IAM and User Provisioning: Conquering the Convergence of Customer Concerns and Compliance Management

User provisioning mountain top.

Banking, government and health care — how are these market sectors alike? For starters, organizations operating in these verticals possess deep and comprehensive personal information from their customer bases. Second, regulatory compliance requirements are intensive and the IT audit cycle is frequent. Third, people are concerned about and paying attention to how their private information is stored and protected. How can organizations within these sectors better manage regulatory requirements and these converging factors? Through automated identity and access management user provisioning.

Just how stressed are people about data security as it relates to banking, government and health care? An August 2013 study conducted by Lieberman Research Group reports that 67% of respondents state that they are “concerned” or “very concerned” about data breach in the banking industry. Also noteworthy — the level of “concerned” and “very concerned” around government agencies and health care organizations and their personal health information (PHI) is only nominally lower, hovering around 60%.

What does this mean for organizations that operate in these verticals? With such a sizable majority of customers expressing concern, it means that information security can no longer fall into the “deferred maintenance” category. It means that rock solid identity access management and user provisioning protocols with audit control safeguards are rapidly becoming a required cost of doing business.

While 60% of respondents expressed generalized concern about government data breaches exposing their personal data, issues around identity theft and bank card fraud top the list of specific causes for worry. For organizations operating in the banking sector, there’s the added pressure of an intense regulatory compliance environment around information security. Healthcare IT organizations are also confronted with dual pressure around patient privacy and stringent HIPAA HITECH requirements.

The good news is that automating identity and access management protocols with built-in user provisioning and compliance management tools address the converging pressures confronting banking institutions and healthcare IT organizations around data security. When you’re charged with preserving the security of countless individual records while certifying the integrity of the thousands of people within your organization and across your network of providers who access those records, user provisioning workflow automation with a built-in access management approval system is the obvious identity management solution.

Automated user provisioning protocols ensure that the members of your organization can only access the data that they need to perform their jobs‐ managing access in this fashion significantly mitigates the risk of an information security or regulatory compliance breach. You simply can’t secure the activities of thousands of employees, vendors and contractors accessing your networks without automation nor will you be able to meet the demand without a cadre of help desk support.

Next, let’s consider the glut of hours that your staff invests in the compliance management process. The time required and uncertainties about the efficacy of your corporate governance all become a thing of the past. When you build industry-specific compliance management tools into your automated solution, you’re no longer synthesizing information from multiple sources and files to create IT audit reports as part of a compliance review. Instead, compliance reporting and accountability are now at your fingertips.

You can have it all. Identity management with workflow automation ensures information security. It instills confidence in your customer base and satisfies complex regulatory compliance requirements at a lower cost. For banks, hospitals and government agencies, your customers expect it, the regulators require it‐ and your IT audit team can execute it without breaking a sweat.

Watch the video about a global insurance brokerage firm provide separate help desk services and audit controls to 400 locations worldwide and across a variety of industries. Avatier, through software automation and a self-service administration, returns identity and access management to business users.

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