With Half of Senior IT Professionals Doubting Their Current Capabilities, New Research Confirms the Need to Enhance Automated Offboarding Processes
Oomnitza, the leading provider of Enterprise Technology Management (ETM) solutions, today announced a new survey, “The 2022 State of Offboarding Process Automation Report.” The research, conducted by YouGov, found that nearly half of IT leaders expressed doubt about their company’s ability to effectively automate the onboarding and offboarding of workers across business units and siloed IT systems.
Over a quarter (27%) of respondents reported losses of more than 10% of their technology assets and 42% experienced more than 5% of unauthorized access to SaaS applications and cloud resources stemming from incomplete deprovisioning. As companies face increased workforce turnover rates and navigate the data privacy, security and financial risks that accompany them, automating secure offboarding processes has become a strategic business imperative for modern enterprises.
And those risks do not appear to be going away any time soon. The pandemic accelerated hybrid workplace and cloud infrastructure adoption, but also ignited the Great Resignation. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, by the end of 2021, a total of 69 million people – more than 20% of Americans – “separated” from their jobs – creating a paradox in which companies have increased their use of technology but have less people to manage it. The ripple effects of these trends have, unsurprisingly, placed a huge strain on enterprise onboarding and offboarding capabilities. A recent survey by McKinsey & Company found that 64% of employers expect greater voluntary turnover to continue or worsen over the next six months, suggesting ongoing IT operational challenges.
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Survey Findings
The 2022 State of Corporate Offboarding Process Automation Report, compiled from a survey of 213 senior level IT professionals, was independently produced by YouGov, a global market research and analytics firm. The report provides clarity into how increased turnover has impacted the ability of companies to manage their technology and risk. Key findings include:
- 49% respondents reported the loss of at least 5% of their technology assets due to workers leaving the company; over a quarter (27%) lost more than 10%; one fifth lost between 10% – 20%
- 42% experienced at least 5% of instances of unauthorized access to SaaS applications and cloud infrastructure due deprovisioning deficiencies of former workers; one fifth had more than 10% of instances; 17% didn’t know the extent of unauthorized access stemming from incomplete deprovisioning of employees and contractors
- 17% medium and large organizations reported more than 10% of instances of unauthorized access to SaaS and cloud resources after employees or contractors left their company
- 48% of respondents expressed deficiencies in or lack of automated workflows across departments and IT tools to facilitate the secure offboarding of employees, while 47% expressed high confidence despite indications of technology reclamation and unauthorized resource access issues
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There were some interesting trends when the sample was analyzed by company size and industry:
- Small and medium enterprises (between 1,000 and 10,000 employees) exhibited a greater likelihood (36%) of losing technology assets compared to larger organizations
- Smaller organizations seemed to have the most challenges (54%) with secure offboarding compared to larger organizations, reporting deficiencies or lacking automated workflows
- Technology, healthcare and manufacturing organizations have poorer (> 36%) asset reclamation rates compared to other industries when offboarding employees and contractors
- Small enterprises (1,000 to 5,000 employees) reported 37% higher instances of unauthorized access to SaaS applications and cloud infrastructure post worker departure
- Technology, healthcare and services expressed higher instances of unauthorized access to SaaS and cloud resources by former workers compared to other industries
- Retail and technology expressed lower overall confidence (> 60%) towards their on-boarding and off-boarding automation capabilities compared to other industries
“The pandemic and the Great Resignation placed a huge strain on enterprise onboarding and offboarding processes to the point where automating them has become priority one for just about every company we talk to,” said Arthur Lozinski, CEO and co-founder of Oomnitza. “We conducted this research to offer greater insight into the scope of the problem. Not only did it help to quantify the amount of technology loss and risk due to inefficient processes, it also underscores the importance of taking a cohesive, holistic approach to fixing them.”
Oomnitza’s Enterprise Technology Management (ETM) platform unifies technology intelligence, lifecycle management and process automation across a company’s entire IT estate. The SaaS solution correlates user, technology and operational data from a company’s existing IT management tools to provide an accurate, up-to-date system of record. Combining centralized inventory data with built-in, simplified analytics and a low-code workflow editor, Oomnitza’s platform enables organizations to facilitate and automate on-boarding and offboarding processes, from separation to recovery, to ensure exceptional user experience with reduced financial and security exposure.
