10 years ago, Identity and Access Management was entirely a luxury of big corporations. Today, both the needs of the business as well as the scope of the technology have changed completely. What was once a solution that took months or years to implement and cost big bucks to invest in can now be performed in a week and can be bought as a cloud subscription. The mid-market is now in a position both to benefit significantly from IAM as well as afford it.
A Technology Solution is More than just Features!
But, business solutions are rarely, if ever, plug-and-play. Numerous things must be in place for such a technology solution to do its work:
DevOps must continuously be on top of things with updates
The solution and support team must always be able to adapt to new environments and integrate with other new solutions
Vendor after-sales service must have quick response times to system breakdowns
The customer must also have capable IAM staff on-hand to keeps things operating smoothly.
Unfortunately, merely subscribing to a cloud IAM service is only half an answer. Notably, for the mid-market, unless all the above factors are in place, the solution will offer only basic functionality at best and not be worth the investment.
Mid-market IAM Viability
Large firms have the capabilities for keeping highly trained IAM staff on-board to ensure that the environment runs smoothly. Mid-market enterprises, however, cannot afford this luxury. System breakdowns can be handled promptly by in-house IAM staff, but mid-market businesses are hard-pressed today to find competent IAM staff, let alone have the budget to hire and retain them. What is needed is a solution that places the DevOps burden on the vendor rather than the customer. Cross Identitys precisely achieve this. We carry the DevOps burden of our solution so that your business can focus on its critical operations.
Comprehensive App-integrations is essential
Technology solutions for businesses are also continually growing in scope and variety. Integration between different solutions as well as integrations with various apps is essential. This fact is particularly true for IT security solutions where a single app that is not contained within the system undermines the integrity of the whole organism. Legacy apps are still used in abundance for various reasons: prohibitive time and cost investments to migrate to a different app or platform, entire networks, and systems of apps and solutions being built around an app, etc. Homegrown and custom solutions are also common today owing to the low-cost of outsourced software development, and integrating solutions with such apps is usually slow, if possible at all. Thick-client apps, those which are installed on-premises rather than on the public cloud, offer another challenge. Connectors between IAM solutions and such products are fragile. Cross Identity solutions have solved all these issues. We provide quick integration with legacy and homegrown apps, along with patented thick-client integration technology. Our solutions will completely contain your entire IT environment.
Cross Identity solutions offer even more for the mid-market
In addition to these basics, Cross Identity also offers other valuable solutions for mid-market businesses. More often than not, it is a challenge to get an IAM investment budgeted and finally authorized. The reasons are numerous: budget issues, wary decision-makers, etc. Often, existing IAM modules would need to be dismantled to make way for a more comprehensive solution, which results in low returns on the old investment along with added burden, complications, etc. Cross Identity is the only vendor that offers small-but-essential IAM modules on a piece-by-piece, subscription-based model. For instance, a mid-market business without any existing IAM implementations could subscribe to our AD Provisioning as a Service, and experience automated provisioning for new hires into their AD system, for a fraction of the cost of a full IAM solution. This allows the business to start experiencing the benefits of IAM without any significant investment. Additional modules, leading until a complete solution, can be added one by one. Getting such a project budgeted and approved is very likely.
It’s the Weakest Link that breaks the chain.
As with anything and any technology solution, the weakest link can be anywhere. It might be in the solution itself, the maintenance requirements of the solution, operational difficulty, or lack of vendor support. If even one of these elements is not at par, the entire solution’s efficacy is undermined. Don’t look for a solution with just the best features or from a market leader – look for one that offers value on all levels and provides multidimensional support for the customer.
