Identity and access management (IAM) is key to effective
information security, but IT managers are still struggling to get
businesses to invest, say Gartner analysts.
IT managers are failing to make the
case for identity and access management because they are not
using the language of business to communicate the benefits of IAM
projects, analyst Tom Scholtz told attendees at the
Gartner IAM
Summit 2008 in London today.
He said the most effective way of getting business support was
to show how IAM was able to improve the reliability of business
operations, protect brands, and manage risk.
Fellow Gartner analyst Ant Allan said IT managers need to
communicate all the different ways IAM can contribute to
initiatives to boost competitiveness across the business.
It was unrealistic to say that IAM contributed to every business
strategy, said Allan, but there are several key business
imperatives that IAM does support that IT needs to communicate.
These include the need to attract and retain customers, build an
agile organisation, increase employee productivity, and improve
critical business processes.
"IAM directly improves critical identity-focussed business
processes and workflows by enabling businesses to add new employees
and customers to their IT systems quickly and easily," he said.
Scholtz said maintaining business support required continual
feedback about what investments in IAM projects have achieved as
well as what they have failed to achieve.
"Honest feedback is important to establishing credibility, which
in turn makes it easier next time IT goes back to the business to
ask for further investment," he said.
Scholtz said it was important for IT to establish and maintain
the trust of the business and then set up as many channels as
possible to communicate the value of projects in business
terms.