What Is Access Management (AM)?

Access Management (AM) is the key to a healthy relationship. It's not just about managing passwords and security access—it's about managing the relationships that make up your business. You want to be able to authorize your employees, but you also need to know that they're not proceeding to do anything stupid or illegal in their day-to-day work. You want them to know they're valued team members and can count on your support if something goes wrong. And you want them to feel comfortable enough with you that they're willing to come right out and tell you when something isn't working out. Access management is all about balancing these needs: it gives everyone the freedom they need while keeping tabs on how they use it, and it allows you to make sure those privileges aren't abused or misused. Access management is like a VIP lounge for your business. It keeps out the riff-raff and lets in only those who deserve to be there. It's not just about letting people in or keeping them out; it's about getting the right people in and supporting the wrong people out. Access management ensures that only authorized users can access protected resources and do so within the scope of their job functions, roles, and responsibilities. Access management is integral to identity management (IDM), which creates and provides different users with appropriate roles and policies. The access control component of IDM allows you to define what each user can do with specific resources based on their role/responsibilities within your organization. For example: if someone needs access to sensitive financial data, they would need a high level of access, whereas someone who needs access to write reports might only need low-level privileges. Someone may have all the proper credentials—but if they don't have permission to access something, they're not going anywhere near it!