Why your IT budget should include a company password manager

Introducing password security to your company is an important investment to safeguard your sensitive credentials, protecting the IT team, executives, and all employees. Discover the value of a company password manager and how you can put your IT budget to great use.

The value of a company password manager

We constantly read about data breaches these days, and those are just the stories in the news.

of companies reported they’ve experienced a cybersecurity attack

Password Decisions Survey 2023

of employees admit to reusing passwords for multiple accounts

Password Decisions Survey 2023

of cyberattacks are credential-related

Verizon Business 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report

The average cost of a data breach inclusive of opportunity cost, ransom, legal fees, and reputation impact.

IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024

Benefits of a business password manager

Enterprise password protection provides employees the tools to create, manage, and share strong and unique passwords for every account––safeguarding your company against cyber threats and reducing the chances of costly security breaches.

The benefits of a business password manager go beyond protection.

Bitwarden, for instance, enhances employee productivity by:

  • Facilitating encrypted password and file sharing with teammates, contractors, and customers

  • Reducing time wasted on password resets and manual logins

  • Generating strong passwords that can be immediately stored in an end-to-end encrypted vault (and accessible on any browser or device)

  • Streamlining employee onboarding with automated password generation and communication

Password managers are a cost-efficient and valuable security solution, so when it comes to investing in security with your IT budget, you should consider introducing Bitwarden to a core team for evaluation.

Planning ahead for stronger business password security

When considering how to allocate your IT budget to enhance business security, start by considering which teams might find a company password manager most useful.

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IT and operations teams

These teams have a lot of credentials that they need to share securely amongst themselves and others. They are usually involved in testing new software and can help figure out which strategy for managing collections and user groups works best for your company, then, they can work with internal training teams to help outline an employee adoption strategy.

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Finance team

This team handles sensitive business documents on a daily basis and have a regular need for storing passwords securely and sending encrypted files of high priority.

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Human Resources

This team manages a database containing private employee information that should be handled carefully and securely. Securing those accounts with strong, unique passwords is critical.

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Marketing

This team has dozens to hundreds of shared logins to keep track of, which makes them a prime use case for a simple and secure password-sharing solution.

Starting with a password management proof-of-concept

Explore the capabilities of your company's new password management solution with a select team to gain a better understanding of your business needs and policies.

For example, many Bitwarden business customers start by creating a plan for their IT department to kick off the evaluation process. This enables the IT team to immediately begin experimenting with creating workflows for their everyday activities, such as onboarding new employees, which requires the generation of new passwords or sending secure information. During this trial period, it also helps to determine which policies the company would like to enable and standardize across the organization.

In addition to password management policies, participants in a Bitwarden pilot program should also experiment with Groups, Collections, User Management, and Bitwarden Send. Bitwarden has also developed a proof of concept guide to help get started.

Another advantage to running a pilot through the IT department is the value of their expertise when it comes to deploying across your entire organization. Having a team of experts ready to assist with expansion and rollout is essential to giving your employees the support and training needed to successfully integrate the solution into their daily activities.

Starting a Bitwarden pilot program is simple. Cloud-hosting is included so it’s easy to evaluate right away without having to invest in additional infrastructure. Billing is on a per-seat basis, so you can start the program at whatever size you like. Also, there’s no penalty if you decide on a different solution because your information is always accessible and can be easily exported by an admin for use elsewhere. Finally, Bitwarden business plans come with a free trial so you can see if Bitwarden will meet your company’s needs even before you begin.