Release the brakes from organizational performance with IAM

We see that often in organizations, Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a technical issue and necessity, a function deep within IT. But it is more than just technical, more than just security. Think instead of IAM as strategic accelerator, and an essential one! It contributes to more seamless operations, strengthens business continuity, and optimizes processes for efficiency and scale.

See IAM as the foundation upon which an organization can gain traction, achieve potential and realize strategic objectives. Without it, you may struggle to unlock that potential, objectives may take longer to achieve, the road to achieving them may be bumpier and full of friction, and you risk becoming less efficient, secure and compliant.

It is tempting to push forward with innovation, digital transformation, and new technologies. However, just like driving early cars, moving quickly without the right supporting systems and controls in place can lead to inefficiency, increased exposure, and missed opportunities. Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the foundational capability you need to accelerate, innovate, and scale securely, sustainably, and efficiently.

‘Think of early cars: faster than horse-drawn carriages, but still using the same outdated braking systems, leading to major accidents. Take the early models, where for instance the steering wheels could break at high speed. Faster progress meant greater risk. The solution wasn’t slowing back down, but ensuring speed is enabled by the right acceleration, risk, and safety measures. Bridging that to business means innovation and acceleration should be built on a foundation of control and security.’

– Arjen Slim, CEO SonicBee

What do early cars have to do with it?

Early cars were a game changer for transportation. Faster than horses, built for more efficient travel and easier, more comfortable transportation. But without seatbelts, adaptive brakes, or secure supportive accelerators, they were risky and hard to control. Speed without safety, secure acceleration, and support led to crashes and setbacks.

Modern businesses and organizations face a similar challenge. Digital transformation, innovation, and growth – it all benefits from speed and efficiency. But without IAM, acceleration comes with risk. Many organizations rely on older IAM systems, not built for today’s interconnected, fast-moving world. In bad case scenarios that may lead to compliance failures, security breaches, and operational inefficiencies that slow progress instead of driving it.

It helps to see IAM as a modern control system that enables secure scaling, confident innovation, and efficient operating—without hitting roadblocks along the way or compromising safety and compliance. Just like cars needed safety systems to accelerate to their potential, today’s organizations need IAM as strategic accelerator for going fast and far securely. To accelerate long-term success, maintaining relevance and advancing on competition.

IAM as strategic accelerator

Here’s where IAM acts as the accelerator for realizing your organizational goals. With IAM in place, you are much better equipped to scale safely, transform digitally, and innovate efficiently without compromising security or compliance. Much like upgrading from an old car with no seat belts to a modern vehicle with adaptive features, IAM provides the framework for security, control, and flexibility needed to operate at maximum potential.

With a robust yet dynamic IAM system, you can:

• Accelerate digital transformation: IAM enables secure cloud adoption, automated workflows, and seamless access for employees, driving digital initiatives forward.
• Empower innovation: for example, teams can access the data and systems they need in real-time, without security bottlenecks, accelerating product development and market expansion.
• Enhance security: IAM ensures that access is granted only to authorized individuals, good governance, and clear IAM ownership, reducing the risk of data breaches, blind spots, insider threats, and non-compliance penalties.
• Ensure compliance: IAM helps businesses meet regulatory requirements (GDPR, ISO 27001, NIS2, etc.) without the burden of manual compliance processes, ensuring faster, more accurate reporting.

Now let’s look at each of these a little more closely.

IAM maturity ups the speed for digital transformation

The race for digital transformation benefits from speed, yet outdated IAM systems act as roadblocks and brake systems whereas more modern solutions will help you safely accelerate. Without a unified IAM approach, businesses adopting, say, cloud technologies or automating workflows face siloed access, security risks, and compliance challenges. All of which slow down progress.

Just like early cars, you may experience growing pains when pushing for faster speeds. If the systems (or brakes) aren’t updated, the risk of failure increases. But with a solid IAM foundation, your organization can transform securely, and scale controlled.

