5 Reasons Why You Should Implement Single Sign-On Process

5 Reasons Why You Should Implement Single Sign-On Process in Your Enterprise

We are surrounded by passwords and usernames. You visit a store to shop, the need for credit/ debit card PIN arises. You unlock the smartphone with a password. You access your email and other social media accounts with a username and password. Though multiple usernames and passwords provide tighter security, memorizing them is not an easy task. And the same set of login credentials for all the accounts could expose you to greater risk. What to do then? Well, this is where the super cool feature of Single Sign-On comes into play. Single Sign-On (or SSO) enables you to access a bunch of applications without having to log in at different portals. The widest application of SSO is enforced by Google. As soon you create an account on their platform (say G-Mail), you are provided direct access to a host of other applications like YouTube and Google Drive with the same username and password. In simple terms, you will not have to key-in the credentials again and again, at different portals, which reduces the risk of password breach to a great extent. A lot of enterprises (from small to medium and MNCs) rely on this secure sign up process of SSO. With hundreds to thousands of employees, it is practically impossible for them to maintain a database of multiple login credentials for every employee. Hence to simplify the process and save a lot of time, the use of SSO started gaining momentum. If you are an enterprise owner who is thinking of onboarding the Single Sign-On process, we present five benefits as to why your decision is cent percent accurate.

Benefits of Adopting Single Sign-On (SSO)

Maintains Data Security

A major challenge for every enterprise is to secure the data of its personnel and business. It is common for employees to create weak passwords when they are required to maintain separate login credentials to access the company’s online resources. Such type of weak logical access control exposes the enterprises’ data to online theft. With the SSO system in place, the employees are less likely to set poor passwords or write them down on an unattended piece of paper.

Reduces IT Support Costs

Another advantage of SSO is that it helps in saving money in the form of reduced IT costs. With single-login access to all the resources, the employees will generate next to minimum forgot password queries to the IT department. Hence the mundane and time-consuming task of resetting and generating new passwords will get reduced drastically. And you will be able to either use the free hours of the IT team in research and innovation or reduce the team size and save money.

Boost Employees’ Productivity

Imagine yourself entering the office, pumped with energy and confidence to complete the work. You turn on the system, open the login panel, and keep getting an incorrect username/ password error. Frustrating, right? The same happens with your employees, and all their productivity gets wasted in getting the password changed. On the other hand, with a single sign-on feature in place, the entire process of resetting password becomes smooth and less time-consuming.

Centralized Access Control Mechanism

When all the employees use a single username and password to access different online resources, it becomes easy for the management to maintain control over their accessibility. You can select specific resources that an employee can access depending upon his/ her roles and responsibilities. It will reduce the time consumed in managing the task and keep control of the employee’s data accessibility.

Password Management

A lot of enterprise owners have expressed their concern that SSO makes the company prone to hackers because, with a single set of login credentials, they can access the entire database. The risk can be eliminated by following a cycle of resetting passwords frequently at fixed intervals. When employees use the same credentials to access resources, changing passwords on a frequent basis becomes smoother as compared to changing them for different portals. At the same time, it also becomes effortless for the employee to remember one password instead of multiples.

Over to You

So, these are five crucial and note-worthy benefits of introducing Single Sign-On (SSO) in your enterprise. But it should be noted that like other technological advancements, SSO also has disadvantages. If you’ve already implemented this feature in your enterprise, then we’d like to hear about your experience. Please submit your comments in the section given below.