What is Customer Identity and Access Management?

You might think Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) is not something you need for your enterprise. Or it’s too complicated. Or the regular “identity functions” would suffice. Or you’re still trying to wrap your head around what CIAM “really” is.

But if you’re implementing SSO for your end-users, that’s CIAM.

If you want to build a dashboard to see how your leads are going through each path of your buyer journey, that’s CIAM.

If you want to integrate multiple applications like Salesforce, Marketo or content platforms, you’re dealing with CIAM.

Customer IAM is all about putting your customers first by studying their identity data in depth. Or it’s the process of using capabilities in IAM to give your users a comprehensive digital experience. Some businesses call giving this giving their users an “omnichannel experience”. Giving a great end-user experience is what any enterprise wants to do. This paper identifies the pillars of CIAM and if you’re an advanced learner, this reference architecture will give you more context. Any business that claims to or wants “digital transformation” must make CIAM a priority in their enterprise.

Customer loyalty and retention, after all, is heavily dependent on how your users view your business and the experience you provide them. If it doesn’t, what does digital transformation even mean?