Top 5 Mistakes companies do while implementing their SSO Solution

Need Analysis:

SSO is so common yet very complex. First and Foremost, you must answer two primary objectives that can make your implementation easier.

• Why your organization needs the SSO solution?
• What are your goals in implementing SSO?

SSO will be implemented across the organization involving multiple applications and impacting both internal and external business users. Every business unit will have different requirements and understanding. Without this common objective across the board, you will be finding so many surprises and roadblocks throughout the project, although it is sponsored by the senior leadership. Hence, educating and getting initial sign off across all business units will make you SSO implementation a lot smoother.

Effort and Skills Assessment:

Next is the Prerequisites in implementing SSO in your organization. You can’t hire the person just because he/she has a good product knowledge in SSO. An SSO implementation requires a variety of skills combined to face any roadblocks. Thus, a team with diverse skills with a required budget makes your project sail safely through a storm.

Preparedness of various internal teams:

Because any SSO solutions will touch various applications across the organization. An internal team in your organization must be involved for the project to be successful else it may turn out to be a game of tug of war leading to unexpected delays.

Choice of the solution:

Sometimes the customer may have a clear understanding of what they want to accomplish, yet they may not be aware of the products available in the market. Sales pitch from product vendors are often overwhelming, choosing the right one is a challenging part. Customers need to investigate their needs, integration readiness, ongoing maintenance, product support, future direction and other security product incompatibilities before making a product choice. A right choice makes a right path.

Choice of the Vendor:

Many customers in our experience, toggle between implementing with internal administrators, hiring consultants and outsourcing to an outsourcing company. Many SSO projects cancelled after spending so much of money, time and resources because of the lack of ownership from anyone. Picking a vendor to have a clear understanding of SSO solutions that you are going to implement, through product knowledge, integration expertise and administration expertise of all involved applications will make your SSO journey a great experience. Also, they should be able to clearly communicate across the business and IT teams. Otherwise, pointing fingers at each other will kill the experience.  You need an IAM partner not a vendor.