Welcome
How Mature Is Your CIAM System?
Enabling secure, efficient, and user-friendly customer identity and access management (CIAM) is critical. Effective CIAM practices start with the right tools and require a high level of collaboration from stakeholders across your organization, including security, marketing, and IT. How mature are your organization’s CIAM systems and processes? Take our short self-assessment to find out.
The assessment will yield customized results and recommendations based on your responses and should take no more than 5 minutes to complete.
Questions
Which of the following most closely aligns with your current position/department?
(Select one.)
Questions
Please rate your organization’s skill level in each of the following areas related to customer experience of CIAM:
Please rate your organization’s skill level in each of the following areas related to fraud prevention of CIAM:
Please rate your organization’s skill level in each of the following areas related to IT integration of CIAM:
Questions
Please rate your organization’s skill level in each of the following areas related to utilization of CIAM data for marketing:
Please rate your organization’s skill level in each of the following areas related to data privacy and regulations of CIAM:
Please rate your organization’s skill level in each of the following areas related to operational efficiency of CIAM:
Questions
Imagine building your ideal CIAM system. How would you distribute 100 points to the six key areas of CIAM listed below if each point represented a level of effectiveness?
(Enter a whole number from 0 to 100 for each of the six areas, total must equal 100.)
0
Imagine building your ideal CIAM system. How would you distribute 100 points to the six key areas of CIAM listed below if each point represented a level of effectiveness?
(Enter a whole number from 0 to 100 for each of the six areas, total must equal 100.)
0
Imagine building your ideal CIAM system. How would you distribute 100 points to the six key areas of CIAM listed below if each point represented a level of effectiveness?
(Enter a whole number from 0 to 100 for each of the six areas, total must equal 100.)
0
Questions
What is your organization’s abandonment rate for customers who begin the process of creating online accounts?
(Select one using your best estimate.)
Thinking about the past 24 months, what percentage of your total transaction volume had incidents of identity fraud?
(Select one using your best estimate.)
Which of the following is the best approximation of the average uptime rate for your organization’s CIAM solution?
(Select one using your best estimate.)
An effective CIAM system provides: 1) a seamless experience to customers that reduces fraud and keeps customer data safe while still being efficient and well integrated on the back end, and 2) valuable data insights to help the business grow. For a CIAM system to be truly effective, it must serve the needs of all departments who interact with it, including security, marketing, and IT. Our assessment evaluates organizations across six key areas:
Customer Experience
Does your CIAM offer seamless experiences to your customers? Are those experiences consistent across all channels and parts of the process?
Utilization Of CIAM Data For Marketing
Is your marketing organization maximizing the CIAM data you’re collecting? Are you able to make actionable decisions based on this data?
Fraud Prevention
Does your CIAM system prevent fraud during all steps of the authentication process? Is security consistent across all channels?
Data Privacy And Regulations
Are you protecting personal identifiable information (PII) data and adhering to all regional and local regulations? Are you transparent in these processes?
IT Integration Of CIAM
Is your CIAM system well integrated with the rest of your technology stack? Are your CIAM tools well integrated?
Operational Efficiency
Is your CIAM tool efficient? Are you keeping costs to a minimum without sacrificing effectiveness?
Your portion of the assessment covers customer experience and utilization of CIAM data for marketing. To see results for the other four key areas and get a complete picture of your organization’s CIAM maturity level, send this assessment to your colleagues in Security and IT and compare results. Your portion of the assessment covers fraud prevention, data privacy and regulations. To see results for the other four key areas and get a complete picture of your organization’s CIAM maturity level, send this assessment to your colleagues in Marketing and IT and compare results. Your portion of the assessment covers IT integration and operational efficiency. To see results for the other four key areas and get a complete picture of your organization’s CIAM maturity level, send this assessment to your colleagues in Marketing and Security and compare results.
Results Overview
Low Maturity
Medium Maturity
High Maturity
Your maturity result: High Maturity Medium Maturity Low Maturity
Low Maturity
Medium Maturity
High Maturity
Your maturity result: High Maturity Medium Maturity Low Maturity
Low Maturity
Medium Maturity
High Maturity
Your maturity result: High Maturity Medium Maturity Low Maturity
Recommendations
Low Maturity
Your score means your CIAM marketing maturity is at the beginner level (to see where your organization is in terms of CIAM maturity from an IT and security perspective, we recommend sending this tool to colleagues in those departments). This will leave your organization at a competitive disadvantage in the long run. Here are a few key steps to improve customer experience in CIAM as well as your ability to use CIAM data for marketing:
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Get everyone on the same page. Work with other CIAM stakeholders from across the organization to build consensus regarding what you really need to accomplish with CIAM.
