What is SSO and Why Does It Matter?

What is SSO?

SSO in IT stands for Single Sign-On. In the simplest terms, it means that you log into your organization’s systems with one user identity. Many people might have experienced SSO-like functionality when using social sites as their identity providers, such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter/X, etc.

Why Is It So Important?

Why is this important for building scalable organizations? It’s the glue that connects your various SaaS and IT systems. It’s what lets you get employees onboarded quickly. It’s what reduces the potential for having your systems compromised by poor password hygiene.

SSO also underpins the necessary infrastructure for graceful tool integration and information sharing. When you have a bunch of systems and applications with different login names and passwords, getting them to talk to each other is impossible. This is one of the first obstacles organizations face when they need to start scaling.

Little Pain Now or Big Pain Later

I won’t lie… getting your head around SSO upfront might feel like a distraction or a burden. However, it’s going to be a lot worse if you do it one or two years later. When you have to mangle user identities, write complicated migration scripts, reset applications, and deal with all the conflicting data to automate a process or system. Having a clear SSO strategy in place as you add applications to your technology stack will be an excellent tool to help choose the right tools for the business now and in the future.

My Feedback to SaaS Vendors: STOP Placing SSO in Your Top Tier Offerings Only

I’d like to now take a rare moment to get on my soapbox.

What I really don’t agree with, however, is vendors who put SSO in the highest tier of their offerings, usually the “enterprise” tier. The customer is forced to buy features they don’t need, To those doing this, STOP IT 🙏 PLEASE

This practice reduces the opportunity to create more secure environments. Ideally, SSO should be included in all offerings. However, as a vendor who is a responsible member of the global technology community, SSO should always be available as a standalone feature for anyone who asks for it.

It also raises big red flags when a vendor can’t offer SSO in its lower tiers. Is that because of poor architecture? Inflexible billing platforms? SSO should be like an airbag: a standard feature on all models.

SSO for Everyone

Your business should have an SSO strategy. Having it in place now will save so much pain later. If you have any questions about this and want to understand it better, reach out and book 30 minutes with me to get an understanding of how this can help your organization!