A Shift Toward MSP Delivery: How MSPs Are Mitigating Enterprise IAM Delivery Challenges

This whitepaper delves into the prevalent challenges and trends in Identity and Access Management (IAM) delivery, focusing on different models to mitigate bottlenecks. Organizations globally face a shortage of cybersecurity and IAM experts, complicating the recruitment of dedicated team members with the appropriate knowledge within budget constraints. It emphasizes the difficulties in assigning budgets for IAM due to lack of transparency, leading to financial loss and security risks. Organizations struggle to keep tempo with the ever-changing IAM and cybersecurity landscape, risking data breaches and operational setbacks. Four primary challenges are identified: recruitment time and costs, lack of prioritization and transparency, inability to adapt to industry changes, and economic uncertainties stalling decision making. Three common IAM delivery methods—home-grown talent, managed services, and managed capacity—are detailed, each presenting unique benefits and risks concerning talent availability, organization-specific knowledge, IAM expertise, and scaling flexibility. The paper highlights how Managed Service Providers (MSPs) can alleviate some organizational issues but might also introduce new challenges. iC Consult's approach is discussed for its focus on clean onboarding, resource allocation, and leveraging shared teams. Recommendations include addressing risk distribution, fostering internal talent, seeking flexible engagement models, and implementing contingency plans.

• There is a global shortage of IAM and cybersecurity experts.
• Organizations face four main IAM challenges: recruitment time and budget, lack of transparency, industry change adaptation, and economic uncertainty.
• Managed service providers can address but also introduce new IAM challenges.
• Home-grown talent struggles with recruitment and keeping current with industry trends.
• Managed capacity models provide flexibility not typically available with other IAM delivery methods.
• iC Consult practices quarterly planning and benchmarking to ensure efficient resource allocation.
• iC Consult handles both onboarding and offboarding processes cleanly to optimize resource use.
• Managed capacity can scale resources up or down rapidly based on project needs.
• A significant risk in IAM delivery is the inability to quickly adapt to changing demands.
• iC Consult has over 1,000 trained IAM practitioners globally.

• "Organizations seek to minimize recruitment and onboarding costs while fostering collaboration with external partners to avoid frequent contractual revisions."
• "Periodic fluctuations in IAM engagement lead to work peaks that stress the team, causing a loss of productivity and increased overtime expenses."
• "Managed capacity provides the flexibility of fulfilling short, medium, and long duration demands on short notice."
• "Changes in the economy slow down decision-making processes, affecting cybersecurity initiatives and overall business continuity."
• "The managed capacity model ensures maximum scalability across all scenarios."
• "Technical competence plays a vital role at every level of the IAM ecosystem, from planning and design to execution and ongoing maintenance."
• "iC Consult's quarterly planning approach with shared resource teams ensures better resource allocation and responsiveness to varying demands."
• "Home-grown talent can offer benefits by providing more transparency within IAM systems and helping maintain IAM as a high-priority focus in the organization."
• "Incorporating contingency planning into your IAM strategy ensures that your IAM operations can adapt and respond effectively to changing circumstances."
• "Using this model, more MSPs are already being put on SaaS (Software as a Service) to efficiently manage IAM-related tasks."