On a daily basis the average person has to sign into more than a dozen apps. And while most understand that unique sign in credentials and passwords are necessary, nobody really loves them. It’s challenging managing multiple profiles, not only for individuals, but also for the IT teams overseeing networks and user profiles.
This is where the use of Single Sign On (SSO) can make a big difference to your Dallas business’ IT support needs. SSO makes your life easier by enabling users to securely access multiple apps through a single set of credentials. These credentials are authenticated by the party that holds the identity information, rather than sending data across the web. They act as a go between the user or identity provider (IdP) and the service provider (SP), which is the application or service the user wants to access.
From a user experience perspective this has multiple benefits. Especially as studies show that the average person can have up to 100 passwords! But how is SSO really accessible to the average business? In this article we outline the benefits of SSO that make the most business impact, and how this extends to your customers too.
What Takes Up the Most IT Support Time?
The costs of password resets on IT is often overlooked. Maybe because it is believed that it takes an insignificant amount of time and resources. One Forrester Report estimated a cost of at least $70 per password reset and that it often takes 30 minutes or more to implement, and that was back in 2018. Five years on, it’s guaranteed to cost significantly more.
Considering how many passwords are in use and how frequently they need to be reset manually, these costs can add up quickly.
A key benefit of SSO is that it reduces both the number of passwords required as well as the volume of sign on’s required. This increases the efficiency of both the employees and even the business owner! Those hours saved translate into operational costs saved, which can have an impact on your Dallas business’ bottom line.
Employees too can benefit from increased productivity. Working with multiple usernames and passwords to access systems slows down the work process. Even just five minutes taken to look up a password and sign onto a system adds up to hours per week spent retrieving passwords.
Every work interruption results in a loss of productivity. Mentally this also becomes a stumbling block which negatively affects your employee experience. Businesses or title companies looking to increase productivity recognize that how employees feel about work matters.
Using SSO as a solution to manage passwords can help improve both productivity and your employee engagement. This applies to new employees too – SSO makes it easier for new employees to start working quickly, because they don’t have to learn how to long into multiple disparate systems.
But there are two main benefits our team associates more strongly with SSO than just productivity…
Benefit #1: Improved Security and Compliance
Leaders are well aware of the importance of security and most invest heavily in securing their systems. Yet an industry data breach report highlights that an alarming number of breaches occur due to the human element – 74% to be exact.
Social engineering where cyber criminals gain access to employee credentials make up a large portion of that. But errors and misuse of passwords also make a contribution.
A major challenge for leaders is that when employees are required to have multiple user profiles, they often simplify and reuse the same passwords. Even worse, they may freely share these passwords with colleagues. This increases the security risk for Dallas-located IT support teams and makes their work much harder if a data breach occurs.
Implementing SSO can help overcome this challenge. With a single sign on, a more secure single profile can be created by individual employees. This means they’re less likely to share passwords with colleagues. Also, it helps increase the adoption rate of new applications. With SSO, they can use their existing profile and simply add the new application to it to gain easy access whenever they need to.
For businesses that work with sensitive customer data, like title companies, compliance can be as important as having the right security measures in place. SSO supports this by helping companies manage their access control better. It can also help prove compliance with regard to tracking activity and privacy.
Keeping ahead of security threats continues to be a challenge, as cybercriminals are constantly working on ways to breach systems and access data. Using SSO as a means to improve security and compliance is most robust when combined with additional cybersecurity solutions such as Multi-Factor Authentication.
Benefit #2: Improving collaboration and customer experience with SSO
Today, most businesses operate in the cloud, and one of the reasons for this is that it facilitates better collaboration. This is especially important when working with partners who may need access to certain systems or information. SSO can be set up for these users to access specific applications, creating a more secure way to collaborate compared to sharing information via email.
Similarly, where customers need to sign into more than one type of application, having an SSO can help improve the customer experience by making it easier for them to gain access. This has the additional benefit of alleviating the burden on IT teams and customer service teams that frequently have to handle customer access problems.
How Can I Get Started with SSO?
SSO can be a huge advantage to leaders who want to get current and new employees set up quickly and securely. But for those who may not have the in-house expertise or resources to dedicate to the project, it can be a time-consuming process.
A managed service provider such as Premier One can help your company with an SSO solution that meets your needs. With broad experience in Dallas IT support and serving a number of companies in the area, Premier One is a trusted partner in implementing SSO.
Our first action would be to partner with your IT team to understand what applications are in use, as well as how passwords are currently managed. The goal would be to deliver a solution that will make signing on much easier for your employees, partners, and customers. While we help with SSO implementation, we also provide many IT services that can make your IT environment more efficient than ever.
Learn more about our managed Dallas IT support offerings so that you can realize the multiple benefits of SSO!