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Prioritize clarity in CIAM processes. It’s crucial to ensure your customers don’t get frustrated during CIAM processes such as login and password reset. Create easy-to-follow, prominently displayed, and up-to-date instructions for the entire CIAM journey (from enrollment to active account/permission management).
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Take advantage of CIAM data to optimize marketing efforts. Think of CIAM as an enabler of marketing, sales, targeting, loyalty programs, and privacy management, rather than a necessary evil. CIAM systems hold a treasure trove of valuable data for marketers including enrollment counts, login/authentication statistics, and abandonment rates. This data can, and should, be used to inform decision-making. Finally, CIAM data allows for marketing activities to be tied to customer identities, when appropriate.
Your two highest maturity areas are:
Your two lowest maturity areas are:
Our data revealed that firms with low-maturity CIAM offerings saw significantly fewer benefits from their CIAM systems than their high-maturity counterparts.
Base: 134 US-based marketing/CX decision-makers responsible for their organizations' CIAM solutions at B2C-focused enterprises
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, November 2021
Medium Maturity
Your score means your CIAM marketing maturity has progressed to the intermediate level (to see where your organization is in terms of CIAM maturity from an IT and security perspective, we recommend sending this tool to colleagues in those departments). Here are a few key steps to improve customer experience in CIAM as well as your ability to use CIAM data for marketing:
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Integrate both technology and people. When asked how they have improved their utilization of CIAM data for marketing, high-maturity organizations from our study cited working with IT to better integrate CIAM tools with CRM systems and creating cross-functional working groups with expertise in marketing and CIAM data as the two most common ways of improving. To get the most out of CIAM systems, it’s crucial that technology is well integrated into marketing systems and that IT, security, and marketing groups are consistently collaborating.
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Make sure the technology is seamless. High-maturity organizations most-commonly cited three ways they’ve improved the CX of their CIAM systems: 1) automating CIAM processes; 2) using technology to proactively alert customers to unusual account behavior; and 3) integrating CIAM tools better together to make CIAM processes more seamless. Your customers want to feel protected. Creating well-integrated and automated CIAM systems does this proactively and at scale.
Your two highest maturity areas are:
Your two lowest maturity areas are:
High Maturity
Congratulations, your score means your CIAM marketing maturity is advanced (to see where your organization is in terms of CIAM maturity from an IT and security perspective, we recommend sending this tool to colleagues in those departments)! There are, however, always opportunities to improve your CIAM system. For high-maturity organizations, we recommend the following for marketers interested in improving their customer experience and utilization of CIAM data for marketing:
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Our study revealed a significant shift among high-maturity organizations towards integrated comprehensive CIAM suites. Fifty-five percent of high-maturity organizations using commercial CIAM solutions have a system comprised of various point solutions, but only 33% say this represents their ideal state. Having a single, comprehensive suite with well-integrated tools improves efficiency, reduces fraud, and helps make the system seamless and user-friendly.
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Use CIAM data to understand navigational patterns through your mobile app and website to inform customer journey optimization.
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While ensuring regulatory compliance, feed CIAM access data and data from your portal, analytics, and other systems into your core marketing business intelligence (BI) platform. Use the combination of the above data assets to drive marketing decisions.
Your two highest maturity areas are:
Your two lowest maturity areas are:
Recommendations - Ideal System
You prioritized the ability to use CIAM data for marketing higher than your peers. Although this competency is important, keep in mind that CIAM is most successful when security, IT, and marketing teams are effectively collaborating and all organizational needs are being met. In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
You prioritized customer experience higher than your peers. Although this competency is important, keep in mind that CIAM is most successful when security, IT, and marketing teams are effectively collaborating and all organizational needs are being met. In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
You prioritized both customer experience and the ability to use CIAM data for marketing higher than your peers. Although these competencies are important, keep in mind that CIAM is most successful when security, IT, and marketing teams are effectively collaborating and all organizational needs are being met. In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
Your prioritization shows an even distribution, signifying you are prioritizing the needs of departments other than your own. This is great! In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
Recommendations - Abandonment Rate
Your firm
Your abandonment rate is higher than average, which means your organization is losing money due to poor CIAM customer experience. We recommend the following to help improve CX and reduce abandonment:
- Ensure your instructions for the onboarding process are clear and easy to follow.
