How to Adopt an Identity-Centric Approach to Digital Business

We’re quickly moving toward a future that is identity-centric. In the digital world, identities lie at the heart of several different information ecosystems, including big data, marketing technology and the rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IoT). And as these ecosystems become increasingly business-critical, adopting an identity-centric approach to technology infrastructures will be vitally important to customer experience, security and privacy.

So what does an identity-centric approach look like? Many of today’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions were originally developed to manage workforce identities. While they deliver some of the needed capabilities, there are additional considerations required to support a truly identity-centric focus. You need to be able to create a unique identifier for each person. Then you must be able to authenticate the user and authorize their access to various systems and apps. Additionally, you need the ability to manage dynamic profiles that consist of a combination of structured and unstructured data, including demographics, preferences and relationships.

A Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) platform with these capabilities can effectively become the system of record and the processing engine to orchestrate five key aspects of identity:

1. Authenticate that the person is truly who they say are and authorize the systems, apps and information they can access
2. Data that describes the person, such as name, address and age as well as their preferences and their choices
3. The person’s relationships to organizations and to other people
4. Rules that must be obeyed including regulatory policies and privacy options
5. Things they own and control, particularly for IoT device use cases

CIAM is uniquely qualified to implement an identity-centric approach to digital business. It delivers on current authentication requirements and is capable of adapting as authentication methods continue to evolve beyond passwords into more sophisticated methodologies including biometrics, SMS, one-time passwords, multifactor authentication and step up authentication. CIAM also supports developers as they create and launch new apps into their ecosystems. It manages complex queries from applications to return data such as user profile information while applying security and privacy controls. Plus, it supports business initiatives by providing data for analytics and operations systems.

Download the infographic Identity Data Security Is Required for Digital Transformation Value to see the most common security mistakes businesses make and how to address them.

Author: Bjorn Aannestad

As Director of Product Management, Bjorn Aannestad is responsible for product roadmap and ensuring that UnboundID products satisfy customer and market requirements. Prior to joining UnboundID, Bjorn served as director of product management at Pointserve, now mobi. Bjorn has designed online collaboration, lean manufacturing, and service optimization products throughout his... View full profile ›

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How to Adopt an Identity-Centric Approach to Digital Business