It’s not like forgetting the milk at the grocery store. No big deal, just add it to the list for next time. But that kind of oversight in identity management isn’t as simple to fix, and organizations that adopt a solution later may find it becomes an expensive add-on to their security to-do list.

It’s a situation many organizations find themselves in. The Cisco Duo 2025 State of Identity Security reports that 74% of IT leaders admit identity security is often an afterthought in infrastructure planning. As a result, businesses scramble to tack on an identity solution, often too late to assess whether it’s the right fit for their architecture, compliance, and scalability goals. ‘Cause unlike the milk, it’s harder to swing back later and grab the right solution.

Identity and access management (IAM) ensures that people and entities with digital identities have the right level of access to your enterprise resources. IAM is essential for every business, but choosing the right IAM tool depends on your organization’s unique complexities and requirements. Here are the key considerations for aligning your IAM solution with business needs and keeping security a priority, not an afterthought.

Factor #1: Security-first features and functionality

Matt Caulfield, VP of Product, Identity, at Cisco, underscores the importance of an IAM solution that includes security as part of the base package. “A lot of existing vendors will have you turn on additional features, and you have to pay for them in order to get security,” he says.

Every business has a distinct architecture—whether it’s cloud, on-premises, or custom. Choosing an IAM platform with built-in security ensures out-of-the-box integrated protection tailored to your needs. However, only one-third of security leaders are confident that their identity provider protects against identity-based attacks. That’s why it’s essential to choose a platform that has authentication, access controls, and monitoring, including these features:

• Phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA), which requires two or more identity verification factors and aligns with requirements for NIS2 (Europe) or OMB Memorandum 22-09 (U.S.).
• Risk-based authentication to apply policies to specific applications or groups of users where high risk is detected. It analyzes authentication requests to identify activity patterns consistent with an attack.
• True single sign-on (SSO) allows users to easily and securely log in to multiple operating systems, browsers, web, and desktop applications with one interactive authentication, instead of multiple disruptions throughout the day.
• Passwordless authentication verifies identity using biometrics, security keys, and specialized mobile applications for a frictionless user login experience.
• Identity intelligence features for centralized visibility and to ensure best practices for Identity Threat Detection & Response (ITDR) and Identity Security Posture Management (ISPM).

Factor #2: Organization Size and Infrastructure

“Identity is always a moving target because the number and different types of identities are always evolving,” says Caulfield. “If you think about a typical organization, people are leaving, people are coming in every day. So that element of being a moving target is difficult.”

Since your identity needs change over time, plan ahead by selecting an IAM platform that supports your current size and infrastructure, as well as projected growth. The platform should be adaptable as the business grows and adds users, applications, and systems, thereby increasing its security risks. Look for an IAM provider with a built-in directory—a centralized database of your users and devices—so you can scale and automate user provisioning.

The right IAM platform will depend on your organization’s size. Small or medium businesses may benefit from solutions that prioritize ease of use and helpful vendor support, while enterprises operating in large, complex environments often require a more advanced solution or a combination of systems and tools.

Factor #3: Industry compliance, eegulations and governance

Each industry faces unique compliance, regulatory, and operational requirements. Yet adoption of standards like FIDO2 remains low, with only 19% of organizations fully implementing FIDO2 tokens.

When evaluating IAM solutions, research which platform best supports your local and federal governance frameworks and enables compliance with FIDO2 or other standards. Highly regulated industries should assess how the tool handles access provisioning and deprovisioning, and ensure it includes detailed access logs, audit trails, and automated reporting.

Consider these industry-specific standards:

• Finance: MFA to support NIST, FFIEC, NYDFS, NAIC, PCI-DSS, and FTC safeguards.
• Healthcare: User authentication for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Electronic Prescription of Controlled Substances (EPCS) compliance.
• Higher education: Protect student data and privacy in line with FERPA, SOC2, and GDPR standards.
• Law enforcement: Compliance with the Criminal Justice Information Services Security (CJIS) policy to protect data at the local, state, and federal levels.
• Legal: Compliance with the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.6(a), to ensure confidential client information.
• Retail: Protection for a hybrid workforce, point-of-sale systems, and customer data to meet PCI DSS, GDPR, and other regulatory standards.

More security forethought, less afterthought

“We’ve found that security should really be first. It can't really be an afterthought,” says Caulfield. “We need it to be thinking about security by default when we are designing identity access management systems.”

IAM platforms like Cisco Duo take this security-first approach with easy-to-use phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication, enhancing organizations’ security by verifying user identity, establishing device trust, and providing secure connections to company networks and applications. The comprehensive platform is designed for all organizations and can be tailored to a business’s specific protection needs, with multiple editions for various infrastructures and industries.

Learn more about Cisco Duo and how it helps organizations prevent unauthorized access.