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Identity: The Source of Truth for Organizations Today

I talk about identity day-in and day-out with our employees, customers, partners and investors, so it’s easy to fall into the common tech industry habit of seemingly endless acronyms and jargon. But in reality, identity is simple. Before I explain, let me take you on a trip down SailPoint’s memory lane. We’ve been at this identity business for about 14 years now and our commitment to innovation shines through every step of the way.

We started this company because we saw a true business need, as organizations were struggling to govern and manage a growing number of identities in the workplace. In the days before identity governance was born, organizations used manual methods like spreadsheets and homegrown methods to do so. Even today, some organizations are still using these antiquated systems and manual techniques, leaving gaping holes in their security and compliance programs and living with serious business inefficiency in the process.

While SailPoint has continued to evolve over the years to meet the needs of our customers and the changing business environment, our focus on identity has never wavered. It is our belief that identity is power. And as we continually hear from our customers, identity is critical to their success as they embrace digital transformation and all that it entails, whether they’re encountering the changing landscape of users or the explosion of applications and data.

The one constant that remains amid all of these changes is identity. And that’s why I firmly believe that identity must be managed by a single system of record for organizations today. What about Active Directory, you ask? While many people assume that Active Directory already functions as the system of record for organizations today, it simply doesn’t serve that role for large and/or older organizations that rely on home-grown and legacy systems. Because Active Directory is part of the landscape, but not the entire landscape, for most enterprises, it can’t function as the system of record the same way that an identity governance system can.

There is also a common misconception that access management can fulfill this role. But while access management provides much-needed convenience and enhanced productivity for the workplace, it’s not enough when it comes to securing users, who have largely become the new enterprise security perimeter. Identity governance drives efficiency but importantly, identity governance addresses security, risk and compliance, allowing IT teams to manage and govern users’ access to ALL applications and data, putting appropriate policies in place as they move throughout the organization.

In today’s complex, hybrid IT environment, identity is the only thing tying a user to their different devices, applications, data and activity within the organization. If IT teams can have full visibility and control over the identities in their organizations – including their access to applications and data – through a comprehensive identity governance strategy, they’re well on their way to securing their organizations.

Identity governance is the only way to address today’s increasingly complex IT environment, providing the visibility and security organizations need when dealing with:

  • More workplace users than ever before, going beyond employees to contractors, suppliers, business partners and even software bots
  • Thousands of on-premises, cloud and SaaS applications
  • Mission-critical data that is increasingly being shared, stored, and accessed outside of structured systems in tools like SharePoint, Box and DropBox.

SailPoint’s vision is for identity to be the single source of truth for organizations today, ensuring they have visibility and control over all of these important factors. Identity has never been so strategically important. It has absolutely become a board-level priority today. As the importance of identity increases in organizations, SailPoint’s approach will remain the same. We’re here to continually drive innovation in identity so our customers can efficiently and securely manage their digital identities and embrace digital transformation with confidence.


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