Identity management is a key issue in a world that is aggressively adopting connectivity to meet every needs. Public and private organisations are using identity management tools to give and manage access to services and entry to particular places.
Also, the world has now become more comfortable with online spending compared to some years back. Parallel to this trend, fraud has increased, seizing money in unauthorized ways.
These situations have rejuvenated the identity management market, which was experiencing sluggish growth. ABI Research forecasts 2016 to mark the market’s return to double-digit shipment growth.
Spearheaded by two eID projects set to commence this year in Japan and Bangladesh, 2015 to 2016 year-on-year market growth is on target to hit 13 percent. In all, ABI Research’s 2020 worldwide shipment forecast now stands at 777 million units.
ABI Research Senior Analyst Phil Sealy said countries like Nigeria, Ghana and Turkey are also in the race and the combined effect would be a double-digit growth in the shipment through 2018.
Main IT vendors
Over the next four years, Technavio analyst Amrita Choudhury, who specializes in IT security, expects many more vendors to begin their operations in countries such as China and India to capitalize on the attractive opportunity.
Amrita explained that investments in personal identity management solutions in India are particularly lower compared to other developing countries in the APAC region.
Most organizations, particularly SMBs, lack awareness of basic IT security systems. However, the majority of personal identity management solution providers in India are likely to improve their product portfolios and enhance their reach by the end of 2020..
Globally, CA Technologies, Dell, Emc, IBM, Oracle, Symantec, HID global are some of the leading ID market players.  In April last year, CA Technologies has received SC Magazine’s 2015 Reader Trust Award for Best Identity Management Solution. The company has a strategy to become the leader in identity and access management and authentication.
Dell proclaims to provide simplify and achieve secure access management for users and groups while controlling costs. The company recently announced that Dell One Identity Safeguard for Privileged Passwords is available through Dell Security channel partners. This is the first offering in the company’s portfolio to be available through the channel at launch.
Recent deals
In December, HID Global announced its deal to acquire IAI industrial systems (IAI), a provider of personalization solutions for identity documents.
The acquisition of IAI enables HID Global to expand its card printing / encoding solutions with the addition of centralized card personalization equipment and passport personalization capabilities for the delivery of citizen identity solutions.
In September, HID Global and SureID announced a technology alliance to provide organizations the ability to conduct identity screening, verification and credentialing for vendors, contractors and volunteers in order to increase safety and security.
In August, CA Technologies Acciona, an infrastructure, renewable energy, water and services company in Spain, has tapped CA Identity and Access Management solutions to minimize risk and address compliance requirements for its infrastructure projects.
CA Technologies said Acciona manages the identities of more than 7,000 internal employees and external supply chain partners, controlling their access to corporate applications and data. That number is expected to grow to almost 11,000.
ID market growth and outlook
IAM helps organisations to grant access to the right individuals with a number of technologies. As the world moves to digitalisation, IAM is widely adopted by large and medium-scale enterprises. This necessity opens doors for enormous possibilities for innovations and expansions in this area.
Research and Markets forecast that global Identity and access management market would grow at a CAGR of 12.9 percent over the period 2014-2019.
According to the report, increased demand from the BFSI sector is one of the key drivers of the market. This sector holds critical customer data; therefore, it needs a high level of security. Organizations in the BFSI sector adopt IAM solutions to reduce IT management costs, increase productivity, and ensure compliance.
Technavio says personal identity management solutions will gain the most traction in APAC countries until 2020.
The market in APAC is anticipated to witness impressive growth over the next four years and is likely to post a CAGR of over 35 percent, given the increased adoption of BYOD policies, cloud computing, and a growing number of internet users and hosting services.
Challenges
Challenges have always been part of any technology. In identity management, vendors face deployment and cost issues related to obtaining licenses for system design and customization, implementation, training, and maintenance.
After purchasing the license, end-users are required to hire resources for the implementation of the software, which is a major challenge for organizations, especially SMBs, in terms of costs.
Arya MM