Every identity, governed. Every entitlement, justified.

Identity governance and administration (IGA) is the discipline of controlling who has access to what, why they have it, who approved it, and whether it remains appropriate over time. It brings structure, accountability, and evidence to access decisions across systems and applications.

IGA matters because access risk grows as organizations scale, adopt cloud services, outsource work, and operate across complex technology landscapes. Without effective governance, access becomes fragmented, difficult to justify, and hard to defend — increasing security, compliance, and operational risk.

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the broader discipline covering how digital identities are created, authenticated, and given access to systems. IGA is a subset of IAM focused specifically on governance — ensuring that access is appropriate, authorized, and auditable across the identity lifecycle.

In practice, IAM encompasses authentication, single sign-on, and access management, while IGA focuses on provisioning, access certification, role management, and policy enforcement. The two are complementary: IAM controls how users access systems, while IGA governs what they're allowed to do and ensures that access remains justified.

Most organizations reach a point where managing access manually becomes unsustainable — typically as headcount grows, the application estate expands, or regulatory requirements intensify. Common triggers include:

• Recurring audit findings related to access
• Difficulty demonstrating who has access to what during compliance reviews
• Excessive time spent on manual provisioning and de-provisioning
• Access accumulation through joiners, movers, and leavers processes that aren't fully automated
• ERP transformation projects like SAP S/4HANA migration.

Organizations operating in regulated industries — financial services, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and public sector — often implement IGA earlier due to compliance obligations. But any organization managing a complex, multi-system environment with sensitive data will benefit from structured identity governance, regardless of industry.

IGA supports compliance by providing the controls, evidence, and visibility that regulators and auditors require. It enables organizations to demonstrate that access is:

• approved by the right people
• aligned to policy and role
• periodically reviewed
• removed when no longer needed

For regulations like SOX, GDPR, and DORA, IGA provides the audit trails and governance controls that demonstrate access is managed appropriately. Rather than scrambling to produce evidence at audit time, organizations with mature IGA programs generate compliance evidence as a natural byproduct of day-to-day operations.

Extending IGA to SAP is one of the most complex challenges in enterprise identity governance — and one that most organizations struggle to address without specialist expertise. SAP environments have unique authorization structures, role hierarchies, and governance requirements that standard IGA connectors often handle inconsistently or incompletely.
 
Turnkey helps organizations extend governance consistently across SAP and non‑SAP systems. Rather than treating SAP as just another connected system, we help clients align access reviews, provisioning, and controls with SAP roles, risks, and segregation‑of‑duties requirements. As a result, organizations achieve more reliable governance and fewer compliance exceptions.