Case study on identity and access management in an EU level pharmaceutical company

Today, the world becomes ever more computerized and a growing number of users possess an increasing amount of different identities in this digitalizing world. Nevertheless, users have to be able to run these computerized systems smoothly in this changing environment. In order to do so, digital identities and their access rights have to be properly managed and controlled along the various stages of their life cycle. This so called identity and access management is useful or even essential especially for large organizations with hundreds or thousands of internal and external users. The goal of this thesis was to investigate the possibilities to standardize the identity and access management of a large European company that works closely with pharmaceutical business. The aim was also to get an overview of the level of identity and access management within the member countries of this organization. Carried out as a case study, the research in this work is based on a survey sent to the member countries of this company. The survey was answered by leading experts and decision-makers in these corresponding states. The possibilities for standardization were then analyzed according to the results of the survey. The contents of the diploma work are divided into theory and research parts. The theory part provides fundamental information on identity and access management and gives a glance at the future trends of the field. In addition, readers are briefly introduced to international regulations, which guide not only pharmaceutical business in general, but also the implementation and maintenance of computer systems in this business. The research part explores the identity and access management of the company under study. First, some general information is provided about the target company and the research procedures. After this, the actual results will be presented and analyzed. The questions are divided into several categories, depending on the ways how the results are analyzed. Finally, the conclusions and possible further actions will be summarized.