The digital transformation spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic continued into 2021. This also brought about further dramatic changes to the security landscape, presenting challenges to companies in every sector as well as to us as a provider of identity and access management solutions. And this is unlikely to change during the coming year. As this year draws to a close, I am taking the opportunity to look back at our achievements and to explain how we will continue to help you, our customers, master the balancing act between security and usability in 2022.
In retrospect, there are several developments that really stand out. One example is the study that we conducted in 2021 involving 1,000 consumers and 500 IT decision-makers. One of the most surprising insights that it provided was that IT decision-makers sometimes completely misjudge the needs of end-users when it comes to data that requires special protection, such as addresses and dates of birth. Consumers have a far greater need for security than was originally thought. This means that the protection and security of customer data must take absolute priority – but not at the expense of the equally important factor of usability.
In addition, the trend towards cloud solutions and a heterogeneous system landscape also throws up new challenges for companies in terms of their security solutions. That’s because the boundary between an organisation’s secure internal network and every other unsecured external network is becoming blurred. This is precisely why digital identity plays a crucial role when it comes to issuing restricted or enhanced access authorisations to users. This is where flexible security solutions are needed.
What we achieved in 2021
Against this background, the challenge we face as a provider of customer identity and access management solutions is to package these increasingly complex requirements into reliable products that are easy to use and offer flexible parameters.
However, we also worked hard in other areas in 2021. The close cooperation between all our teams – from product development through to sales – enabled us to win new and well-known customers and partners both at home and abroad, including in the United Kingdom. We also hired qualified new employees to expand our skills and capacities.
Before I take a look into the future, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all of our customers and partners for their loyalty and for the trust they have placed in us. Without them, the exciting projects and new product features that we brought to fruition over the past few months would not have been possible.
I am particularly proud of the way we rise to all challenges as a team. We have set ambitious goals for 2022 – and our can-do approach will help us reach them.
Focusing on further and new developments
The trend towards the cloud will continue into the coming year, which means that the use of suitable identity management solutions to protect digital identities will continue to play a key role. We already have the right solutions that help our customers strike a good balance between security and usability – and also gain a competitive edge.
What’s more, our passwordless, FIDO-based login solutions are a simple way to prevent the credential-stuffing attacks that sadly succeed in far too many cases. At the same time, our customers reap benefits in terms of revenue and cost. For instance, people take advantage of digital offers more often when the login process is passwordless. Likewise, the costs of using a help desk to reset passwords can be saved because passwordless customer identity and access management solutions eliminate the need for this work.
Next year, we will continue to enhance our existing products while also developing new ones. To mention just one example, we are currently testing a software-as-a-service solution.
In addition, new concepts such as self-sovereign identities (SSIs) are also coming to the fore of our activities in the area of digital identities. These concepts are being discussed in connection with the electronic ID, i.e. the digital proof of identity for citizens. They offer exceptional potential in terms of data protection and data minimisation. We are already developing mass-market solutions for the underlying technologies.
