Why is it hard to get resources for an IAM system in practice, and how do you get the sponsor to provide budget and staff?

An IAM system needs resources for the initial build and for ongoing operation, but stakeholders often take a consuming attitude. Budget and staff only come once the sponsor recognises a necessity, so you must choose arguments that speak to the sponsor's own motives.

Three facts collide here:

1. IAM costs money twice: for the initial build (Aufbau) and for continuous operation (laufender Betrieb). It is never a one-off project.
2. Stakeholders consume: users, application owners and even IT colleagues tend to expect IAM simply to work, like electricity, without contributing effort or budget themselves.
3. The sponsor pays only for a recognised need: until the sponsor sees a necessity, there is no budget and no staff.

So the IAM team has to make the need visible, using arguments that match what moves this particular sponsor:

• Compliance: audit findings, regulatory requirements, certification goals.
• Economics: help-desk cost of password resets, days lost waiting for accounts, licences paid for leavers.
• Risk: incidents caused by stale or excessive access, attack paths through privileged accounts.

The order matters: first the recognised necessity, then the budget and people. Because IAM's value lies in the downstream systems it serves, the strongest arguments are told in their terms, not in protocol names.

Go deeper:

• Business case (Wikipedia) — structuring the costs, benefits and risks that convince a decision-maker.
• Stakeholder analysis (Wikipedia) — mapping whose support you need and what they care about.