{"id":34257,"date":"2020-04-06T16:00:03","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T16:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/blog\/?p=90852"},"modified":"2020-04-06T16:00:03","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T16:00:03","slug":"turning-collaboration-and-customer-engagement-up-with-a-strong-identity-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/turning-collaboration-and-customer-engagement-up-with-a-strong-identity-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning collaboration and customer engagement up with a strong identity approach"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In these challenging times, it\u2019s even more apparent that modern companies are managing a blended workforce that encompasses not only their full-time staff and customers but also their contractors, consultants, subsidiaries, suppliers, partners, and soon-to-be customers. Balancing friction-less collaboration and highly targeted engagement with privacy and security is not easy, but you don\u2019t have to go it alone.<\/p>\n

Now more than ever, reusing rather reinventing is critical. When it comes to connecting to business partners or your customers, consumers, or citizens, you don\u2019t need to create an identity management solution from scratch\u2014you can leverage cloud based identity and access management (IAM) and customer IAM (CIAM) for better engagement with all of your cohorts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new world of work<\/h3>\n

Even before workers transitioned home in large numbers, IT leaders were facing rapidly transitioning work models<\/a> fueled by an increase in remote working, freelancer exchanges and platforms, and a geographically-distributed workforce\u2014trends that are only accelerated today by the uncommon circumstances imposed by COVID-19. Concurrently, interconnected and complex supply chain bring partners and suppliers directly into the business, where closer coordination is more important than ever. To get an idea for just how \u201cinto the business\u201d that means, according to February 2020 Microsoft research, powered by Pulse, IT executives reported that 55 percent of external users outside their organizations belong to other businesses\u2014for example, commercial customers, partners, and suppliers. And 98 percent of those respondents agreed that deepening collaboration and engagement with customers and business partners is how their company will be successful.<\/p>\n

The net is that with all these entities logging into multiple corporate networks and segments, for many CISOs, \u201cinsider risk\u201d includes a much broader set of actors than just the full-time workforce. And those CISOs are very concerned about insider risk\u2014with 97 percent recently reporting that as their top concern<\/a>. That\u2019s why a flexible IAM solution is so important right now, because implemented properly, it allows companies to engage and interact effectively with all cohorts while also keeping organizations and data private and secure<\/a>. Let\u2019s take a closer look at how.<\/p>\n

Turning external collaboration up<\/h3>\n

There are many benefits of using a trusted CIAM solution, here\u2019s a short list of the ones I\u2019ve heard from CISOs are the most valuable.<\/p>\n