4 Key Things You Should Know About Access Governance

In today’s digital landscape, enterprises are tasked with ensuring that their employees have access to a comprehensive suite of applications to help them do their job effectively. But the work doesn’t stop there. To maintain visibility into their workforce, businesses have deployed user access management (UAM) systems designed to authorise and authenticate users across those applications.

The trouble with many UAM systems is that they are often limited when it comes to managing multiple identity types such as employees, customers, partners, and developers—especially when these users need to be provisioned across hundreds of enterprise applications. To manage these complexities, businesses need an access governance protocol that determines who has access to what, when. In this way, user access is mandated by built-in controls and policies.

The benefits of access governance

The goal of access governance is to support businesses as they become larger and more complex by keeping the oversight and control of user accounts simple. 

With automated processes and policies in place, access governance helps to minimise the burden on IT admins. With the right identity and access management (IAM) solution, access governance also provides them with a broader level of insight from a centralised platform. This way, IT can easily view who has access to which systems, when accounts were last used, who has administrator access, and more—all from one vantage point. With these tools, IT admins can get a granular view into each employee account and application while also having a birds-eye view of the organisation as a whole.

As a result, the organisation becomes more agile in pinpointing vulnerabilities and identifying unused accounts and licenses. And that, in turn, saves money and time that can be put towards more strategic initiatives. 

Identity governance and administration

When we combine access governance protocols with identity administration, we get identity governance and administration (IGA) systems. These systems have become essential as internal and external threats to an organisation’s security continue to grow in both number and complexity. In fact, according to the 2019 Gartner Magic