Your Complete Guide to Building A Successful PAM Program

The most successful Privileged Access Management (PAM) programs share one crucial characteristic: they're built on strategic foundations, not just technology. 

Organizations that approach PAM as a comprehensive program will achieve better security outcomes and stronger ROI. The difference lies in recognizing that PAM success extends far beyond IT, touching everything from compliance and risk management to operational efficiency. 

This guide shows you how to build that foundation for success. You'll discover how to develop a strategic approach that guides solution selection, ensures stakeholder buy-in, and delivers measurable value across your organization. We also provide detailed breakdowns of leading PAM solutions, analyzing their strengths and ideal business fit to help you make informed decisions. 

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Why is a strong PAM program so important? 

Security teams today have two dominant priorities. Our research reveals that automation tops the list for 26% of teams, while compliance readiness is the number one concern for 24%. PAM programs can address both objectives simultaneously, but only when it's done right. 

The difference between a successful PAM deployment and one that falls short often comes down to approach. Organizations that treat PAM as a purely technical project frequently encounter user resistance, incomplete coverage, and limited business value. However, those that embrace PAM as a strategic business initiative will realize the full potential of their investment while avoiding the common pitfalls that can undermine even the best technology. 

What a strategic Privileged Access Management program can do for you 

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Boost operational efficiency

Free Privileged Users from time-consuming admin, close off security gaps, and streamline PAM approaches across teams. 

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Reduce your cyber risk

Strengthen defenses against internal and external attacks by enforcing least-privilege access controls.

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Maximize visibility

Integrating PAM technology with existing tools such as IGA and ITSM allows for centralized monitoring and control across privileged accounts, as well as the ability to see who has access to what, when, and why.  

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Enable scalable business growth

Support modern working practices like DevOps and cloud-first approaches while maintaining strong security controls, creating a foundation that grows with your organization's evolving needs.

The 3 key phases of PAM programs 

Successful PAM Programs follow a structured approach that integrates strategic planning, technical deployment, and operational governance into a cohesive program. 

This comprehensive methodology ensures that Privileged Access Management delivers sustained business value by addressing organizational change, stakeholder alignment, and long-term sustainability alongside the technical implementation itself. From our extensive experience, this requires a three-phase approach that covers all the bases:

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Phase 1

Building the foundations

Start with strategic planning and stakeholder engagement to define key drivers and use cases, establishe the most important controls for your organization, and bring together user communities across IT, Service Management, third parties, and GRC. This will help you secure CISO and board-level support for change management and resource allocation, and kick-start the collaborative requirements gathering process.

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Phase 2

Technical implementation and change management

Assess prospective PAM tools against your requirements framework, across deployment models, scalability, integration capabilities, and business fit. It may be best to start deployment and configuration with the highest-risk, lowest-volume access to prove value. Then, build integration planning, user experience design, and workforce change management in every step.

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Phase 3

Governance and operational excellence

Establish steering committees comprising finance, governance, compliance, and internal audit to facilitate ongoing oversight, strategic direction, and resource allocation. This approach supports continuous improvement through ongoing monitoring, assessment, and strategy refinement, enabling more sustainable operations with documented playbooks, escalation procedures, and repeatable onboarding frameworks.

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Key questions to assess your needs

As an existing SAP IdM user, you'll already be familiar with the key functions requiring replacement, including: joiners, movers, leavers (JML); business logic and policies; provisioning processes and workflows; system integrations; attestation, reporting for audit; and SAP-specific integrations.

SAP IdM excels at handling large SAP estates, saving costs through free integration with SAP systems as part of your existing SAP license when only writing to SAP systems, and offering extensive custom scripting and coding to handle complex, organization-specific requirements and highly specialized business logic.

Determining which capabilities are most important to maintain, and which to optimize or evolve, is the first step in selecting a new solution.

