Tips for optimizing software in your organization: Reducing the total cost of ownership

It is generally accepted amongst security specialists that implementing identity and access management (IAM) software is one of the most effective ways to automate tasks that have traditionally been done manually by IT staff. These solutions enhance security, increases productivity and reduces IT costs. However, how are organizational leaders to know whether they are choosing the most cost-effective solutions for their organizations?

The following are some top tips to reduce the total cost of ownership of your implementations such as these, and possibly others, even further.

Optimize your features check

When comparing software functionality between vendors, it is tempting to choose a solution that has the largest and most varied functionality for what seems like a justifiable cost.

This is a trap many of us fall into as we want to get what we deem is the “most for our money.” However, in many cases, the majority of the features available are surplus to requirements. More often than not, this exhaustive range of functionality will never be used. You have, therefore, entered into a false economy by choosing what you perceived to be the best value for money. This will result in your organization paying for functions that will never be useful to you.

To ensure fast ROI and reduce overall costs, choose a software solution based on its ability to carry out the core functions needed by your organization. Focus on what you fundamentally need the solution to do, and search only for these functions when evaluating vendors. Target solutions that offer a phased approach to installation and can show good levels of connectivity with applications. This way, different functionalities can be added on at a later date when the core processes are in place.

Software offering less exhaustive features is often not only cheaper, but it is also quicker to implement, saving valuable time for the organization. With the core functions taken care of, you can quickly start seeing the benefits in terms of ROI. Most manual tasks will be automated and time can be freed up for skilled staff to be allocated to more network critical issues – speeding up long-term projects and ensuring the network is run smoothly and securely.

As such, senior IT staff will likely be more encouraged as they will likely be more challenged by their work, leading to higher levels of productivity from them.

Using user management software like, Tools4ever’s UMRA has benefited Oxford University Press as this technology has taken over the manual user management task that previously took up a great deal of time for the IT department. For example, to manually modify and update employees entering the organization, leaving the organization or transferring between departments, it would have had to employ someone full time to manage these simple processes. This was neither practical nor economical for Oxford University Press. Now, UMRA takes care of these tasks and the employees allocated to account management to more crucial and engaging tasks.

Reduce professional services costs

When mapping out timelines for your software implementation, there is a tendency to focus on how much the interim procedures put in place whilst the installation is on-going will cost — any extra internal resources that will be required, costs incurred by keeping staff on while the solution is put in place, costs incurred by skilled staff not being able to work on more complex matters, etc.

However, we often neglect to pay attention to the professional services costs. The longer the implementation takes (and usually the more complex the process), the more these costs will mount up. Underestimating the total outlay for professional services can lead to the whole implementation becoming a great deal more costly than originally budgeted.

Dealing with vendors with a more customer-focused ethos is a good way to solve this issue. Companies of this nature are more likely to offer discounts and bundles with their software and professional services costs. Seeking out vendors who use approaches, such as the rapid application development methodology is another way to reduce this outlay. Vendors using this type of approach often strike a better balance between the planning and installing phases of your implementation, meaning they do not spend months and months planning, but try to limit this stage to get your installation underway faster, usually by implementing in a test environment.

Conclusion 

Completely comprehensive implementations that tick every possible box are not only often unnecessary from the outset in terms of functionality and they also take a long time to implement, meaning contingency plans have to be put in place whilst waiting for the complete solution and professional services costs begin to mount up.

A solution that allows for a phased approach — i.e. for core features/functions critical to your business to be implemented within a short space of time and less critical applications and features to be added on at later phases — will help reduce your overall spend as there can be more flexibility with budgets and timings.

For more information, please visit our website. 

Banks and others accounting for BYOD

Banks and credit unions, like many other non-financial organizations, are quickly realizing the benefits of implementing bring your own device (BYOD), primarily because of the many benefits that BYOD provides both the organization and its employees. Of course, a main benefit that financial institutions see from implementing BYOD is lower costs associated with purchasing a large number of computers or tablets. Employees are able to bring and use their own devices and register them with the company’s network.

Most of this kind of technology is current only for a short period of time and then becomes obsolete, in need of replacement or vulnerable to attack because of out of date operating systems and software. By allowing employees to bring and use their own devices in the workplace, they are able to ensure their own technology is up to date without the organization constantly incurring the costs for new devices and upgrades. An additional benefit is that end users are most comfortable with using their own devices—which can translate to more efficient workers—and saves financial institutions from the need to provide any user or system training.

