Why do so many identity management projects fail to deliver business value? The key reason is that the complexity in implementing identity management in large organizations is a business process issue, not a technology issue. If identities can’t be administered on a business as usual basis, they will become fragmented. Technology can provide the platform to run the identity management services but it cannot provide the full solution out of the box.

Processes are unique to the organization and must be defined by the organization in order to accommodate the different organizational structures, operating conditions, and security policies. Unfortunately, our experience shows, that many organizations view such projects as technology-driven rather than business process-driven.  As a result, project implementers are forced into many promises that just cannot be delivered - they can provide a technical infrastructure but not the operational business continuity so critical to effectively managing identities.  As anyone with experiences will tell you, the technical component is only 10 percent of the problem; it’s the easy part, compared to business side.  

In recent studies according to Gartner, in cases where a IAM projects failed, the inability to effectively model the key business processes and the impact of the required process changes on the business were the most common reasons cited.  Of course, there may well be a technology company with a silver bullet product to solve these identity management challenges but for the time being, technology is only a piece of the puzzle.