For many the term ‘Digital ID’ conjures up images of high tech gadgets and expensive, complex solutions beyond the financial and technical reach of an average company. For others, it’s about the use of plastic ID cards and the continual faff and cost of admin staff trying to issue, replace and update them.

Dispelling misconceptions around Digital ID solutions is vital as it is really important that businesses of all sizes and technical capabilities adopt systems to help prevent identity fraud, comply with legislation such as Right to Work and provide confidence to customers in their business and their workforce.

The wide spread uptake of low cost, secure Digital ID solutions is very much linked with businesses being aware of what it entails, what is available and how these solutions can fit seamlessly into their day to day budgets and working practices.

Identity management is simply a way of managing and verifying the identity of individual members of staff and others who want to access spaces and places such as company premises or sites and use or operate equipment and IT systems. As part of the process those individuals will be granted authorised access, possibly with permission levels and with their details being stored for reporting and analysis.

Ultimately, it is about reducing threats, enhancing security and ensuring safety and compliance – for individuals, businesses and trading relationships.

Speaking with our customers and the wider business community, there is a strong sense that businesses currently see staff identification solutions fitting into 2 distinct categories:- (i) expensive, technologically advanced that require new, specific hardware and (ii) cheaper, lower tech solutions such as plastic ID cards produced either in-house or by a third party company.

We are regularly reminded by people of what they see as the drawbacks of these two solution groups:-

• Cost of hardware, set-up and on-going maintenance – particularly where specialist hardware is required
• Technical complexity – especially around initial set-up and troubleshooting
• Cost to benefit ratio is too high – is the business case strong enough?
• Relies heavily on admin staff time – particularly for plastic ID card type solutions
• Not always fool-proof – leading to abuse/ misuse e.g. loss of or sharing of identity cards

Reasons for adopting a system not always clear – often driven by an industry or client requirement.

Let’s focus for a minute on some of the issues that matter most to SME type businesses :

1. Technical complexity

Most smaller companies do not have the luxury of dedicated in-house IT staff, some may have 3rd party support contracts in place but controlling costs is always important. So, to deploy a system that is beyond the know-how of the staff they do have is pretty unappealing.

With this in mind, our Digital ID solution has been built-into the existing pro-Forms^® back-office system and app. No new hardware to purchase, minimal set up and maintenance and a familiar group of people supporting them – US!

2. Cost

Always an issue for owner-managed businesses and never more so than with the current econmic backdrop. For just £2/ month per user our Digital ID Plan can be switched on as you hire new staff or off as they leave your business. No long lock-in period or minimum spend, just a flat rate per worker per month.

3. The business case

How does a business justify the implementation cost of a new system? Not an easy question to answer, but, by and large, most business owners will ask themselves : how much is it? what does it do? how does it add to things the business is already doing? and does it give us something new e.g. sales, reduced expenditure, PR/ exposure etc.

We’ve tried hard to address these sorts of questions by keeping the price low, adding as much functionality as we can that other systems don’t offer – more on that in a minute – and making it super light weight and easy to manage. Almost trying to make the decision to implement digital ID management a no-brainer.

4. Functionality

Getting the absolute maximum return for every pound spent is not a new trend, it’s always been at the heart of well run businesses. So, when planning our Digital ID offering along with our own ideas we spoke with as many customers as we could about would like to see and what would they consider ‘value for money’.

Interestingly, a theme emerged – piggybacking into less obvious areas of business to deliver a solution that covers features that would otherwise be found in several different software solutions from multiple vendors.

As a result our solution now includes –

• back office control of individual profiles and who can access them
• a unique QR code for each individual which when scanned loads their full identity profile
• document expiry & renewal management
• training and accreditation records & documents visible in profiles
• option to send allocated worker profiles in advance of job visits to customers

This approach has set the platform to further enhance our Digital ID Plan into areas that traditional systems such as the plastic identity cards simply cannot reach – and coupled with the ease of set-up, ongoing management and security arrangements helps us achieve the desired ‘value for money’ position.

It would be a difficult position for any business to adopt a position that says they are not actively trying to prevent fraud by managing who turns up on site purporting to represent their company.

Equally, not being active around the qualifications and competencies of staff and contractors carrying out work for your company could be be seen as a contradiction to mission statements that set out high quality standards and workmanship as core values.

Perhaps therefore, another look at digital identity solutions which incorporate these elements would be a great starting point for ALL businesses looking to demonstrate a commitment to customers and clients that they are truly invested in ensuring the best possible outcomes in their working relationships.

Want to try Digital Profile for your business?