So many Privileged Access Management (PAM) projects start off well-intentioned but quickly unravel due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what's required. That’s because a successful PAM transformation demands more than just technology.
Don't get me wrong – the tech matters. But all too often organizations purchase a PAM tool, assume they're secure, and then have to think twice (and pick up the pieces) after experiencing a breach. It’s a harsh way to discover that technology is just the first step. But the truth is, without a comprehensive PAM strategy significant risks remain unaddressed.
From our experience, successful PAM deployment requires a strategic foundation, stakeholder management, and organizational change alongside the technical tooling. When organizations overlook these areas, they create a narrow focus that leads to predictable problems: lack of stakeholder buy-in, unclear objectives, poor ROI, inconsistent adoption, and, of course, security gaps. It doesn't help that so many vendors focus exclusively on technical features, without providing the strategic support required to unlock PAM's cross-organizational potential.
But here's what happens when a PAM transformation fails: businesses end up with unengaged user communities, IT administrators resist changes they feel are imposed rather than collaborative, and substantial financial investment doesn't deliver expected returns. Worse yet, these failures erode stakeholder confidence, making it even more difficult to gain approval for future security initiatives.
That's why we treat PAM transformation as an ongoing program – a continuous operational requirement that evolves with changing business needs, rather than a finite technical project. When you get this right, the benefits are substantial: enhanced security posture, streamlined operations, and sustainable governance that actually delivers on your investment. In this blog, we'll walk you through 10 essential actions your organization should take to support a successful PAM transformation.
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Align your journey to a PAM strategy
Clear strategic foundations are vital for defining key objectives, risks, and priorities – without them, you risk rushing into technical deployment without clear direction or practical use cases. There are four key questions to answer here:
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What are the main drivers behind your PAM implementation?
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Which privileged access use cases are most critical to our organization?
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Which controls and capabilities are most important to your organization?
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How will the vision and benefits be ‘sold’ to your key stakeholders?
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Engage the right stakeholders
Any good PAM program involves multiple departments: IT administration, HR, GRC, InfoSec governance functions, and so on. This makes early stakeholder identification and engagement critical. Success requires setting up user communities that bring teams together around a shared vision, capturing and addressing everyone's views within the project framework. This should be a collaborative, inclusive process rather than one that simply imposes solutions.
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Align with the correct executives to deliver change
When the right executives and decision-makers buy into the need for strategic PAM transformation, overcoming resistance and driving change becomes much easier. The best person to get on board is your Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), as they carry board-level authority and have direct responsibility for security. Their role should involve handling objections, acting as the guardian of PAM within the organization, selling the program’s vision to other key senior stakeholders, and taking everyone on the transformation journey.
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Don't be afraid to change your ways of working
Most organizations have established ways of working that may have been in place for years, yet PAM platforms offer proven workflows and functionality out-of-the-box. Rather than bending PAM to fit your existing processes, consider adapting your ways of working to leverage PAM's capabilities. This saves effort, reduces costs, and improves tool adoption. The more flexible and adaptable you can be, the quicker and easier program delivery becomes, and the faster you'll realize time-to-value, especially in large environments.
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Don't bite off more than you can chew
Implementation should be phased and manageable – don't try to do everything at once. A ‘big bang’ approach risks stakeholder pushback, delivery failure, team morale issues, and a lack of clear progress measurement. We recommend focusing on the highest-risk, lowest-volume access first, as this is faster and easier to both achieve and demonstrate value. With more stakeholder confidence, the rollout can then expand to other areas as defined in your strategic roadmap.
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Don't let extensive customization hinder progress
At Turnkey, we advocate the ‘80/20 rule’ of using 80% standard functionality and restricting custom requirements to 20%. This rule ensures that you won’t make implementation and maintenance more complicated than necessary. Spend time completing discovery with your operational teams to understand how privileged accounts are utilized. This helps to identify any ‘non-standard’ activities or interlocking dependencies that will need to be considered.
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Place the end user at the heart of your program
User cooperation is essential for strong security controls, so user experience and satisfaction should be a top priority. This is especially important for users who have extensive system knowledge and well-established working patterns, as they are most likely to resist change. Employees want to feel like transformation is being done with them, not to them. IT administrators can help by getting users engaged with design decisions, understanding existing workflows, and supporting communication and training.
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Factor cloud into your approach to success
Cloud environments pose new challenges for PAM deployments due to vast entitlement numbers that are far beyond the capabilities of a traditional role-based approach. With organizations increasingly moving to cloud-first strategies, focusing solely on on-premise access creates technical debt and neglects cloud PAM responsibilities – leaving significant attack surfaces unprotected. A clear cloud focus should be embedded into the PAM strategy early on, as it can be expensive to retrofit.
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Centralize your long-term onboarding approach
PAM is an ongoing requirement that evolves with your business, so onboarding needs sustainable methodologies rather than fixed project phases. Remember, you can't remain in the project phase forever – you'll need to define a repeatable framework that operates independently. In practical terms, this means documented playbooks for standard onboarding, clear escalation procedures for exceptions, regular review processes, and integration with managed service providers for ongoing expansion.
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Ensure proper program governance
Behind the scenes, good PAM programs have governance structures that provide support for ongoing oversight, objection management, strategic direction, and resource allocation decisions. Steering committees should include stakeholders from finance, governance, compliance, internal audit, and senior executives to ensure that all relevant parties are familiar with program progress and emerging requirements, and feel their voices are being heard.
In Summary: Beyond Technology to Transformation
Here's the bottom line: organizations that approach PAM transformation as a strategic program rather than a technical project achieve significantly better outcomes. You get enhanced security that addresses real risks, improved operational performance through streamlined workflows, and a fully engaged workforce that will ensure PAM continues delivering value long after initial deployment.
Turnkey can support you from initial strategy development, through implementation, to ongoing managed services – giving you the end-to-end capability that ensures strong alignment, stakeholder engagement, and sustainable operations.
The result? You avoid common PAM pitfalls and drive lasting value from genuine security transformation. Get in touch with our team today to find out more.
