data by maximising the opportunities for automation. Workflows are built and managed using a zero-code designer, enabling business process owners to take control of their workflows rather
• Role-Based Access Control: Able+ enables organisations to define roles and access privileges centrally. This ensures that users have appropriate access based on their roles, which can be updated globally whenever there are changes. This centralised approach minimises errors and reduces the complexity associated with managing permissions across multiple systems.
• Single Sign On: Able+ support Single Sign On, allowing users to access multiple applications with a single set of credentials. Federation reduces the need for duplicate identity records and enables seamless access across domains, enhancing both security and user convenience.

Conclusion

By addressing challenges related to the fragmentation of identity data, unifying identities enables organisations to make the best of its identity data. This can enhance security, cost efficiency, and user experience. Able+ provides the tools to unify identities and so help your organisation achieve its IAM goals.