Though BYOD may lower costs of technology and increase productivity (that’s always been the BYOD argument), if not implemented correctly a BYOD program can easily turn into a mess of a headache for information technology, human resources and other departments because of security issues, which result in higher costs and vulnerabilities to organizations and can lead to an increase of internal time and support resources.

When BYOD is first implemented, IT must establish how it will address the influx of new devices being used within the company’s network. Of course, this can be extremely time consuming since each device has to be added to the network manually. This also affects HR since they’ll be in charge of managing the provisioning and user account set up for each of these devices.

If not handled correctly, BYOD can lead to numerous security risks. Since the employee owns the device, once they leave the organization they keep their device, allowing them to potentially continue accessing company data. Companies need to ensure that when an employee leaves they no longer have access to the organization’s network and data, simple as that.

Because of these potential issues, one of the most important success factors often discussed about implementing BYOD is setting rules and criteria for employees using their own devices. By establishing a policy from the beginning, employees will know exactly what is expected from them, alleviating the confusion about what is expected if they participate in the program. This also allows the organization to define any repercussions should employees misuse or take advantage of the use of the BYOD policy, as well as establish guidelines for how IT and HR should handle BYOD devices.

That said the following are the bare minimum criterion that should be placed in any BYOD policy.

Set guidelines for the types of devices allowed
One of the top issues with BYOD is that there are many different types, brands and operating systems for the multitude of devices that have flooded the market. When employees register their device with the company, they then expect the IT department to support it and resolve any issues with it, which can result in a technical nightmare. Each bank, credit union or financial institution needs to determine from the outset which types and brands of devices are going to be supported.

Establish a process for disabling users
Allowing employees to use their own devices can lead to a security risk once the employee is no longer with the company. Organizations need a system in place to ensure that once the employee leaves, their account is automatically disabled. Many credit unions and banks use an automated account management solution that allows managers to easily disable the user from all systems and applications with just one click, ensuring that the network stays secure.

Security for compliance and audit needs
It is important that the organization ensures that BYOD also meets audit and compliance needs. The organization needs a system for recording any actions and keeping access records. Identity and access management solutions can help the organization ensure that its device users only have access to the systems and applications they are supposed to. This information can then also be easily accessed when it comes to audit time.

By properly ensuring the BYOD policy for the organization and end user from the beginning, banks and credit unions can hopefully avoid the many issues that can occur along the way. This allows them to receive the full benefits of implementing BYOD at their organization.

For more information, please visit our website, www.tools4ever.com .

Virtual Desktops: Healthcare’s Next Highly Unsecure Convenience

Virtual desktops have a place, and they can be very useful for a number of environments across a number of sectors. They allow for a variety of users to log in and work from a single computer or work station, allowing the user to interface with his or her systems in a virtualized environment — which is stored on a remote server rather than on a local machine – but these environments separate the physical machine from their software and present an isolated operating system for users.

Therefore, the use of virtual desktops is fairly common in healthcare as hospitals continue to seek solutions that create efficiencies; in this case, an environment where doctors are moving from room to room and need to work from different computers in different locations.

While virtual desktops as a concept can be beneficial to an organization, if used alone they can produce a variety of issues and limitations for those using them. For example, using hospital employees as an example again, as a group they tend to move from work station to work station frequently, logging into their applications and systems on a variety of workstation and switching between computers. Do so each time an employee switches computers is a major inconvenience, not to mention time consuming. Further, new and ever-changing regulations may prohibit the use of any type of shared account commonly found in a virtual desktop environment. For this reason, this is why many organizations have realized that the benefits of a virtual desktop can be made even greater if used in conjunction with a single sign-on or other automated access management solution.

The use of the virtual desktop continues to grow, however. As proof, in a 2012 study conducted by Spiceworks, more than 60 percent of organizations said they planned to roll out or evaluate desktop virtualization in the near term. Many also have or want to implement a single sign-on solution in conjunction with virtual desktops. The reasons for this are many.

Easy Movement

In healthcare, especially, clinicians need quick access to their computers and work stations. While a virtual desktop allows them the ability to easily move around to different rooms on their rounds, there’s usually quite a bit of wasted time because caregivers need to repeatedly log in to numerous applications. Anything that slows down the log in process can have a negative impact on patient care. Single sign-on solutions mitigate this issue, allowing end users the ability to provide their access credentials a single time and automatically be authenticated each time a program is launched. So, when an employee moves to another workstation in the hospital, they simply need to enter only one set of credentials and have access to everything they need to perform their jobs from that point for the remainder of their shift. 

