The challenge
Managed service providers struggle to deliver a consistent service to their customers using “best of breed” software packages. A lot of time, effort and development skill is required to attempt to integrate the multitude of these different packages into a system that meets the service provider's portfolio.
Oftentimes, the integration is only partially possible, making the quality of service offering differ widely between the software packages, resulting in an inconsistent service portfolio.
In such an environment, security becomes a secondary “overlay”, as each product will have its own approach to defining user roles. Security quickly becomes fragile, complex and highly manual in its administration, leading to potential security breaches.
Additional cost is often incurred by having to integrate a reporting layer on top of the disparate systems. This reporting layer can also suffer from fragility and security complexities. If the underlying systems are changed or a report needs updating, the task will require the same highly skilled developers.