IdM and the Economy

I observed two comments on the recent issues in the economy and its relationship to IT initiatives.

The first was from FOX Business which I was watching during lunch today. As they were reviewing the tech stocks one of the panel said something along the lines of, 'with diminished income, companies won'y be buying a new PC for your desk this year' (paraphrased)

When will the business folks get it through their heads that there is more to IT than the computer on their desks! I mean really, even more than email, firewalls and antivirus.

IT provides some essential services for the company that can provide a definite return, either in a direct return on investment or by avoiding fines and penalties through maintaining compliance and security standards.

One person that seems to get this is Ash Motiwala. In his blog entry today, Selling Identity in an Economic Downturn, Ash hits on this directly. It's not that you are spending money, but that you are achieving ROI and Compliance initiatives.

Let us look at ROI, when we don't have to have Network, Database and Application administrators creating and modifying accounts, they can be focusing their attention on making sure their areas of responsibility are working properly. When workflows are processed automatically (save approval actions) There's no need to have admins creating badges, modifying building access, and asking what kind of equipment each employee is supposed to have. Let all of these people do what they are supposed to be doing.

Compliance is another area. Let's face it, compliance is getting more complicated and sprouting up everywhere. Government realizes that charging fines and other penalties are a great way to make money, so there's a lot of attention here. In a time of data loss and identity theft showing adherence to Compliance and other areas of Risk Management are a selling point from a company to its customers, making Identity Management initiatives even more important than ever.