Top 5 Reasons Why an Organisation Needs Customer Identity Access Management

Author: Grace Dolby
Release Date: 20/05/2021

In any business supporting customers, handling the customers information, data and access policies can be a troublesome experience and can often lead to manual processes or support tickets being raised to rectify access issues or update information held. 

Today we will be highlighting the top 5 reasons to use Okta for your customer identity and access management, and why customer identity and access management should be one on your priority list for the coming year.

1. Replacing Outdated Strategies

Organisations can struggle to scale out their applications and services and bring them to market or extend their customer base due to restrictions from legacy systems. Outdated approaches to customer management can prevent digital transformation and cause a ‘clunky’ experience to end users who are otherwise used to slick digital experiences. Managing and rebuilding identity strategies can be extremely time consuming and risky, which can deter some businesses from moving forward.

However, high profile breaches and constant data leaks from organisations are highly publicised and can result in lack of trust from existing customers and deter new customers alike. Customers now expect a level of control of their own data as well, meaning closed systems do not work for the modern age where a customer is more aware of their own data and the value of it.

Okta can deploy in days a frictionless and seamless identity solution that is not only cloud native, but can also work with any hybrid or on premise apps your customers have access to. It has highly robust and granular security policies that can be easily deployed without affecting the customer experience but still provide an extra layer of security and prevent unwanted access. By not having to create custom code to embed into your app or site it also reduces the risk involved in modernising your customers identity as you are utilising tried, tested and secure code. End users receive a better experience, with easier and more control over their data, with even self-service options to reduce service desk tickets such as password resets, address or name updates.

2. Social Authentication

Most users expect businesses to link with their existing identity profiles on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and more. It has been proven that if a user can sign in with an existing profile that they are more likely to convert into a customer or sign up for your service. When using social authentication with Okta for your customers, you can leverage attributes from their social profiles and unify them into your universal directory to give you better insight into your customers and even what other products or services they utilise.

  Onboarding customers is also much quicker and easier via social authentication as there is no need to make a profile with extra steps, rather Okta uses just-in-time provisioning to automatically make the end user a profile via their social account.

3. Consistency In User Experience

Users have come to expect a seamless experience and consistency in the user experience across a business's many applications. For example, when I sign into a retail groups website and navigate through their various stores, I expect to stay signed in to one account, and to be able to use my existing account for all stores under the same group or partner. This seamless identity experience can cause many security risks when trying to unify a customers profile, but with Okta’s universal directory we have already done all the hard work for you, providing one unified profile for each user with all of the applications, products and services they should have access to in one place, which makes administration and creation/deletion much easier and simpler.

4. Adaptive Multi-Factor

Not only is multi-factor authentication something we have become used to in our work day lives, but we also expect it from our social accounts, even games we play and products and services we buy. Using MFA has become a part of our daily lives, and most users expect again that level of control and security from any business they work with. Okta has one of the widest choice for MFA methods, including methods such as SMS which mean end users do not have to download or set anything new up to still gain the security benefits of MFA. This also creates a frictionless process for the end user when they are creating a new account, and we can even set MFA for accounts that use Social Authentication.

5. Integration

Nowadays we do not just go to a website on our phone or mobile device, we expect apps to be available for us to download and use which provide better experiences and easier access. Often authentication for mobile applications can be difficult to implement as many legacy strategies would require a totally different authentication mechanism. However, with Okta, we provide value for developers by not only offering SDK’s and secure authentication for web apps and mobile applications, but if you host your services or applications on premise, Okta Access Gateway (OAG) can provide seamless integration and access for your end users. By utilising OAG and Okta’s largest integration network for cloud and web apps, you have an entire identity platform for your customers for any application, on prem, cloud, or hybrid at the tip of your fingers, with their single identity being managed from one place, in real-time.

We would love to understand your own business requirements for Customer Identity and Access Management, or if you have any identity requirements for your internal workforce, and highlight how Okta’s identity management platform can help you deliver a secure, simple and seamless experience to your customers and employees

More Resources like this one:

What is Okta Secure Customer Identity & Access Management? (CIAM) | Somerford Webinar Recording

Learn More About Okta CIAM Solutions
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