If you rely solely on Identity Governance and Administration tools…
If you rely solely on Identity Governance and Administration tools to address Segregation of Duties and control issues, you expose yourself to significant audit, compliance, and operational risks. While IGA is foundational for access management, it cannot deliver the comprehensive oversight, continuous monitoring, or independent assurance that modern auditors and regulators require.
Key Impacts of an IGA-Only Approach
1. Limited Visibility into Business Processes
IGA tools focus on who has access, but they do not monitor whether your critical business processes, such as Procure-to-Pay or Order-to-Cash, are functioning as intended or if unauthorized approvals and errors occur. This lack of process-level insight means you can miss toxic combinations, collusion, or process breakdowns, increasing your risk of fraud and compliance failures.
2. Inadequate Risk & Controls Matrix
Auditors expect you to have a living, audit-ready RCM that links SoD risks to controls, assigns ownership, and tracks testing frequency—capabilities that IGA tools rarely provide. Without this, you will find it difficult to demonstrate compliance, respond to incidents, or satisfy regulatory inquiries.
3. Narrow Security and Compliance Focus
IGA solutions are designed for access provisioning and certification, not for monitoring application configurations, financial controls, or process anomalies. This leaves weaknesses where risks from system changes or unexpected transactions can go undetected, increasing the likelihood of errors, fraud, and audit findings.
4. Insufficient Audit Evidence and Remediation
Auditors require you to provide comprehensive, end-to-end evidence of control operations, including testing results and remediation logs, depth that IGA tools can’t deliver on their own. The lack of automated, tamper-proof audit trails leads to longer audit cycles, higher costs, and potential penalties.
5. Lack of Continuous Monitoring and Testing
Modern audit standards demand real-time control testing and systematic issue tracking, not just periodic reviews. IGA tools typically lack continuous monitoring and automated remediation, making it harder for you to maintain consistent controls and operational stability.
6. Absence of Process Independence
Embedding audit activities within IGA or ERP platforms creates conflicts of interest and limits audit objectivity. Auditors now expect you to manage the audit process independently from business operations to ensure unbiased findings and regulatory trust.
Consequences for Your Organization
- Audit Failures and Remediation Costs: Incomplete controls and evidence can result in repeated audit findings, costly remediation, and regulatory penalties for you.
- Operational Blind Spots: Vulnerabilities in business process monitoring mean that fraud, errors, or control breakdowns may go undetected until it’s too late for you to respond.
- Increased Compliance Burden: Manual evidence collection and lack of automation increase your audit preparation time and costs, straining resources and reducing agility.
- Strategic Inflexibility: Relying on IGA alone can make it difficult for you to adapt to new systems, regulations, or business models.
What Auditors and Regulators Expect
| Capability | IGA Alone | Modern Governance Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Access Provisioning | Yes | Yes |
| Business Process Controls | No | Yes |
| Risk & Controls Matrix | Rarely offered | Audit-ready, living RCM |
| Audit Evidence | Basic access logs | End-to-end, automated |
| Continuous Monitoring | No | Yes |
| Remediation Tracking | No | Yes |
| Process Independence | No | Yes |
The Path Forward
To meet modern audit and compliance demands, consider:
- Augmenting IGA with a dedicated Governance platform that provides end-to-end process monitoring, a living RCM, centralized audit evidence, and continuous control testing.
- Ensuring audit process independence by managing audit activities on a platform structurally and operationally separate from business systems.
- Automating evidence collection and remediation to reduce manual effort, shorten audit cycles, and improve compliance outcomes for your organization.
Don’t Settle for IGA Alone: Take Action to Secure Your Audit Future
Segregation of Duties and control requirements have become complex and demanding, driven by heightened regulatory scrutiny, rapid technological change, and the need for operational resilience. Relying solely on IGA tools is no longer enough to protect your organization from audit failures, compliance penalties, and operational blind spots. Auditors and regulators now expect you to deliver comprehensive, real-time oversight, independent assurance, and automated evidence, capabilities that IGA alone simply cannot provide.
Why You Must Act Now…
- Close Your Compliance Gaps: Don’t wait for the next audit to reveal costly deficiencies. IGA covers access, but not the end-to-end process, continuous monitoring, or independent audit trails that regulators demand.
- Reduce Risk and Save Resources: Manual evidence collection and fragmented controls lead to longer audit cycles, higher costs, and greater risk of penalties. An integrated, automated solution streamlines compliance and frees your team for higher-value work.
- Meet Auditor and Regulator Expectations: Today’s standards require living Risk & Controls Matrices, continuous testing, and tamper-proof audit evidence—delivered independently from your business systems.
- Future-Proof Your Organization: As regulations and business models evolve, only a comprehensive, scalable, and independent platform can keep you audit-ready and resilient.
Here’s How to Make the Shift
- Book a Chat: Speak with SoD and compliance experts to assess your current gaps and map a path to true audit readiness.
- View a Demo: See how a modern, automated Governance platform can transform your audit and compliance processes—don’t just take our word for it, experience the difference firsthand.
- Download Our Audit Readiness Checklist: Get a practical guide to benchmark your current controls and identify critical areas for improvement.
- Start Your Controls Transformation Today: Every day you wait increases your risk and costs. Take action to protect your organization’s brand, resources, and audit spend.
Don’t let outdated approaches hold you back. Adopt a complete, independent, and automated solution to achieve control excellence, reduce risk, and satisfy even the toughest auditors and regulators.
