Top 5 Benefits of Automated Provisioning in 2024

The provisioning of identity and access management (IAM) starts with onboarding. It requires permission grants by IT staff, steady updates, and consistent checks for each account created. However, the increasing number of employees in a business can turn IAM into a challenge.

Handling the provisioning process manually can delay business processes. Manual provisioning of IAM is prone to errors, subject to security risks, and time-consuming.

Like other IT processes, identity and access management can also benefit from automation to overcome the inefficiency of manual provisioning. Automated provisioning offers a lot of benefits to enterprises and streamlines IAM processes.

Investing in automated provisioning can minimize errors, eliminates security risks, and improves efficiency. This article focuses on five ways automated provisioning simplifies IAM processes.

What is automated provisioning?

Automated provisioning refers to the automated practices of managing identity and access to all resources of a business. Adding, changing, and removing access to the systems, data, and applications are adjusted automatically based on the level of role. Automated provisioning also removes manual approvals such as granting and deleting permissions. Overall, automating the IAM process lightens the workload on staff, preventing delays for new employees, and boosting productivity.

1. Simplifies the process of (de)provisioning of IAM

When new employees are hired, HR teams ask IT teams to create profiles for the new employees. They also follow other steps such as granting permissions to access the applications and systems and forwarding the user credentials to employees. Manual practices of the IT staff to create profiles and add responsibilities take time and cause delays.

Figure 1: Automated provisioning flow. Source: Google

Automated provisioning with an IAM platform (Figure 1) removes manual processes. It automates the provisioning and deprovisioning of IAM. When a new employee is hired or a new application is integrated into the system, identities are created and permissions are granted automatically without help from HR or IT teams.

2. Reduces errors

In scaling enterprises, entering a large number of onboarding data can be challenging for IT teams. The manual data entry process is prone to human error and errors in entries can cause time and financial losses. 

Automated provisioning cuts manual processes such as data entry and minimizes the risk of human errors. Thanks to automated provisioning, IT teams do fewer manual entries, for example, onboarding data, and this reduces the chance of errors significantly.

3. Minimizes security risks

Automated provisioning removes inefficient workflows and automates the onboarding and offboarding in the identity management process. It monitors who has access to which platforms, applications, and data. By using automated provisioning, IT staff can easily create, change, and remove accounts from the system and ensure that the right person has the right permissions.

For example, if an employee departs from a company and if IT staff do not remove the access of the departing employee from the company systems, the employee may still have access to the company resources, exposing a critical security risk to the company. 

Automated provisioning helps IT teams remove the offboarded employee accounts from accessing company resources. As unused accounts are removed, security risks are minimized.

4. Saves time and money

Manual provisioning is costly and time-consuming. It requires IT teams to invest huge time and costs during IAM processes. Manual provisioning is especially a problem at scale.

Automated provisioning allows IT teams to manage the IAM process from a single point of control and eliminates manual processes. Operational costs and time that are invested in individual tasks can be cut. Besides, the time and costs can be saved and re-evaluated in other areas that enterprises are critical.

5. Helps onboarding employees to have a head start

Onboarding often takes a long time. Employees start work in actual terms after their user credentials are given and employee information is provisioned. Manually handling these tasks prolongs the process and delays new employees’ starting to work.

Automated provisioning helps IT teams handle provisioning fast and before an employee starts to work. Having everything ready from day one can help new employees to have a great start in their new job.

Further Reading

To learn more about automation and orchestration, feel free to read our articles:

• 6 Ways Cloud Workload Automation Transforms Your Business
• 4 Ways to Improve Your Business with Self-Service Automation
• 4 Ways to Boost IT Operations with Event-Driven Automation

If you are looking for automation and orchestration tools, you can visit our hub for the automation software landscape.

If you have other questions about automated provisioning, we can help: