Background
The question almost everyone asks
The price of a dedicated IGA platform prompts many to ask: can we not make do with what we already pay for? It is a fair question, and the honest answer is: sometimes yes. Entra ID Governance has become a genuine alternative for organisations with a predominantly Microsoft-based system portfolio.
The choice comes down to three things: your system landscape, your compliance requirements and the complexity of your organisation – not feature lists alone.
What Entra ID Governance does well
Within the Microsoft ecosystem the tool is strong: access reviews on groups, Teams and applications, entitlement management with access packages, lifecycle workflows for onboarding and offboarding cloud identities, and privileged access management through PIM. If your applications are largely connected to Entra and your identities are born in the cloud, it takes you a long way.
The strength is the integration: everything sits in the platform you already run, under licenses you may already hold, with no new system to implement and maintain.
The differences
Where a dedicated IGA platform stands apart
- Systems outside Microsoft: deep provisioning and access governance in line-of-business systems, ERP, healthcare platforms and everything that will never join Entra.
- Role model and SoD: role modelling and segregation of duties across the entire system landscape, not just cloud applications.
- Complex JML rules: automation driven by HR data with multiple sources, group structures and special rules for contractors and temporary staff.
- Recertification of everything: access reviews covering every system that holds access – including those without modern integrations.
- Audit across the board: a single answer to who has access to what and why – wherever the access lives.
The method
How to decide
- Map the system landscape
How large a share of your critical systems sits outside the Microsoft ecosystem? The larger the share, the stronger the case for a dedicated platform.
- Clarify the compliance requirements
Do NIS2, DORA or your auditors require recertification and segregation of duties on line-of-business and on-premises systems? Then the tool must be able to reach them.
- Assess the data foundation
One HR source and a simple organisation point towards Entra; multiple sources, group structures and special rules point towards dedicated IGA.
- Calculate the total cost
Compare licenses, implementation and operations over several years – and remember that the cheapest license gets expensive if half the landscape must be handled manually alongside it.
The honest answer
For many, the right answer is a combination: Entra ID as the foundation for authentication and cloud access, and a dedicated IGA platform for governance across the whole landscape. The two do not exclude each other – in most architectures they work together.
Whichever direction you take, the sequence from our article on IGA project pitfalls applies: clarify needs, data foundation and processes first, and let the product choice follow from the requirements.
Shall we look at your situation?
IGA Ready is our structured pre-project: we map your system landscape, requirements and data foundation and give you a decision basis for the product choice – whether the answer turns out to be Entra, dedicated IGA or a combination.