- Allow customers to use social identity verification (IDV) and social login, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
- Provide customers with the ability to set their own multi-factor authenticator (MFA) type, e.g., Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc.
- Use risk-based authentication and remember devices so that customers are minimally prompted for MFA.
- Use password-less authentication so that customers do not have to remember long passwords.
Your abandonment rate is right around average based on our study. In order to ensure your organization isn’t losing money due to poor CIAM customer experience, we recommend the following to help improve CX and reduce abandonment:
- Ensure your instructions for the onboarding process are clear and easy to follow.
- Allow customers to use social identity verification (IDV) and social login, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
- Provide customers with the ability to set their own multi-factor authenticator (MFA) type, e.g., Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc.
- Use risk-based authentication and remember devices so that customers are minimally prompted for MFA.
- Use password-less authentication so that customers do not have to remember long passwords.
Your abandonment rate is lower than average, which is great! In order to improve CX and reduce abandonment rate even further to separate your organization from its peers, we recommend the following:
- Ensure your instructions for the onboarding process are clear and easy to follow.
- Allow customers to use social identity verification (IDV) and social login, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
- Provide customers with the ability to set their own multi-factor authenticator (MFA) type, e.g., Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc.
- Use risk-based authentication and remember devices so that customers are minimally prompted for MFA.
- Use password-less authentication so that customers do not have to remember long passwords.
Recommendations
Low Maturity
Your score means your CIAM security maturity is at the beginner level (to see where your organization is in terms of CIAM maturity from an IT and marketing perspective, we recommend sending this tool to colleagues in those departments). This will leave your organization at a competitive disadvantage in the long run. Here are a few key steps to improve security and keep your customer data safe:
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Implement the right tool(s). The technical capabilities of your CIAM tool(s) significantly impacts your CIAM security maturity. No amount of people or process improvements will make your organization secure if your CIAM tool lacks key security features. In fact, decision-makers at high-maturity organizations cited purchasing new CIAM technology specifically because of its security features as the most common action they’ve taken to improve their CIAM security.
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Make sure you have a privacy management solution. To ensure consumer data privacy, it’s paramount that you either implement a CIAM solution that has native privacy management or integrate your CIAM system with a privacy management solution. This is required for having strong data protection, and it was the most-commonly-cited action in our study that high-maturity organizations took to improve their data privacy and compliance.
Your two highest maturity areas are:
Your two lowest maturity areas are:
Our data revealed that firms with low-maturity CIAM offerings saw significantly fewer benefits from their CIAM systems than their high-maturity counterparts.
Base: 134 US-based marketing/CX decision-makers responsible for their organizations' CIAM solutions at B2C-focused enterprises
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, November 2021
Medium Maturity
Your score means your CIAM security maturity has progressed to the intermediate level (to see where your organization is in terms of CIAM maturity from an IT and marketing perspective, we recommend sending this tool to colleagues in those departments). Here are a few key steps to improve security and keep your customer data safe:
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Implement RBA Using risk-based authentication (RBA) helps to reduce unnecessary customer challenges. Use RBA to monitor user risk and provide risk scores.
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Dedicate people resources to privacy. Appoint a chief privacy officer (CPO) or governing body to ensure data privacy is correctly applied in the CIAM platform. If you already have a CPO in place, make sure that you are actively reaching out to them to review your CIAM platform and policies to ensure you are protecting your users’ data.
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Measure and report on privacy metrics. Without consistent feedback from data, it can be difficult to know where your organization stands from a CIAM privacy standpoint. Develop a dashboard for compliance and privacy to measure and report out on privacy metrics. Having this data in hand will also help you secure CIAM budget to meet privacy and compliance requirements.
