How Modern IGA Balances Operational Efficiency with Stronger Security

In most organizations, the focus is on efficiency; ‘keeping the lights on” and ensuring everyone has access to resources. Compliance and risk managers need to ensure they control user access securely. End users of IT infrastructure want the processes to be easy and not create access barriers that make it harder to do their jobs. Balancing these priorities is not easy, but it is not as hard as many organizations make it. In this post, we’ll explain the balance that organizations must achieve, the risks associated with doing it poorly, and how modern Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) with assistance from emerging AI technology can help.

The Cost of Unbalanced User Access Control

In today’s fast-paced business world, security often takes a backseat. Operations teams might grant too many permissions to users, which can lead to data breaches and higher cybersecurity insurance costs. However, the opposite extreme—imposing overly strict and inefficient access controls—also creates problems. This can result in increased overhead, lower productivity, and frustrating experiences for users. As more organizations shift their IT infrastructure to the cloud for its ease, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency, these access control imbalances become even more detrimental, potentially negating the very benefits the cloud offers.

While it’s true that identity is the most common target for cyberattacks, the frustration caused by inefficient user barriers poses equally serious risks. Identity is central to the delicate balance between efficiency and security that organizations must strike. Deploying modern Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) as part of a broader Identity and Access Management (IAM) strategy is crucial for achieving this balance.

Key Factors for Balanced User Access Control

Timely, Appropriate Access

Users need the right access from day one and throughout their entire journey with your organization. This means adhering to the Principle of Least Privilege, ensuring users only get the minimum access necessary to do their jobs.

Streamlined Approvals and Swift Access

Throughout the identity lifecycle, organizations should work to make requested changes happen immediately to maximize productivity. At the same time, the principle of Zero Standing Privileges must be applied, and access should only be granted after appropriate review. The approval process itself needs to be as simple as possible for the approver, and allowing users to engage with it through familiar interfaces will make it more effective.

Accurate Access

Manual provisioning is inefficient, expensive, and prone to errors. A modern IGA solution can overcome this by automatically detecting changes in user access control, implementing those changes in target systems, and updating the audit trail for compliance. Broken access control is the number one risk in the OWASP Top 10. Using a closed loop reconciliation process in a modern IGA solution to confirm access control changes makes the system materially more efficient, accurate, and secure.

Risk Mitigation

Modern IGA makes it easy to automatically identify key risk indicators, so organizations can take action and reduce the time to comply with audits. It also enables organizations to leverage all available data to automate access control and reduce the size of attack surface.

How Modern IGA Helps Balance Efficiency, Security, and Ease of Use: A Strategic Imperative

In today’s dynamic digital landscape, achieving a harmonious balance between efficiency, security, and ease of use in user access control is no longer a luxury—it’s a critical strategic imperative. The “State of Identity Governance 2025” report starkly reveals the enemy of robust identity security: complexity. This complexity, fueled by an explosion of data, applications, systems, and identities, coupled with excessive multi-cloud permissions, creates a breeding ground for security vulnerabilities and operational friction. The consequence? A staggering 40% of organizations surveyed have yet to adopt a modern SaaS-based IGA solution, and an alarming three-quarters admit to having users with unnecessary access—a prime target for attackers.

The path to overcoming these pervasive challenges and unlocking true balance lies in the intelligent application of modern Identity Governance and Administration (IGA).

The Urgency of Overcoming Common Identity Security Challenges

Organizations are grappling with:

1. An Explosion of Data: The sheer volume of applications, systems, and identities has made manual access management an impossible and error-prone task.
2. Excessive and Unused Multi-Cloud Permissions: As infrastructure migrates to the cloud, a lack of oversight leads to “permission sprawl,” where users accumulate far more access than they genuinely need, dramatically expanding the attack surface.
3. Lack of Available Intelligence, Insight, and Context: Without clear visibility into who has access to what and why, organizations operate in the dark, unable to make informed security decisions or confidently prove compliance.
4. Recertification and Approval Fatigue: Manual, repetitive access reviews across the entire user identity lifecycle lead to burnout for managers and security teams, often resulting in rubber-stamped approvals that undermine security.

These challenges aren’t just theoretical; they translate into tangible risks, including data breaches, regulatory fines, and diminished productivity.

