Decentralized Identity Governance for Enterprises That Cannot Afford Bottlenecks

NEXIS distributes role management, authorization tasks, and governance activities to the departments that own them while IAM retains central visibility, policy enforcement, and audit control.

When IAM Becomes the Bottleneck, Governance Slows Down

In large organizations, identity governance still runs through a central IAM team. Role requests, recertification campaigns, and documentation updates all go through IT. Business departments wait, IAM teams are overloaded, and neither side benefits.

DORA, BAIT, and VAIT require governance that is structured, traceable, and defensible, but not fully centralized. The challenge is to distribute the workload without losing control. Yet the departments that define business processes and understand which roles are needed are still excluded from governance execution. Decentralized identity governance changes that.

Risk Indicators

IAM tickets pile up while departments wait for updates
Recertifications depend on manual follow-up and spreadsheets
Application owners cannot maintain governance documentation directly
Audit gaps emerge across teams and applications
Governance is applied inconsistently across the environment

When Ownership Moves to the Business,
Governance Gets Stronger

NEXIS enables business units to manage their own roles, maintain application governance documentation, and participate directly in recertifications without raising an IT ticket or weakening governance integrity.

Role Ownership Where It Belongs

Business departments create, maintain, and retire roles without routing every change through central IT.

AI-Assisted Documentation

Application owners create IAM governance documentation directly in NEXIS with guided support based on existing system data.

Compliance Without the Overhead

SoD checks run in the background so governance remains enforced without manual intervention at every step.

Recertification Without Manual Coordination

Reviews are assigned automatically to the right managers, role owners, and application owners at the right time.

Automated Recertification Campaigns

Business departments create and manage roles directly in NEXIS without submitting IT tickets or waiting for central team capacity. Role updates, splits, retirements, and ownership changes are handled through structured workflows while IAM retains full visibility and policy control. Naming conventions and other data quality rules remain enforced throughout the lifecycle.

AI-Assisted IAM Governance Documentation

Application owners create IAM governance documentation directly in the platform. NICO, the NEXIS Intelligent Co-Pilot, helps pre-fill documentation using existing role and entitlement data, reducing effort for non-technical stakeholders. Once reviewed and approved, concepts are versioned, audit-ready, and aligned with governance requirements such as DORA and BAIT.

Configurable Self-Service Dashboards

NEXIS provides tailored dashboards for managers, role owners, and application owners based on their responsibilities. These role-specific views help business stakeholders complete governance tasks without using an IAM admin interface. IT can configure and deploy new self-service views without custom development.

Workflow Automation for Distributed Governance

The NEXIS workflow engine includes more than 200 standard processes for role requests, approvals, recertifications, escalations, and documentation reviews. Organizations can adapt these workflows without coding. Time- and event-driven automation helps reduce manual coordination while keeping governance processes consistent and traceable.

Automated Recertification Delegation

Access reviews are routed automatically to the right responsible parties, including managers, role owners, and application owners. This removes manual coordination from recertification processes. NICO provides context and recommendations that help reduce decision effort for reviewers.

Continuous SoD Enforcement

Segregation-of-duties controls run continuously across access requests, role changes, and governance actions. Business users operate within policy boundaries without needing to manage SoD logic directly. Conflicts are flagged in real time and routed for approval or rejection before they reach production.

The Goal: Governance With Minimal Manual Review

The long-term goal of decentralized governance is not just faster processing. It is an operating model in which roles remain accurate by design, recertifications confirm rather than correct, and no single team carries disproportionate operational weight. NEXIS supports that trajectory by combining delegation, automation, and continuous policy enforcement.

Business Departments Own Their Roles
IAM Retains Central Visibility and Policy Control
AI Assistance Reduces Documentation Effort
SoD and Compliance Stay Enforced Automatically

UNIQA Strengthens Identity Governance and Compliance with NEXIS

This case study shows how UNIQA strengthened identity governance and compliance with NEXIS – one of Europe’s leading insurance groups...

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Structured IAM Governance at CSS Insurance

CSS achieved structured IAM governance and recertification by standardizing heterogeneous access environments, automating recertifications, and introducing scalable, audit-ready role management...

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“By using NEXIS as a dedicated role management platform, we can provide automated processes around business roles and offer user-friendly interfaces for everyone involved in role management.”

Sascha Gautschi Product Owner, Post CH AG

Related NEXIS Platform Capabilities

Role and Access Governance

Support business-owned role lifecycle processes with controlled creation, maintenance, ownership, and retirement.

Governance & Compliance

Maintain structured workflows, documentation, approval records, and audit-ready governance evidence.

Segregation of Duties (SoD)

Apply SoD controls across requests, role changes, and delegated governance tasks.