Your two highest maturity areas are:
Your two lowest maturity areas are:
High Maturity
Congratulations, your score means your CIAM security maturity is advanced (to see where your organization is in terms of CIAM maturity from an IT and marketing perspective, we recommend sending this tool to colleagues in those departments)! There are, however, always opportunities to improve your CIAM system. For high-maturity organizations, we recommend the following for security decision-makers interested in improving the security and protection of their consumer data:
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Start early in the customer lifecycle and work with your know-your-customer (KYC) teams to unify and centralize identity verification processes to minimize enrollment/registration (account opening) fraud.
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Treat all customer data as sensitive and only collect information on a gradual, as-needed basis.
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Encrypt all customer PII data everywhere — not just where obligated by compliance regulations.
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Our study revealed a significant shift among high-maturity organizations towards integrated comprehensive CIAM suites. Fifty-five percent of high-maturity organizations using commercial CIAM solutions have a system comprised of various point solutions, but only 33% say this represents their ideal state. Having a single, comprehensive suite with well-integrated tools improves efficiency, reduces fraud, and helps make the system seamless and user-friendly.
Your two highest maturity areas are:
Your two lowest maturity areas are:
Recommendations - Ideal System
You prioritized security higher than your peers. Although this competency is important, keep in mind that CIAM is most successful when security, IT, and marketing teams are effectively collaborating and all organizational needs are being met. In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
You prioritized privacy higher than your peers. Although this competency is important, keep in mind that CIAM is most successful when security, IT, and marketing teams are effectively collaborating and all organizational needs are being met. In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
You prioritized both security and the privacy higher than your peers. Although these competencies are important, keep in mind that CIAM is most successful when security, IT, and marketing teams are effectively collaborating and all organizational needs are being met. In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
Your prioritization shows an even distribution, signifying you are prioritizing the needs of departments other than your own. This is great! In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
Recommendations - Fraud Rate
Your firm
Your fraud rate is higher than average, which means your organization is risking damage to your brand, regulatory fines, and the loss of consumer trust. We recommend the following to help improve security and reduce fraud:
- Use risk-based authentication (RBA) to reduce unnecessary challenges of customers.
- Use threat intel, e.g., compromised IP addresses, devices, and data from your threat feed provider, etc., in your CIAM and RBA products’ policies.
- Continuously experiment with your CIAM solution to improve your security posture.
- Simple is more secure: Implement single sign-on instead of a disparate per-application sign-on process.
- Conduct penetration testing on your CIAM platform.
- Make sure you are consistently applying security patches and updates in a timely manner.
- Create and provide educational materials around security for customers.
Your fraud rate is right around average based on our study. In order to ensure your organization isn’t risking damage to the brand, regulatory fines, and loss of consumer trust, we recommend the following to help improve security and reduce fraud:
- Use risk-based authentication (RBA) to reduce unnecessary challenges of customers.
- Use threat intel, e.g., compromised IP addresses, devices, and data from your threat feed provider, etc., in your CIAM and RBA products’ policies.
- Continuously experiment with your CIAM solution to improve your security posture.
- Simple is more secure: Implement single sign-on instead of a disparate per-application sign-on process.
- Conduct penetration testing on your CIAM platform.
- Make sure you are consistently applying security patches and updates in a timely manner.
- Create and provide educational materials around security for customers.
Your fraud rate is lower than average based on our study, which is great! In order to improve security and reduce fraud even further and separate your organization from its peers, we recommend the following:
- Use risk-based authentication (RBA) to reduce unnecessary challenges of customers.
- Use threat intel, e.g., compromised IP addresses, devices, and data from your threat feed provider, etc., in your CIAM and RBA products’ policies.
- Continuously experiment with your CIAM solution to improve your security posture.
- Simple is more secure: Implement single sign-on instead of a disparate per-application sign-on process.
- Conduct penetration testing on your CIAM platform.
- Make sure you are consistently applying security patches and updates in a timely manner.
- Create and provide educational materials around security for customers.
