Networked companies need a centralized, enterprisewide identity management strategy executed through systems that automate key identity management processes. This is imperative from competitive, cost and risk management perspectives if employees, customers and suppliers, along with other networks and applications, have access to a company’s information systems.

Some may argue that identity management on an enterprise scale is a massive initiative. However, they fail to recognize that the benefits of an identity management solution can be achieved in incremental steps with measurable returns at each milestone.

Consider the six components of enterprise identity management necessary for an efficient, effective and sustainable deployment of enterprise identity management:

• Authoritative source - The authorized origination point for identity elements.
• Identity repository - The key to securely linking disparate identities from separate applications.
• Enterprise identity role architecture - The model for establishing a user’s relationship to the organization and potential business reasons for accessing resources.
• User provisioning - Automating the process of establishing and maintaining user identifications that reside in the various systems supporting the business.
• Access management - The automated authentication and authorization of user requests for resources.
• Protection - The framework for identifying users that access resources and monitoring their actions.