IAM as the adaptive engine of innovation

Innovation and digital transformation benefit from speed. But that is not all there is to it, to name a few contributing elements:

• Removing friction, so ideas can flow freely, and teams can collaborate seamlessly
• Enhancing business agility, so you can integrate or separate businesses easily and collaborate with external partners dynamically
• Lower cost of compliance, by standardizing and formalizing processes

Without agile IAM you may experience bottlenecks that stall innovation progress, lead to delay and suboptimal performance. Just like – yes there it is again – an early car struggling at high speeds because its undercarriage does not yet fully support it. Modern vehicles on the other hand are driven by adaptive systems that ensure speed and control and translating that to organizations also means collaboration and continuity, innovation and security, allowing you to move ahead while limiting the risk of breakdowns along the way.

IAM as the seatbelt for security

Security should not come at the cost of agility and agility should not come at the expense of security. But without IAM, businesses are like early cars with no seatbelts, exposed to unnecessary risks. Many data breaches stem from weak credentials, often due to poor access controls, excessive permissions, and unmanaged privileged accounts.

By integrating IAM, organizations can effectively prevent threats before they happen, implementing smart access control without disrupting workflows. It’s an adaptive safety feature that protects your business while keeping it fast, flexible, and in control.

IAM: an automatic brake system for compliance

Regulations like GDPR, NIS2, and ISO 27001 require strict identity controls. Without IAM, compliance becomes a slow, manual burden. We all know instances and examples of businesses and organizations learning this the hard way, with big fines and reputational damage as result of data breaches, hacks, and overall weak IAM governance.

Solid IAM structures can help to automate audits, enforce least-privilege access, and uphold continuous compliance. All of those can contribute to preventing costly mistakes. Like the automatic braking of modern cars, IAM proactively reduces risk, ensuring security and compliance without slowing business down.

What happens without IAM?

Skip on building a strong IAM foundation, one may experience the initial rush of progress and then face bigger challenges down the road. Think experiencing slowdowns due to fragmented systems, manual processes, security vulnerabilities, and compliance issues.

Some case examples to illustrate what that could look like practically:

1. An auditor needs insight into your workforce identities, accounts, and authorizations. Without an IAM structure and a clean database gathering this information becomes a manual, error-prone, and time-consuming task for both your team and the auditor. All that could jeopardizing trust, timelines, and compliance.
2. One business’ growth strategy relies on acquiring and integrating new business units and carving out the ones that might exist better on their own and thus needs a flexible plug-and-play structure to hook units on and off effectively. Such a strategy is already complex enough. Without a solid IAM structure, M&A efforts can lead to security risks, slow integrations or separations, and compliance failures that stall growth and increase operational costs.
3. A security incident hits, and you need to understand what happened and where it came from. Without IAM, tracing the root cause—like overly broad access rights—can be nearly impossible, delaying response efforts and increasing both the damage and the risk of recurrence.

The real issue though is not just that not having IAM in place can slow you down; it also leaves you vulnerable to security threats and compliance risks. The question is not if something will go wrong (because it will), the question is: how are you prepared and equipped to handle it? To prevent, detect and respond to it?

Stop speeding towards crises

So, what’s next? It’s time to move smarter. Just like cars evolved from horse-drawn carriages to modern, high-speed vehicles with advanced safety features, your organization can move faster, more securely, and more efficiently by embracing IAM. Do not wait for the crash to happen! Secure your growth, scale efficiently, and safeguard innovation without risk. IAM accelerates and is foundational to digital success—start optimizing today.

At SonicBee, we help businesses balance innovation and security, ensuring compliant, scalable, and sustainable digital transformation, so that yours can thrive confidently in the digital age. Our tailored IAM consulting and solutions streamline operations, engage stakeholders, and protect critical data. We bring decades of combined IAM experience and expertise among our colleagues and team, and an exclusive partnership with one of the most innovative IAM solutions on the market, to making IAM accessible, strategic, and helping you with compliance with regulatory standards. From strategy and architecture to roadmaps, from program and change management to implementation, we’re your partner for all things IAM.