Changing Identity Governance Vendors Can Be a Difficult Decision

Your organization has already spent a lot of time and money trying to make the current solution work. You’ve invested a lot to integrate the solution into your application environment. You’ve trained your IT staff and end users on how to use the solution and don’t want to face retraining them.

But some situations make it almost mandatory to change identity governance vendors. At the end of the day, this is a business decision based on the facts. You invested in your identity solution to
solve specific business problems, strengthen security and improve operational efficiency. If your current solution is not addressing these core needs, you need to move to a solution that will. How do you know when it’s time to make a change?

Your Return on Investment (ROI) is Unacceptable

When it comes to assessing the business value you’re getting from your current identity solution, don’t pull any punches. Take the time to compile a realistic measure of how you’re doing vs. your initial goals for the project. Many companies never get close to their original goals as identity programs get bogged down with cost, complexity and customization. Begin with simple metrics: How many applications are being managed by your current solution? Does this include all your missioncritical applications? Are you able to systematically provision birthright accounts, entitlements, and roles for every on-boarding user? Are you automating password management for the majority of your end user applications?

To get to the real ROI, you’ll need to dig a little deeper: What is the total cost of ownership of your identity solution system?

To calculate this, you should consider:
• Licensing costs
• Maintenance and upgrades
• Consulting fees
• Professional services
• Internal identity staff

What quantifiable benefits have you achieved? Consider areas such as:
• Lower cost of compliance
• Reduced IT and helpdesk costs
• Improved end user productivity

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then it’s time to find out. Look at staffing trends, on-boarding and off-boarding metrics and compliance metrics. You’ll learn a lot about how your identity program is performing. Lastly, don’t forget opportunity cost. If you stay with your current identity solution and you’re unable to address pressing business needs, what is it costing you? Is the cost to renew, maintain and potentially even upgrade your existing solution higher than what it would cost to switch to a better alternative? Are there real benefits that you could gain by changing vendors; what are they worth? If your current identity solution is under-performing, that opportunity cost could be a very big number.

Your Current Identity Provider Has Been Acquired or is Merging with Another Company

While the announcement of a company acquisition or merger can be exciting for some, it often can bring a feeling of anxiety for a customer of either company. The future becomes unclear as to what will happen: whether either company’s product will be available or maintained, or if you’ll be forced to migrate to another product altogether. Your organization’s security shouldn’t be up in the air. If your current provider can’t tell you what’s happening in the next few months, how you’ll be supported as a customer, and what the merger means for both you and the product, it’s time to start looking for a more stable option

Your Current Vendor Doesn’t Provide the Integration and Innovation Needed to Future Proof your Identity Solution

While many vendors include a base list of third-party integrations and connectivity for their solutions, they can sometimes charge exorbitant fees for the development and deployment of additional integrations that you need for your identity governance program. Other vendors may leave you to your own devices, forcing you to have your own development team create a connection point and hope that it works successfully with your system. Does your current identity solution integrate with all of your key systems, applications, file shares and cloud infrastructures across your hybrid environment so that your business can take confidence in a complete identity governance solution?

You should also ask your existing vendor how important identity governance is to their product line and go-to-market strategy. Is it something that they are heavily invested in, or is identity governance just a small product line that is offered in addition to other products and services that take a higher priority in terms of development and innovation? Does your current provider have a laser focus and broad innovative view of what identity governance encapsulates including data files, RPAs/bot identities and a rapidly growing AI identity governance capability? Is this the solution that is going to take your organization into the future and feel safe getting there?

Your Existing Vendor is Forcing You to Migrate to a New Architecture

When your identity governance vendor has “re-architected” its solution and all future investment will be allocated to this new offering, it’s a tough dilemma to face. Unfortunately, implementing the new architecture will require an expensive and timeconsuming migration project. You will, in essence, have to start over: rebuilding and re-implementing functionality such as custom user interfaces, policies, workflows and resource connectors.

The reality is that migrating to your existing vendor’s new architecture will require a “rip-and-replace” of your current identity solution. Instead, reevaluate your options and make the best choice for your business going forward by not assuming the best decision is sticking with your current vendor. In many cases, you will be better off switching to an identity governance vendor with a proven product and satisfied customers, rather than risking your business on new architecture.

Your Vendor’s Customer Satisfaction and Retention Ratings Are Very Low

It’s important to remember that when you choose an identity solution, you don’t just buy a product, you buy a company. If you’re not getting the level of service you expect from your current vendor, the causes could be many. Perhaps your vendor is reducing its investment in identity governance in favor of other products in its portfolio. Maybe the vendor is overwhelmed with product quality problems or the company is suffering from internal issues such as high employee turnover or layoffs. Whatever the reason, the bottom line is that your vendor is not investing in your – or other customers’ – success.

You should broaden your perspective by doing some research on your current identity vendor. Talk to other customers that you’ve met at user conferences or trade shows and ask about their satisfaction levels. Make use of analyst firms like Gartner or Forrester. In the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), Gartner shares customer satisfaction ratings for the major vendors. To go deeper, schedule an analyst consultation and get more details about each vendor’s customer satisfaction and retention scores.

Bottom line: don’t accept poor customer support as the norm. Your company deserves better and other options are out there.

You Don’t Have Visibility into All Your Systems

Legacy identity solutions are limited in their availability to integrate with all the systems you use in the organization. In order for you to be the most secure and know exactly “who has access to what,” you need to implement a governance-based solution. This type of system can holistically see all data about your identities to make decisions easier, more efficient and most importantly, mitigate risk to the business.

Your Solution Has Been Moved to “End-of-Life” (EOL) Status

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s not uncommon for organizations to stick with an identity solution for months, sometimes years, after it has been moved to “EOL.” Many organizations are reluctant to sign up for the migration effort and are worried about business disruption. At the end of the day, though, you need to ask yourself: what is the strategic price you are paying to stay with software that has no future?

At a minimum, you’re giving up software updates and upgrades. Your software, which may already be a few years old, won’t keep pace with today’s changes. Identity requirements are constantly evolving, so how will you cope when your solution can’t manage cloud apps or unstructured data, handle mobile and social requirements, or meet new security and privacy mandates? At a more tactical level, to whom will you turn when your vendor no longer supports new releases of managed applications?

While you paid maintenance for all those years (and may still be paying for extended support), no one is going to respond to your requests for enhancement. While you may still get defect fixes, they will be few and far between.

The time to change is now.

Don’t let inertia keep you trapped in a sub-optimal identity program. It’s time to step forward with predictive identity governance solutions that can get your organization back on track. You can achieve big results that will improve end user productivity, strengthen compliance and security, all while reducing IT and helpdesk operational costs.

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