The Benefits of Single Sign On (SSO) for Your Business

As your organization grows, you’re likely adding more software to keep projects, communication, and services running efficiently. And in increasingly remote and cloud-based work environments, your team needs quick and easy access to all of these applications and from any device. If managing and securing login information for the various softwares you use has started to become a challenge for your team, it might be time to look into a Single Sign-On (SSO) solution.

What is SSO?

Single sign-on lets your staff securely access multiple software applications in your organization with just one set of login credentials. Each staff member has their own SSO login information, and they only need to enter it once in order to access your organization’s authorized applications.

Benefits of SSO

SSO completely streamlines the login process, a significant pain point for organizations, by creating a single login across multiple different software applications. This reduces the frustration involved with keeping track of login credentials for various software applications. But there are additional benefits of SSO beyond just how simple it makes logging into applications for your staff.

Boost productivity

Without SSO in place in your organization, each staff member must have their own unique login information for each application they access. These logins add up fast! Your staff has more important things to do than track down usernames and passwords and cycle through frequent password resets for every site they use.

An SSO would free your staff from these distractions. They could start their workday with one login that would grant them access to all the software they need as they work. If they step away from their work and get logged out, one simple login using the SSO will get their access back in seconds. Your organization's productivity has the potential to markedly improve by adding SSO.

Guard against password fatigue

When your team requires a new login for each software they use, it increases the chance that password fatigue will set in. Though password fatigue might sound silly, it’s very serious, and impacts the security of your organization’s most important applications from malicious actors, cyberattacks, and ransomware.

Password fatigue causes you to get too comfortable with the login process. With so many logins to remember, you end up creating weak passwords, reusing login information, and taking time to search or reset logins. Importantly, it may also allow data leakage by tempting you and your staff into storing login information in easy—but very unsafe—spots, like in a notebook they leave on their desk, a document on their computer desktop, or in a low-security app on their phone. All of this can lead to login information for critical applications sitting out for anyone to find and use.

With SSO, your staff only has to create and remember one username and password. As a result, they’re encouraged to create strong (harder to guess) login information, as they only need one entry for all applications. No more password fatigue—and no more worries about your organization’s information getting into the wrong hands!

Secure your network

There is one major misconception about SSO that’s important to note: some argue that SSO weakens security. This argument says that if login information is stolen, all related accounts will be compromised.

While this thought process might seem logical, studies have shown that SSO effectively reduces password theft and network attacks. Because users only need to create and remember one password for multiple applications, they’re more likely to create a very strong password and less likely to write it down or store it in unsecured places. SSO is best practice for reducing the risk of password theft compromising your business.

Gain control of user access

SSO also provides administrators with more control over who can access particular software in their organizations. When a new employee joins the team, SSO makes it easy to grant them access to all necessary applications so they can hit the ground running. And has your team ever scrambled to get access to a vital account back after an employee leaves? SSO completely solves this issue by allowing you to immediately revoke a former employee’s software access and switch it over to an administrator. Onboarding and offboarding get incredibly easy with SSO in place!

SSO also allows you to grant specific levels of access to different software. For example, a doctor’s office may have different levels of access for doctors, nurses, and office administrators to make sure that private information can only be seen by specific people. This way of using SSO provides a further layer of security on your organization’s information, protecting you and your clients.

Reduce IT support calls & costs

Because SSO keeps access to your software simple, it can dramatically reduce the number of IT support calls your organization has to make. Your staff is less likely to lose or forget their passwords with SSO, causing fewer password resets and account retrievals by your IT team. This makes your staff more self-sufficient when it comes to minor IT issues related to software and account access. In turn, your organization ends up paying less for IT support costs and only needs IT help for major issues. Not only does SSO streamline your team’s workflow, it also saves your company money in the long run by reducing IT calls and costs.

In the past, it may have seemed like SSO was a luxury reserved for large corporations. But as your organization grows and uses more software than ever before, SSO is becoming a necessity to manage and secure the applications you rely on. Remote and cloud-based work can also make the login process for your organization’s software more difficult—and less secure—as your staff accesses applications from different places and devices. It might be time that you consider integrating an SSO solution into your organization!

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