Identity and Access Management (IAM) services were traditionally built for a company’s internal use, to assist with manual on and off boarding, and establishing access privileges to company data and systems behind the firewall. Today though, a company must implement a dynamic IAM solution that serves employees, customers, partners and devices, regardless of location. This is the evolution of IAM to IRM: Identity Relationship Management.
As more and more people, devices, and “things” are assigned identities across networks, IRM services that are simple, flexible, scalable and designed to quickly verify identities and access privileges, become imperative for any business to safely and efficiently engage with their customers. Today’s solutions must link devices–laptops, phones, touchpads, cars–and new mobile and social apps to a single security platform that works all the time, everywhere, on premises or off in the cloud. This is the standard that customers, citizens, and students expect, and CIOs and their businesses, (as well as governments and universities), must identify vendors that can provide it because these methods of consumer engagement directly drive revenue. Customers might deposit checks from their phone, order a service through a cloud app, or make a purchase from a laptop that recognizes their identity, and shares the right information with the vendor.
As consumers look for and expect more ways to engage with businesses, companies are making the shift from the closed, protective world of IAM to the open, evolving, and confidently secure IRM universe. This is because identity and access management tools are a necessity for managing trust relationships with parties inside and outside of a company – relationships that are now tied directly to the business’ top line.
