1 Introduction / Executive Summary
Organizations face an increasingly complex IAM environment. With digital transformation, there are more types of identities, skills, objects, and tools involved than ever before, and the number is growing. Consequently, IT as a whole is changing, and organizations must adapt. Market observations show that delivery models and architectures are changing, service variety is increasing, enterprise landscapes are becoming more agile, IT is being centralized, and organizations are starting their own Zero Trust journeys. Since organizations are responding with multiple activities at the same time, coordination also becomes a challenge.
With this evolution and an increasing number of identities to support, the requirements change in quality and quantity. In response, solutions aim to address the individual requirements of their target use cases and identities. However, end users are demanding more flexibility, better user experiences, and greater efficiency. In addition, the need for security is also increasing. All of that requires a modular and flexible architectural landscape.
As a result of the increasing complexity, many organizations are losing proper oversight. With a variety of legacy applications containing local IAM silos, organizational diversity, new types of identities and their increasing requirements, and no comprehensive strategic IAM approach, challenges arise. Problems are often solved on an "issue by issue" basis, regardless of their organization-specific big picture for IAM, if one exists at all. Our ongoing market research confirms that developing an organization-specific view as part of an IAM strategy and program supports organizations with a functional and technical structure. That structure enables organizations to act proactively and stay ahead of their challenges.
By taking a comprehensive Identity Fabrics approach, organizations can integrate solutions and create a seamless architecture and user experience. As a result, new requirements and challenges can be addressed more effectively. In addition, such orchestration allows organizations to take a best-of-breed approach, where focused best-of-breed solutions are integrated to deliver leading-edge capabilities and user experience as a network of services. Software vendors that follow such an agile orchestration approach are recognized and rewarded by customer organizations as well as by market researchers for being a leading-edge company with a modern approach for existing challenges.
