When an employee leaves your company, HR ensures their access is revoked immediately. But what about the contractor who onboarded through a service desk ticket or the partner with a shared login? Without a trusted authoritative source, identities can linger in your environment long after they should be gone - especially those risky external and non-traditional identities. The problem? If your identity data isn’t trustworthy, neither are your access decisions.
In the world of identity security, trust is everything. Organizations rely on accurate, authoritative identity data to make critical decisions about who gets access to what, when, and for how long. But maintaining that trust requires more than good intentions; it requires rigorous management of authoritative sources.
In this post, we’ll explore why trusted, authoritative identity data is essential for modern enterprises, identify common challenges organizations face in managing diverse identity types, and discuss how Saviynt can fill critical gaps to ensure your data is always reliable.
An authoritative source serves as a trusted repository for data about an identity. Continuous referencing of this trusted source by identity management systems ensures that user information is accurate, up-to-date, and consistent across all systems. Traditionally, HR systems have fulfilled this role for employee data, providing the foundational information needed for onboarding, provisioning, and deprovisioning access.
But the landscape of identity security is no longer confined to employees. Today’s organizations manage a diverse array of identities, including contractors, vendors, partners, and even customers. While employee data is often governed by HR systems with clearly defined processes, external identities often fall through the cracks.
The result? Inconsistent or fragmented data, manual errors, and, ultimately, security and compliance risks. Without a trusted authoritative source, it becomes nearly impossible to maintain reliable identity governance.
Organizations typically face the following issues when managing identity data:
These challenges result in identity sprawl, overprovisioned accounts, and compliance violations. Worse, when multiple sources of truth exist, organizations struggle to know which data can be trusted.
To build a foundation of trust, organizations must establish clear requirements for authoritative sources:
For employees, HR systems often meet these requirements. But for external identities like contractors and vendors, organizations frequently lack reliable sources, making it difficult to enforce these standards.
When traditional authoritative sources fall short—or don’t exist—Saviynt steps in to bridge the gap.
Saviynt’s External Identity Management capabilities enable organizations to centralize and enforce identity data requirements across all identity types. By acting as the authoritative source, Saviynt ensures that data meets the highest standards of accuracy, timeliness, and consistency.
Key Features that Build Trust in Identity Data:
Real-World Impact:
Organizations have used Saviynt to establish trust in their external identity data, enabling secure collaboration with contractors, vendors, and partners. Customers leverage Saviynt to enforce governance over contractors, franchisees, affiliates, vendors and the supply chain, ensuring access is provisioned and revoked based on verified, up-to-date data.
Trusted, authoritative identity data isn’t just a technical necessity—it’s a business imperative. Without it, organizations risk security breaches, compliance failures, and operational inefficiencies.
Saviynt empowers enterprises to manage identity data across all types, ensuring that access decisions are always based on accurate, reliable information. Whether you’re addressing gaps in your HR system’s coverage or managing external identities, Saviynt helps you build a foundation of trust.
Learn more about the first steps to adopting a modern and comprehensive approach to external identity management.