Clear Skye and Gradient Flow announced the findings of their survey exploring the state of identity management and security in the enterprise.
The survey questioned 500+ respondents from various industries, 62% of whom had job roles in information technology (IT). The findings shed light on the tools, technologies, and skills that define job identity.
The $ 13 billion identity management market is primarily for growth, as cloud adoption, artificially intelligent software, and entry points for cyberattacks expand. But despite major strides in recent years, there are some identity skills that have failed to thrive. For example, email (50%) was cited as the most popular option for controlling permissions and rights among all respondents. In comparison, respondents from large companies (55%) and those holding IT roles (54%) favored more sophisticated methods, such as IT service management (ITSM) or workforce management platforms.
“It’s encouraging that business leaders understand the value of connecting, automating, and streamlining identity in their organization, as reflected in the popularity of ITSM and business platforms,” said John Milburn, CEO, Clear Skye. “But, error-prone manual processes, such as managing identities via email and spreadsheets, are ineffective and at worst are harmful. This should be a wakeup call for modern businesses that rely on archaic, insecure identity management processes. ”
Other important findings
- User experience (UX) topped the list of challenges in most segments (49%). IT respondents cited UX (52%), cost (48%), and time to access or fulfillment (39%) as the top three challenges.
- More than half of the technical respondents indicated that they work with some vendor for identity management, risk, compliance (GRC), single sign-on (SSO), privileged access management (PAM), and/or security operations. (SecOps).
- Despite this, 60% of technical respondents also indicated that they have integrated SecOps into their business processes, while 41% confirmed that they have integrated GRC into their business processes.
- 28% of IT respondents and 26% of respondents from large organizations reported using more than 10 SaaS or in-place applications per week. As a result, 45% of IT respondents and 41% of non -IT respondents expect high productivity increases by using fewer applications or systems.
- Respondents working in small companies reported using the Google platform and tools at a higher rate, compared to those in large companies using Microsoft 365. 35% of respondents from large companies reported using ServiceNow.
- Two-thirds of survey respondents indicated that their company uses AI/ML to improve identity management, but less than one-third of respondents indicated that AI/ML yields moderate to high benefits for identity management.
The research is clear: UX challenges, outsourcing to multiple vendors for identity -related functions, and the use of too many business applications and systems are pain points for identity programs. However, many of these issues can be addressed through the capabilities available through an organization’s existing ITSM/workforce management platform.