Introduction
Utility companies hold a unique position because of their huge user base and the massive amount of data they collect. This allows them to provide a greater value than other companies. However, if the company uses an incompetent Consumer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) system, it may be susceptible to service outages and data breaches.
Implementing a good CIAM can help utility companies steer clear of issues such as inefficient troubleshooting and vulnerability to cyberattacks. To find out how read on.
5 Most Popular Issues Of The Utility Industry That CIAM Solves
1. Solve consumer control and utilization issues easily with a secure dashboard.
A large number of utility companies often have a poorly constructed dashboard without any user management system. This might increase the number of service interruptions and the time taken to resolve them.
Users would also be affected in real-time with issues big and small, from power outages to password resets. A centralized dashboard can help do away with these problems. It might even show a correlation between two data streams which would otherwise be thought of as unrelated.
A good CIAM in utility sector system would even show which consumers have logged in along with their locations. Another feature of a high-quality product would be the ability to provide visual representations of data. An example would be providing a heat map of logins along with a unique customer identification number/feature.
Importance of Password Efficiency:
Changing passwords frequently is a good practice to avoid cyberattacks. However, without a well-functioning process to reset passwords, changing them often would be a tedious process.
A dashboard would allow administrators to create a password reset page that can be customized as per the business needs.
2. Understanding consumers
A lot of utility companies require a good customer retention percentage—since the nature of their business is recurring and net revenue is dependent on how many times a consumer has used the service. Therefore, to retain consumers, it is vital to understand their needs.
CIAM in utility sector can help understand consumers better by incorporating data on their logins, devices, utility usage, and even progressive profiling.
Progressive profiling is a method used to systematically build up a consumer's profile each time they interact with the utility company's website. This method can help organizations find out problems faced by consumers and improve their services. It can also help create new services and boost engagement.
3. Consolidation of consumer data
As new technologies and energy sources emerge, the utility industry will go through some major shifts, such as creating a majorly mobile workforce, a reduction of infrastructure by using cloud-based services, etc. Companies that implement a CIAM system will avoid costly mistakes and build long-lasting relationships with their consumers.
4. Fast access provisioning and deprovisioning from a centralized portal
A CIAM in utility sector comes with a centralized portal that allows the administrators to control access quickly and easily - user accounts can be created, updated, or deleted from a central portal (i.e., provisioning and deprovisioning). This would, in turn, allow IT personnel to concentrate on critical tasks.
5. Safe high-risk networks and database access procedures
A good CIAM in utility sector would have protocols and procedures (such as SSO protocols including SAML, OAuth, JWT, OpenID, Delegation, and Multipass) when a user is accessing high-risk networks and databases. It also comes with NGFW, next-generation firewalls, which provide application-level security against cyber attacks.
The LoginRadius CIAM In Utility Sector
LoginRadius is a cloud-based SaaS Consumer Identity Access Management platform that comes with competitive features. They include user management, privacy compliances, data, and user security, account security, and privacy compliances with a provision for scalability.
Here’s how the LoginRadius CIAM in utility sector provides its solutions.
1. It enables one digital identity across all consumer services.
Due to the ever-evolving nature of the digital landscape, it has become almost mandatory to provide a seamless consumer experience where the consumer can self-serve without human intervention.
With LoginRadius’ CIAM platform, utility companies can centralize all consumer-facing applications into one single portal.
Some of the applications that LoginRadius has supported in previous implementations are account summaries, customer profiles, billing histories, bill payments, etc. Many companies have significantly reduced the number of manual processes handled by the consumer service team by implementing the solution
2. It centralizes and secures data.
Utility companies often have their consumer information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, etc., stored in multiple databases because they provide various services using different backend applications. This is not an efficient way to store data because it affects the company's productivity and the consumer experience.
Also, having multiple databases increases the risk of a security breach since the company would have to implement various protocols across all of these databases.
The LoginRadius CIAM in utility sector solution consolidates data into one platform, which effectively eliminates data silos. It also comes with the latest hashing algorithms, encryption-at- rest, etc.
3. It integrates data and identity with third-party applications.
Consumer data is valuable in driving business decisions and providing better services for customers’ problems.
With the LoginRadius CIAM in utility sector solution, businesses can integrate consumer data with third-party applications. This solution comes with over 100 pre-built integrations allowing data flow in real-time.
4. It simplifies consumer management.
The LoginRadius CIAM in utility sector solution offers many user management capabilities, which allow the consumer service staff (of the organization implementing the solution) to view all of the data relating to an individual customer in the dashboard.
Consumers can request changes in their profiles (such as an update to their residential address), and the admin can simultaneously make the desired changes using the LoginRadius CIAM solution.
In Conclusion
With hackers getting smarter every day, companies need to implement stringent protocols like the GDPR and CCPA, especially if the said companies fall into the utility sector. This is because such companies often handle massive amounts of user data.
If this data is compromised, it would be a massive loss to the company's reputation, eventually leading to financial losses as users might withdraw from using their services. In extreme cases, the company might even go bankrupt! Implementing a CIAM in utility sector solution can prevent this from happening and make the consumer experience better!