Recommendations
Low Maturity
Your score means your CIAM IT maturity is at the beginner level (to see where your organization is in terms of CIAM maturity from a security and marketing perspective, we recommend sending this tool to colleagues in those departments). This will leave your organization at a competitive disadvantage in the long run. Here are a few key steps to improve operational efficiency and better integrate CIAM with the rest of your organization’s technology:
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Implement a single comprehensive suite. High-maturity organizations in our study cited purchasing a single comprehensive suite that covers all their CIAM requirements as the number one way they have improved the integration of their CIAM within the rest of their tech stack. Additionally, those organizations rated working to better integrate CIAM tools as the top way in which they’ve improved efficiency. Our study revealed a significant shift among high-maturity organizations towards integrated comprehensive CIAM suites. Fifty-five percent of high-maturity organizations using commercial CIAM solutions have a system comprised of various point solutions, but only 33% say this represents their ideal state. Having a single, comprehensive suite with well-integrated tools improves efficiency, reduces fraud, and helps make the system seamless and user-friendly.
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Communication matters. Both technical and operational improvements are necessary to optimize your CIAM solution. Ensuring you have strong lines of communication between IT, marketing, security, and any other department that touches CIAM will lead to a more wholistic view of CIAM processes. Increased visibility can, in turn, lead to improved efficiency and better integration of CIAM into the rest of the technology stack.
Your two highest maturity areas are:
Your two lowest maturity areas are:
Our data revealed that firms with low-maturity CIAM offerings saw significantly fewer benefits from their CIAM systems than their high-maturity counterparts.
Base: 134 US-based marketing/CX decision-makers responsible for their organizations' CIAM solutions at B2C-focused enterprises
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of IBM, November 2021
Medium Maturity
Your score means your CIAM IT maturity has progressed to the intermediate level (to see where your organization is in terms of CIAM maturity from a security and marketing perspective, we recommend sending this tool to colleagues in those departments). Here are a few key steps to improve operational efficiency and better integrate CIAM with the rest of your organization’s technology:
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High-maturity organizations in our study cited purchasing a single comprehensive suite that covers all their CIAM requirements as the number one way they have improved the integration of their CIAM within the rest of their tech stack. Additionally, those organizations rated working to better integrate CIAM tools as the top way in which they’ve improved efficiency. Our study revealed a significant shift among high-maturity organizations towards integrated comprehensive CIAM suites. Fifty-five percent of high-maturity organizations using commercial CIAM solutions have a system comprised of various point solutions, but only 33% say this represents their ideal state. Having a single, comprehensive suite with well-integrated tools improves efficiency, reduces fraud, and helps make the system seamless and user-friendly.
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Exchange risk scores between your CIAM solution and your enterprise fraud management solution to get a broader and more accurate picture of cyber and transactional risks.
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Leverage APIs, SDKs, and prebuilt connectors.
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Put a governance model in place for CIAM with oversight and accountability.
Your two highest maturity areas are:
Your two lowest maturity areas are:
High Maturity
Congratulations, your score means your CIAM IT maturity is advanced (to see where your organization is in terms of CIAM maturity from a security and marketing perspective, we recommend sending this tool to colleagues in those departments)! There are, however, always opportunities to improve your CIAM system. For high-maturity organizations, we recommend the following for IT decision-makers interested in improving the operational efficiency and integration of CIAM with the rest of their organization’s technology:
- Feed all CIAM data into a SIEM/security analytics solutions.
- Consume threat feeds in CIAM solutions’ policies to drive decisions (e.g., disallow customer login from a bad IP address.)
- Ensure that all geographies and properties are protected by an active-active, highly available CIAM solution.
- Use virtual and meta directories in a merger/acquisition or customer identity migration.
- High-maturity organizations in our study cited purchasing a single comprehensive suite that covers all their CIAM requirements as the number one way they have improved the integration of their CIAM within the rest of their tech stack. Additionally, those organizations rated working to better integrate CIAM tools as the top way in which they’ve improved efficiency. Our study revealed a significant shift among high-maturity organizations towards integrated comprehensive CIAM suites. Fifty-five percent of high-maturity organizations using commercial CIAM solutions have a system comprised of various point solutions, but only 33% say this represents their ideal state. Having a single, comprehensive suite with well-integrated tools improves efficiency, reduces fraud, and helps make the system seamless and user-friendly.