Government Regulation

Another issue that many healthcare organizations may face in with virtual desktop environment is that employees often have share accounts on them, which can lead to HIPAA violations. Of course, HIPAA requires that healthcare organizations show exactly who has access to secure data, as well as ensures that this data is protected and kept safe. Additionally, health systems also must track who exactly is accessing secure and protected information and who is entering a system or retrieving information and making changes to the data, including patient information. 

Because of this, hospitals must eliminate all shared accounts to determine who is making changes where and to what information in the record. Single sign-on technology can assist with managing this process by allowing the users to use their own log in — which can be catalogued and tracked for auditing purposes — all the while only requiring them to remember a single set of access credentials. 

Increased Productivity

Another reason that health systems implement sing sign-on alongside their virtual desktops is because they have seen an increase in productivity overall. End users are able to quickly access what they need to complete their work, without needing to repeatedly log in to each system and application. For example, the log in process becomes even more of a hassle when a user forgets a password to one of his or her applications and is locked out of an account. Single sign-on applications make it much easier for users to remember their credentials, as previously discussed, since they only are required to know one set instead of several sets of complicated user names and passwords. This alone can save users a tremendous amount of time each day. 

Security

Lastly, single sign-on can make a virtual desktop more secure. The solution can be paired with two-factor authentication to add an additional layer of security. Two-factor authentication requires users to enter a PIN as well as present their access badge to access the computer or workstation. This ensures that the user is who they claim to be. 

Overall, virtual desktops, in conjunction with single sign-on, are able to help organizations protect their data, set parameters for who has access to it and meet the burden of regulation while also increasing organizational productivity including providing users with fast and secure, access to systems and applications used throughout the workday; especially important to those providing care to patients.

For more information, please visit our website - www.tools4ever.com . 

5 Ways to Know You Need an IAM Solution

Implementing an identity and access management solution scares many organizations’ IT leaders and their CEOs for a variety of reasons. Though doing so does cost money, the expense of doing so is probably not as much as if saved because of resulting employee efficiencies among other savings factors. Cost and investment are only a small factor to be considered.

Every organization must address password and account management issues. They can be overlooked, of course, and assigned to be managed by IT departments as they arise, but usually in every organization, there is a certain point where the problems created by poor access and identity management procedures interferes with productivity in an overwhelming fashion and begins to cost the organization unneeded time and money. That’s when it becomes a major issue.

So how do you know when it gets to this point and when your organization needs an IAM solution? The following are five ways that you know an IAM solution is needed to improve processes.

1. An abundance of calls to the helpdesk

Whether it is password or access issues, when your helpdesk is receiving an overload of calls each day, the amount of time spent managing the process and time wasted by employees to re-gain access to their accounts can have a devastating effect on the productivity of the end user. Contacting the helpdesk, staring a new ticket and solving the account and password issue is time consuming and an extreme annoyance when an end user is in the middle of something; especially if they are with a customer at the time they are locked out.

2. Full-time employee for account management

Many organizations need to hire a full-time employee just to handle provisioning accounts and making account changes. If this is a full-time position at your company it is because you are handling the account management process manually, which is time consuming and prone to error, not to mention, it is very expensive to hire someone to do these manual tasks full time.

3. Employees don’t have all their accounts created on first day of employment

If you have employees who, on their first day of employment, cannot start working because of lack of access to the systems and applications they need, this is shows an inefficient process. It usually takes up to a week for a new employee to have all the correct access they need, which is a monumental loss of productivity, time and money.

4. Users are accidentally left active after they are no longer with the organization

Often, when employees leave an organization, disabling their accounts is overlooked and they are left active on the organization’s network. Though this is easy to overlook, it can create a security risk. Once an employee leaves, their access should automatically be disabled so they are no longer able to retrieve anything in the organization’s network.

5. Each system or application has different employee information

If each of your organization’s systems and applications has different employee information, this can be a difficult environment to manage, especially when trying to keep all data in sync. Each system needs to have the most current and correct employee information. When an employee gets married and changes their last name, for example, changing this information in each system can take a great deal of time and easily be overlooked.

Are any of these happening at your organization? If your organization deals with one or more of these issues, you may benefit from an IAM solution. So, even though implementing the solution can be scary, the process is actually a lot easier than dealing with issues that are already occurring on a basis, and can save your organization time in the long run.

For more information, please visit our website - www.tools4ever.com .