CIOs Globally Highlight The Need For Unified Access Management To Drive ‘Dynamic Marketplaces’

Changes in Workforce, Workplace, and Technology by 2025 Present New Challenges and Call for Innovative Solutions, According to OneLogin Survey 

OneLogin, the leader in Unified Access Management,  released a study that found the workforce, workplace, and the technologies that support them will be so different by 2025 that enterprises need to provide global access and ensure continuous uptime now. Enterprises must start addressing global digital transformation strategies, including Unified Access Management, to remain agile and relevant. OneLogin’s study of 100 CIOs of companies with at least 5,000 employees is available for download here. 

The majority of the CIOs surveyed, across the U.S., EMEA, and Asia-Pacific, agreed that the volume, complexity, and pace of business change is accelerating much faster today than at the beginning of this decade. Consequently, they recognise the need for innovative solutions to alleviate the growing access bottleneck created by the convergence of ubiquitous connectivity, large scale automation, infinite scalability and artificial intelligence. 

97 per cent of the CIOs surveyed believe technology will grow in sophistication and complexity in the next six years and that workforces will be dispersed across various geographies and time zones. Additionally: 

• 94 percent agreed the 2025 workforce will consist of both human resources and bots.
• 93 per cent said the pace of business will continue to accelerate through 2025.
• 89 per cent agree that high-performing businesses of the future will be required to leverage machine learning and AI to predict and rapidly meet the needs of their customers.
• 59.4 per cent anticipated business will evolve at least twice as fast as it does today.

The CIOs recognised that work now occurs anywhere at any time, with 58 per cent agreeing that remote working will increase significantly over the next six years. In fact, 43 per cent of employees say they work remotely at least part-time, and 69 per cent of professionals say workplace flexibility is a critical issue when evaluating potential employers. 

Highlighting a clear correlation between CIOs’ vision for digital transformation and innovative technology, alongside employee demands and company growth. Yet, the reality for many is that this digital truth is still being considered as futuristic, rather than an imminent requirement. The study also showed Unified Access Management lies at the heart of the dynamic marketplace, it is integral to centralising the management of all users, devices, and apps to provide simple and secure access in a system that is intuitive to use for everyone from the end-user to the system admin. 

“Imagine the billions of handshakes and interactions with a workforce spread around the world, requiring access to hundreds of SaaS and on-premise apps. This is where the bottlenecks are going to occur. Finding a solution will be the greatest challenge,” OneLogin Chief Product Officer Venkat Sathyamurthy said. “And this challenge is not just because of new cloud technologies. Industry research continues to confirm that organizations will operate in hybrid environments that include on-premise technologies as well. Managing both sides are key to business success.” 

CIOs largely agreed, as 85 percent of those polled said that poor access management could exacerbate that bottleneck. “In the evolving digital economy, the pace of business is critical,” Sathyamurthy said. “The challenge that we’ll face in the coming years belongs to the emerging commercial ecosystem we call the ‘Dynamic Marketplace.’ This is where the developments across workforce, workplace, and technology interact. There must be a way to manage access in the dynamic marketplace, or we’ll fail to realize the benefits it offers.” 

“Until recently, most access scenarios involved internal employees working primarily from dedicated desktop computers on the corporate network,” said Garrett Bekker, Principal Security Analyst, 451 Research. “However, modern firms will face considerable changes in the coming years and the approaches to access control will need to evolve accordingly. For example, the user community has expanded, consisting of employees, partners, contractors, consultants, customers, and, increasingly, ‘non-humans’ like bots. Further, ‘human’ users are no longer confined to their desks, but increasingly work from a variety of locations, including home offices or coffee shops, and are accessing resources that can be located virtually anywhere. Access control solutions that fail take this diversity into account will be found lacking.” 

Shams Mansoor, Manager of IT at Evernote, shares this vision and is looking ahead to manage these expectations via their partnership with OneLogin. “Here at Evernote, our workforce, workplace, and technologies are constantly evolving to keep up with the demand of our 225 million users. We believe that with OneLogin’s access management platform, we will continue to succeed for years to come through simple and secure access.”