Integrate external identity data with customer identity management

Customer identity management has become indispensable in our interconnected world. One of the main reasons for this is that companies are faced with a rapidly growing number of identities. To optimize the use and management of all these different identities (employees, customers, suppliers, partners), it makes sense to implement customer identity management.

In our article, we show how companies can merge their customer identities and all other external contacts using my-IAM PeopleConnect. Because the consolidation of all identity data offers great potential for using this data either for yourself or for other applications. We show how this is possible.

What is customer identity management?

We distinguish between two concepts:

• Customer Identity Management
• Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM for short)

Both concepts are a subfield of Identity & Access Management (IAM for short).

Bei CIAM focuses on the management and control of access by external persons to company applications. This means that the authentication and authorization of external users plays a crucial role. 

By contrast, customer identity management, which is the focus of this article, concentrates on the optimum integration of external customer contacts into a company’s processes. This includes

• the recording, storage and administration of customer contacts and
• all other external identities that a company maintains in various systems.

The core idea is to give employees access to all identities so that they can connect quickly.

Important: For us, customer identity management is about more than just managing customer identities. Customer data is part of a larger picture. In addition to a CRM database, companies also use many other systems that contain valuable data about external contacts. The task of customer identity management is to bundle all these identities and use them in a meaningful way.  

Why is customer identity management important?

The larger a company is, the more internal and external contacts it has. Even smaller companies sometimes have tens of thousands of contacts. And they are not in one place – they are spread all over the place!

It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of all the identity data stored in different databases. And how annoying it is to search for contact information and not find it – or to have to spend a lot of time tracking down the right contact.

So the problem is clear:

• many identities (employees, customers, partners, suppliers, personal and other contacts)
• many systems (CRM database, HR system, Entra ID, Active Directory, Outlook, other applications)
• no global directory

Customer Identity Management provides a solution: 

Customer Identity Management combines all relevant identities from different source systems and makes them available for efficient and transparent collaboration.

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Why is this important? Here are some key benefits:

Is customer identity management an addition to IAM??

Definition Identity & Access Management (IAM):

Classic Identity & Access Management (IAM) focuses mainly on the administration of employees and other internal users. It ensures that the right people within the organization have access to the right resources at the right time.

Customer Identity Management complements Identity & Access Management (IAM) with an important component:

• It opens up the view to the outside into the interconnected world of the company, which has to deal with a great many external identities.

There is a great deal of overlap between the two concepts, but the areas of application and specific requirements vary.

Customer Identity Management specifically focuses on:

• Display of the identities of external customers and all other external users, such as partners, suppliers and other contacts
• Cross-system availability of all important identity data
• Fast contact with the right contacts
• Identity management (create, edit, delete)

To put this into practice, applications such as my-IAM PeopleConnect are available.

Use and manage all identities with my-IAM PeopleConnect

We see customer identity management as an indispensable component of any digital strategy. By implementing customer identity management, you can integrate all important external identities and make them available for use and management by all employees. 

In my-IAM PeopleConnect, there are different object types for each type of identity.

Our SaaS application my-IAM PeopleConnect makes it possible to centrally consolidate, display and manage all identities using the my-IAM platform business services. This includes all types of identity:

• employees
• guests
• customers
• partners
• suppliers
• personal contacts
• other contacts

In a user-friendly app, users can immediately find, contact and update all internal and external identities. They can even create new identities.

For example, PeopleConnect pulls the contacts from the CRM system via an API interface. This means that all customers are immediately available to all users – but only if this is desired, of course. Granular authorizations can be used to restrict who can see and edit which information.

The business service my-IAM RealIdentity contains the intelligence of PeopleConnect. Here, the identities, contacts and properties are combined according to an intelligent mapping logic and made available to the my-IAM PeopleConnect app. The application is available as a Teams, Outlook or mobile app or via the web.

More about the my-IAM platform

The my-IAM platform combines all identities from different source systems and makes them usable for applications and apps of all kinds. In addition to the MS Teams-integrated solution my-IAM PeopleConnect, it includes the my-IAM RealIdentity and my-IAM RealGroup business services. 

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