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Assess your PAM program readiness: 10 key questions

Is your PAM strategy clear and aligned with business objectives?
Are the right stakeholders engaged across your organization?
Are the right executives backing your program for change?
Are you willing to invest in adapting your ways of working?
Have you planned a manageable, phased rollout?
Have you planned a reasonable amount of customization?
Is user experience central to your PAM program?
Have you factored cloud into your approach?
Do you have a long-term onboarding methodology?
Do you have a proper governance structure in place?

Need help navigating your IGA future in SAP?

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Do you know your current PAM maturity? 

To make the right moves in your PAM program, you need to know what you have in place already and where you need to make changes and improvements. We can help you gain clarity with our PAM Maturity Assessment, which will translate your current position into clearly digestible results and recommendations for next steps. 

Want to take the first step on the road to a scalable, comprehensive PAM deployment? Our PAM Maturity Assessment can help. 

PAM solutions comparison: Top tools assessed

It can be difficult to know where to start with PAM solution selection, especially as each tool will be best suited to different organizational needs. To give you some clarity in your selection process, this objective comparison highlights the key strengths and ideal business fit for six of the leading PAM platforms.
  • CyberArk
  • BeyondTrust
  • Delinea
  • One Identity
  • OpenText PAM
  • Microsoft Entra

CyberArk

Strengths

  • Comprehensive PAM coverage from credential vaulting to advanced threat analytics 
  • Mature compliance and audit capabilities suitable for stringent regulatory environments 
  • Wide-ranging ecosystem of integrations supporting complex, multi-vendor infrastructures 

Business fit

  • Well-suited to enterprises with highly specialized PAM requirements, complex hybrid or multi-cloud environments, and dedicated technical resources
  • Excels in scenarios where maximum configuration flexibility and integration depth are priorities, particularly in industries with heavy compliance mandates

BeyondTrust

Strengths

  • Strong endpoint privilege and application control with granular policies 
  • Unified platform offering consistency across multiple PAM disciplines 
  • Effective real-time session recording and monitoring 
  • Native approach to managing third-party users 

Business fit

  • Good for organizations prioritizing endpoint control, application security, and detailed session oversight
  • Works well in established IT environments where policy enforcement and monitoring are central to the security strategy

Delinea

Strengths

  • Modern, cloud-ready architecture enabling faster deployment and easier scaling across both mid-market and enterprise environments 
  • Modular platform design that supports phased rollouts or large-scale implementation without heavy re-engineering 
  • Intuitive interface that drives user adoption and reduces training overhead 
  • Strong balance of capability, cost-effectiveness, and ease of management 

Business fit

  • Versatile choice for organizations of all sizes that want to simplify privileged access management without compromising on capability 
  • Supports both hybrid-cloud transformation and compliance-driven enterprise operations 
  • Well-suited for organizations seeking a balance between breadth of features, deployment agility, and total cost of ownership

One Identity

Strengths

  • Integrated approach combining identity governance with privileged access management 
  • Good for organizations wanting a unified identity management strategy 
  • Comprehensive identity lifecycle management capabilities 
  • Strong integration with Active Directory and Microsoft environments 

Business fit

  • Organizations prioritizing identity governance alongside PAM 
  • Companies with strong Microsoft Active Directory environments 
  • Businesses seeking unified identity management rather than specialized PAM solutions 
  • Organizations with limited dedicated PAM requirements 

OpenText PAM

Strengths

  • Cost-effective licensing for organizations with defined, targeted PAM needs 
  • Straightforward deployment and easy day-to-day management 
  • Solid core features for vaulting, session control, and basic auditing 

Business fit

  • Strong choice for small to mid-sized organizations with tight budgets for which secure privileged access controls are still essential
  • Well-suited for environments with straightforward PAM requirements, minimal regulatory complexity, and the need for a practical, manageable solution

Microsoft Entra

Strengths

  • Seamless integration with Microsoft 365, Azure AD, and other Microsoft security services 
  • Just-in-time access control available within existing Microsoft licensing tiers 
  • Minimal learning curve for Microsoft-focused administrators 

Business fit

  • Well suited for Microsoft-centric organizations wanting to add core privileged access controls without implementing a standalone PAM platform
  • Works well as an entry-level PAM solution in environments where the IT footprint is almost entirely Microsoft-based, with the option to extend capabilities later

CyberArk

BeyondTrust

Delinea

One Identity

OpenText PAM

Microsoft Entra

Why is a Good PAM Program So Important? 

