The Cloud Can Cost You, But You Can Manage And Automate Any Technology Troubles
By Dean Wiech, managing director, Tools4ever
Cloud applications are implemented as a means to create more organizational efficiency and as a solid business case for saving time and money. What many leaders often overlook is the need for some type of technology solution to support these applications in the background for their use to be successful. Thus, without some way to properly manage cloud apps, leaders are spending a good bit of time and money manually managing these processes rather than saving the previously stated time and resources.
A manual IT process is time consuming, repetitive, and often tedious. Movement of employees within an organization can lead to making required changes as needed to handle their new responsibilities. This can require a full-time IT admin — or more — to handle these tasks. These IT teams can quickly become overwhelmed with calls for changes to accounts for all employees changing roles and responsibilities. Leaving things this way means less time for employees to handle more technical or important projects.
If the cloud is not managed correctly, the technology can cost organizations more time and money than originally anticipated. And users want to be able to access what they need and have any disruptions to access handled in a timely fashion so they can get on with their work. Contacting helpdesks and IT admins for assistance to simple problems, like resetting passwords, is a major time drain, especially if the process is manual for all parties involved.
Why Organizations Are Hesitant
Organizational leaders are hesitant to move from their manual processes because many solutions that first delivered account management assistance often required large-scale implementations that came at a large cost, took a great deal of time to implement, and never seemed to work as advertised. Managing the process manually is time consuming for everyone and costs a lot of money, especially when paying highly-technical employees who could be using their time to work on other more pressing projects.
Most access management technologies allow for the ability to choose exactly which modules are needed so users do not need to purchase an enterprise solution if that is not needed. With customization, you can determine exactly what is required in a technology package which drastically reduces both the cost and the time to implement. This allows even smaller organizations to benefit from automated access solutions.
Access governance of cloud applications can be automated allowing for the synchronization of an HR system, for example, to the systems and applications an organization uses. Any change made in the HR system is automatically reflected in all connected systems. When a newly hired employee starts at the organization, he or she is simply added to the HR system and all downstream accounts are automatically generated. Likewise, when an employee moves departments or changes roles, the HR system notifies the other systems of the change as appropriate.
Under such a model, a quality workflow management process can be created. By using a web portal, employees can request additional access rights to their current applications or even new applications. A workflow is set up so that when a user requests a change, the request goes through a predefined sequence of people who need to approve it before the change is implemented. A workflow process can be created however a user likes so that, depending on the user and what he or she needs, the process goes through a specific sequence with no need to contact a manager or follow up on a request. Employees can access the web portal and see exactly where the request stands and what steps still need action.
Admins can easily manage user accounts or even delegate the task to less experienced employees so highly-skilled staff can work on technically challenging projects or problems. For users, team members can gain any access needed efficiently without contacting an admin. With the use of a portal in the workflow management module, users can request any changes as needed. Finally, users are able to realize the benefits of cloud access governance applications without the need to focus on the manual tasks of creating, disabling or making changes to user access.