The increasing number of disclosed security breaches has recently shifted the public’s attention away from compliance. While no longer a hot topic in the news, compliance is still a major focus for enterprises. However, most CIOs aren’t measured on how compliant the business is – their success is measured in how much value they bring to the organization. But no matter how much revenue they generate or operational savings they find, CIOs are well aware of the catastrophic fallout that can result from compliance missteps. Unfortunately, compliance often includes putting processes and controls around the same initiatives that enable companies to grow and adapt – initiatives that result in the measurable value that position CIOs for success. So how do you choose between compliance or nimbleness? And should you even have to?

Often, a choice between two options requires a compromise. The difficulty lies in either choosing to lose money to compliance violation fines (regardless of the time and resources then spent to become compliant) or improve revenue by building a business intended for growth? Identity governance helps with both.

Controlling and managing identities empowers the company to easily achieve compliance while providing a foundation for business growth and agility.

The Power of Automation

Compliance presents a challenge to enterprise CIOs in two ways. The first is obvious: today’s enterprise ecosystem is complex. You have a growing amount of digital assets in various locations. Users are added every day, with many operating as contractors and other types of users that are external to the organization. Keeping tabs on all these elements can be overwhelming.
Many organizations have cobbled together manual or semi-automated controls in an attempt to gain the visibility required to address regulatory requirements. While it gets the job done, the management and administration costs to run these programs can be exorbitant.

Simply put, compliance is expensive and time-consuming. But you must do it, even if it doesn’t do much to advance the business. In fact, the cost and resources required to manage user access – a key metric in regulatory reviews and audits – can actually divert attention from initiatives that will empower the business.

To make compliance a strategic enabler for the business, you must automate it. Taking it off your plate saves measurable amounts of time and money that can be applied to more business-driven initiatives. The only way to automate compliance is with identity governance. See all the applications, users and systems in your ecosystem. Know, at a glance, who has access to what. Manage user access based on roles or functions without requiring human intervention. Reduce the risk of human error. Get valuable hours back in your day.

The Power of Simplicity

If automated identity governance is good, simplified identity governance is better. Cloud-based identity governance multiplies the benefits of automation by making it easy. There’s no hardware to buy, no software to upgrade and no maintenance of any kind to be done by your IT team. In addition to saving hours per month by automating compliance processes, you can save even more time by eliminating the management of your identity governance solution.

Furthermore, in order for IT to become a tool for business empowerment, CIOs are streamlining their teams. They are hiring business-savvy workers with a broader skill set versus a deep bench of technical knowledge. Moving your identity governance into the cloud and removing the burden of managing the solution means that these teams can put their focus on initiatives that drive the business forward.

SailPoint’s Cloud-based Identity Governance Can Help

Cloud-based identity governance simplifies the process of automating compliance activities so that business can get back to what they do best – running their business. SailPoint’s IdentityNow enables you to achieve complex compliance requirements with a powerful identity governance solution that requires zero maintenance, upkeep or technical management. With IdentityNow, you no longer have to compromise between focusing on compliance or building an agile business.

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