 

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Customization vs. Simplicity

Evaluate whether your organization needs highly tailored solutions or could benefit from standardizing processes. Customization delivers precision but increases complexity and maintenance costs.

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Integration landscape

Complex SAP environments (with 30+ systems) require solutions capable of handling this scale. Verify each solution's capabilities for reading custom SAP tables and available connectors for your applications. Also consider how to balance SAP-specific needs with enterprise-wide identity management requirements.

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Business transformation opportunity

Use the IdM migration as a catalyst to break down silos between SAP and enterprise identity management. Consider how process changes could simplify your technical requirements, especially if you're also planning an S/4HANA migration. This decision point presents an opportunity for business process transformation that could simplify technical requirements and reap numerous organization-wide benefits.

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Resource requirements

Assess your team's capabilities against solution requirements to identify gaps in technical implementation skills, business process knowledge, and change management expertise. Consider whether partnerships with implementation experts will be necessary to supplement internal resources.

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Common migration pitfalls

Prepare for typical obstacles including undocumented customizations, integration complexity, resource constraints, competing priorities, and dependencies on SAP IdM-specific capabilities. Mitigate risks through a phased migration approach with thorough planning, documentation, and robust testing at each stage.

In summary: Expert support for your PAM program

With a clearer understanding of how leading PAM solutions compare across strengths, limitations, and business fit, you can begin to narrow down your options. However, selecting the right technology is just one piece of the puzzle. 

There are so many different factors to consider when planning your PAM solution selection and wider program strategy: 

  • Do you need cloud-native, on-premise, or hybrid capabilities?
  • How flexible does your PAM solution need to be to grow with organizational needs and complexity?
  • Will you prioritize interface design to ease adoption for administrators and end-users?
  • Do you need PAM to integrate with existing infrastructure and tools?
  • Do you need access to comprehensive audit trails, reporting, and compliance features?
  • What is the cost impact around licensing, implementation, and operations? 

Making the right decisions across all these areas, and then executing a successful program, requires expertise spanning strategic planning, change management, and technical complexity. If you don’t have all those capabilities in-house, then working with an unbiased, expert partner like Turnkey Consulting can be invaluable. 

We’ll help you avoid the root causes of PAM failure through comprehensive support from initial assessment through to ongoing managed services. We can provide deep technical expertise, agnostic tool advice, and ensure your program is aligned with your stakeholder needs and business transformation goals. 

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Making the right decisions across all these areas, and then executing a successful program, requires expertise spanning strategic planning, change management, and technical complexity. If you don’t have all those capabilities in-house, then working with an unbiased, expert partner like Turnkey Consulting can be invaluable. 

We’ll help you avoid the root causes of PAM failure through comprehensive support from initial assessment through to ongoing managed services. We can provide deep technical expertise, agnostic tool advice, and ensure your program is aligned with your stakeholder needs and business transformation goals. 

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IGA Maturity Assessment

We evaluate your current identity management practices objectively, and create customized recommendations specific to your organization with a clear roadmap for improvement. This exercise will indicate your transition readiness, and add insight and context to your solution decision process

Datasheet download

Aiming to perfect your RISE transition? Find out more about our RISE Right license review process here.

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Ready to put your PAM program on the right track for success? Get in touch with Turnkey’s PAM experts today to discuss your specific needs and objectives. 

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Get in touch with Turnkey today

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