Your two highest maturity areas are:
Your two lowest maturity areas are:
Recommendations - Ideal System
You prioritized operational efficiency higher than your peers. Although this competency is important, keep in mind that CIAM is most successful when security, IT, and marketing teams are effectively collaborating and all organizational needs are being met. In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
You prioritized integration with other technology in the organization higher than your peers. Although this competency is important, keep in mind that CIAM is most successful when security, IT, and marketing teams are effectively collaborating and all organizational needs are being met. In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
You prioritized both operational efficiency and the integration with other technology in the organization higher than your peers. Although these competencies are important, keep in mind that CIAM is most successful when security, IT, and marketing teams are effectively collaborating and all organizational needs are being met. In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
Your prioritization shows an even distribution, signifying you are prioritizing the needs of departments other than your own. This is great! In fact, our data revealed that organizations where security, marketing, and IT teams all participate in decision-making efforts were 70% more likely to be high maturity. We found significantly better working relationships amongst CIAM decision-makers at high-maturity organizations.
Recommendations - Uptime Rate
Your firm
Your CIAM uptime rate is lower than average, which means your organization is risking overly high expenses as well as lost business from CIAM outages. We recommend the following to help improve CIAM reliability and uptime:
- Script and version control all CIAM policies, treating them as infrastructure as code (IAC).
- Use low-code/no-code CIAM solutions to minimize long-term technical debt accumulation.
- Use only standard protocols, e.g., SAML, OIDC, OAuth2, etc., and resist the temptation to create one-off, in-house-built solutions.
- Use CIAM orchestration and implement all CIAM services as loosely coupled API calls.
- Work to make sure your CIAM tools are as well integrated as possible.
- Work on ensuring efficiency between the various departments touching CIAM.
- Ensure your organization has a process and regular cadence to identify and patch or fix misconfigurations/bugs.
- Ensure that your CIAM system is well integrated. A single comprehensive suite that covers all CIAM requirements is the most effective form of this.
Your CIAM uptime rate is right around average based on our study. In order to ensure your organization isn’t incurring unnecessary expenses or losing business from CIAM outages, we recommend the following to help improve CIAM reliability and uptime:
- Script and version control all CIAM policies, treating them as infrastructure as code (IAC).
- Use low-code/no-code CIAM solutions to minimize long-term technical debt accumulation.
- Use only standard protocols, e.g., SAML, OIDC, OAuth2, etc., and resist the temptation to create one-off, in-house-built solutions.
- Use CIAM orchestration and implement all CIAM services as loosely coupled API calls.
- Work to make sure your CIAM tools are as well integrated as possible.
- Work on ensuring efficiency between the various departments touching CIAM.
- Ensure your organization has a process and regular cadence to identify and patch or fix misconfigurations/bugs.
- Ensure that your CIAM system is well integrated. A single comprehensive suite that covers all CIAM requirements is the most effective form of this.
Your CIAM uptime rate is higher than average based on our study, which is great! In order to continue to improve efficiency and reliability and separate your organization from its peers, we recommend the following:
- Script and version control all CIAM policies, treating them as infrastructure as code (IAC).
- Use low-code/no-code CIAM solutions to minimize long-term technical debt accumulation.
- Use only standard protocols, e.g., SAML, OIDC, OAuth2, etc., and resist the temptation to create one-off, in-house-built solutions.
- Use CIAM orchestration and implement all CIAM services as loosely coupled API calls.
- Work to make sure your CIAM tools are as well integrated as possible.
- Work on ensuring efficiency between the various departments touching CIAM.
- Ensure your organization has a process and regular cadence to identify and patch or fix misconfigurations/bugs.
- Ensure that your CIAM system is well integrated. A single comprehensive suite that covers all CIAM requirements is the most effective form of this.
Next Steps
Compare results with your colleagues
Thank you for taking the time to complete this assessment! We strongly recommend sending this assessment to your colleagues in Security and IT and comparing results! Thank you for taking the time to complete this assessment! We strongly recommend sending this assessment to your colleagues in Marketing and IT and comparing results! Thank you for taking the time to complete this assessment! We strongly recommend sending this assessment to your colleagues in Marketing and Security and comparing results!
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Methodology And Disclaimer
Methodology And Disclaimers
Methodology
Methodology
In this study, Forrester conducted an online survey of 600 US-based marketing/customer experience, security/privacy, and IT decision-makers to evaluate the current state of their organization’s customer identity and access management (CIAM) solution(s). The study was completed in November 2021.
Disclaimers
Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this assessment, IBM and Forrester are unable to accept any legal responsibility for any actions taken on the basis of the information contained herein.