Modern IGA: The Catalyst for Simplified Security and Enhanced Efficiency

The solution to this complexity lies in a modern, automated IGA framework. Consider this compelling real-life example:

Imagine a manager faced with the daunting task of setting up 24 new user roles, each requiring a painstaking 132 individual access review questions. This is a recipe for errors, delays, and security gaps. A modern IGA solution transforms this nightmare into an efficient process. By leveraging its capabilities, the manager can:

1. Automate Access Control: The IGA system intelligently analyzes user needs and system requirements.
2. Streamline Role Modeling: Instead of 24 discrete roles, the system helps consolidate them into just four clearly defined, logically clustered roles.
3. Reduce Review Burden: Crucially, each of these new, optimized roles now requires only eight access review questions to set up.

This isn’t magic; it’s the power of Good Role Modeling delivered by modern IGA. When applied across an entire organization, an IGA solution combined with a best-practice identity governance framework can eliminate seven out of every eight access review questions overall. This is the essence of working smarter, not harder.

The Precision and Protection of Effective Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

The example above highlights the immense value of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), a core feature of modern IGA. The more access review questions a manager must consider, the less time they can dedicate to each, leading to rushed, often inaccurate, access control decisions. RBAC fundamentally simplifies this process by:

1. Targeted Reviews: Managers can perform more focused access reviews, concentrating on the specific permissions relevant to each role.
2. Outlier Identification: It becomes easier to spot unusual or unnecessary access assignments.
3. Accurate Decisions: With less information overload, managers make more precise decisions about granting or rejecting access.
4. Reduced Attack Surface: By ensuring users have only the access they absolutely need for their roles, the overall attack surface is dramatically minimized.

Furthermore, modern IGA’s RBAC functionality provides improved visibility into role assignments through intuitive graphical dashboards and streamlines access provisioning, cutting down on manual requests. This makes access certification far more manageable and accurate.

In conclusion, the antiquated approach to user access control is a liability in today’s cloud-centric, data-rich environment. Modern IGA, with its emphasis on automation, intelligent role modeling, and robust RBAC, is not merely an IT tool; it’s a strategic investment that empowers organizations to achieve the elusive trifecta of efficiency, security, and ease of use. By embracing these capabilities, businesses can confidently navigate the complexities of identity security, reduce risk, ensure compliance, and unlock their full productive potential.

The Role of AI in Access Requests and Approvals

Automation of identity lifecycle management is the key to achieving operational efficiency while maintaining security. AI in a modern IGA solution is critical to making sense of the massive amounts of data that identities produce. The insights that AI generates enable organizations to enhance automation and gain both more efficiency and better security while dramatically reducing end user friction.

AI brings unprecedented intelligence to access request and approval processes. It analyzes the type of access requested and automatically routes it to the appropriate entity. AI also recognizes historical patterns and maps them to policies to recommend whether access should be granted or denied. Organizations can use AI capabilities in their modern IGA to apply contextual risk assessment by evaluating factors such as time, location, device, and user role associated with the request to identify potential risks and flag anomalous unusual access requests.

In role assignment processes, AI identifies patterns across users and suggests optimized roles or permissions to support the principle of least privilege and helps define appropriate access levels based on job functions or behavioral data. The continuous monitoring that AI provides enables organizations to flag and revoke unnecessary or risky access in real time as well as highlight anomalies or violations to support audit access reviews.

A modern IGA solution that can integrate AI into natural language interfaces like Microsoft Teams makes access requests and approvals dramatically simpler. Javi, Omada’s AI assistant, allows employees to request and approve access in everyday language, reducing IT overhead. Making instant requests in plain language reduces manual effort and confusion. Javi guides access requests and automatically identifies relevant apps to eliminate guesswork. It facilitates proactive approval flows and minimizes delays by scheduling reminders in Microsoft Teams. The result is fewer IT Help Desk tickets and less strain on resources.

AI in a modern IGA system accelerates access approval, helps reduce risk and meet regulatory requirements, and scales without increasing administrative burdens on an organization.

Conclusion

The pace of business isn’t slowing down to accommodate outdated, inefficient, or error-prone processes. To thrive, organizations must transform Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) from becoming a barrier to being a powerful, AI-driven, business enabler. As technology thought leaders predict that by 2028 15% of daily decisions will be made autonomously by AI, it’s clear the future demands intelligent automation.

As businesses seek to balance operational efficiency with robust security and consistently positive user experiences, clinging to legacy systems is no longer an option. They must embrace modern technology that can seamlessly navigate the complexities of digital transformation and changes in the way people work and the tools they use.

A modern IGA solution like the Omada Identity Cloud, especially when enhanced with an AI assistant and deployed following best practices, offers the crucial capabilities needed. It can automate user lifecycle management, streamline access requests and certifications, and much more. This not only shortens processing times and improves productivity, but also significantly mitigates risk – all without compromising critical business workflows.

The time to empower your business with a truly balanced, intelligent approach to user access control is now.