Getting to Know Your Customers: The Emergence of CIAM

Authors:

David Goodman, D.Phil.
Principal Consulting Analyst

Ten years ago identity and access management (IAM) solutions were rarely deployed beyond the company firewall, providing permissions and access rights to enterprise resources to employees and contractors. When available, the management of customer and partner access to a generally limited set of resources was often poorly coordinated. Today, however, a very different social, technology and business environment demands that enterprises make their customers’ online experience as sleek and personalized as possible. And to do this, enterprises are embracing a new breed of consumer or customer identity and access management (CIAM) solutions from their IAM vendors.

The investment and commitment to CIAM are being driven by an ever-increasing sophistication of customer expectation in terms of a ‘joined up’ user experience and real-time availability of relevant resources accessible anywhere, anytime and from any device. Alongside the need to protect the ‘disappearing perimeter’ with adequate security is measured the need to address competitive advantage and maintain customer loyalty. Boosting transparency between marketing and lines of business has the potential to deepen the customer relationship.

In this report, we investigate this emerging trend, what the major players are doing, and what should be the next steps for TechVision Research clients.

This report covers:

• The CIAM value proposition and business rationale for the enterprise
• Getting the balance right between enterprise IAM (EIAM) and CIAM
• TechVision Research’s shortlist of CIAM vendors
• Eight steps an enterprise should take to best leverage CIAM