Okta: The Clear Choice for IDaaS

Millions of people use Okta every single day. Thousands of people from companies like Pitney Bowes and 24 Hour Fitness join tens of thousands of others from organizations such as Coca-Cola and American Express. They join millions of consumers from Experian and MGM Resorts.

Okta is one of those rare applications where every single employee uses it every single day. They join a unique set of apps such as email, calendar, and file sharing where you rely on it every day to do your most important work. When people think of Okta, they think of something that makes their life easier. When you see Okta, you know it's what allows you to seamlessly access the tools you need to your job most effectively. Whether those apps are in the cloud such as O365 or Box or mobile apps & on-prem apps, Okta has your back and enables you to get thru your day easier than ever before.

Despite this, the main reason millions of people use every single day is because Okta keeps your employees and customers safe. Cyber security has evolved from vandalism, to theft, to an all out war. If you take a look at headlines...It's not just individuals, it's botnets and organizations that are more sophisticated and have global reach. You cannot overstate the impact of a breach. You are talking in the millions of dollars that are at risk for each and every breach. Okta secures the workforce for some of the world's largest organizations to help prevent this from happening. For every employee inside a company that Okta provides security for, there are hundreds of people outside the organization in which Okta is the hub for secure connections.

One example of this is software giant Adobe. Adobe has transformed themselves from a traditional downloadable software company to an on-demand subscription service with their Creative Cloud Suite. Adobe turned to Okta to enable Adobe's customers to authenticate and login to their Creative Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Document Cloud seamlessly and securely using their existing corporate credentials.

Another example of this is MGM Resorts. MGM owns half the Vegas strip with hotels like the Aria, Bellagio, and Mandalay Bay. Each of their properties are unique with and have their own personality but their loyalty program MLife requires a consistent look and feel across all their properties. In order to accomplish a unified experience, MGM partnered with Okta to establish a single identity for consumers to leverage across MGM's entire portfolio. Not only is Okta used for just storing and managing MLife user credentials. Okta stores critical info about those identities such as when the guest last stayed at their property, what their preferences are, etc. They use this information to provide their customers a more personalized experience which ultimately drives more revenue and profitability for MGM.

Another example is 20th Century Fox who makes some of the most iconic TV shows and movies such as Avatar and The Martian. Historically, Fox would have to spin up infrastructure such as Active Directory and Exchange servers for 18 to 24 months for each movie they make and then then it all down once it's produced. They jumped on the cloud to streamline those processes and drive down costs. 200 organizations have to come together to make a movie and they use Okta to secure all those independent organizations and provide them access to services like Box and O365 simply & securely. The assets they manage are digital so a breach could be detrimental like it was for Sony which cost their IT department $35M. Fox uses Okta to keep their digital information safe & secure which reduces the overall risk of a costly data breach.

These patterns and customer examples lead to why Okta exists. Okta is the foundation of secure connections between people and technology. They connect people to applications, remote workers & mobile devices, partners & portals, customer & products, and really anyone to anything. Specific trends are happening everywhere like digital business transformation and IOT and Okta highlights why identity is critical and unique. It's widespread knowledge that organizations have to continuously innovate in order to compete in the market effectively, it's been this way for centuries. But now there's a technological aspect to this. It's about connecting people to technology. Identity is uniquely important to making this transformation possible. Your workforce is changing and how they get things done is changing. People are bringing their own technology into the workplace. The tools you historically used don't work anymore. Apps are changing faster than every before and people expect them to be available anytime and from any device. You are seeing apps evolve from on-prem to SaaS and most companies are now having to build their own technology and and make it faster and more reliable than ever before. If you know who your customers are and what they need to be productive, you can build better products and compete more effectively. Customer information is everything.

This evolution is what created Okta and Okta's Identity Cloud which was built in the cloud from the ground up. It's important to understand why being built in the cloud from the ground up is critical to an on-demand service. You cannot take Siebel CRM and put it in cloud to get Salesforce or Peoplesoft HR management to get Workday. You have to build from the ground up to be the market leading cloud service. It allows you to connect to everything whether it's O365 or Google apps, Box or OneDrive, Salesforce or Dynamics CRM. Okta's Identity Cloud allows you to preserve choice. It allows you to use best of breed technology for today and tomorrow.

The Okta Identity Cloud is comprised of full-featured products like Single Sign-On, Universal Directory, Multi-factor Authentication, Lifecycle Management, and Mobility Management. None of Okta's products are standalone or cobbled together like how some companies such as Microsoft approach their identity solutions. Okta is designed and built by 100% by Okta themselves to form a unified experience for two distinct audiences. First, Okta is enabling the transformation in IT by providing a more productive employee-base which reducing costs and enhances security in their environment. Secondly, all of Okta's products are available via API's and come along with SDK's and developer tools so anyone trying to build a web app, SaaS app, or mobile app can use Okta to drive revenue streams which are user-centric. Okta's entire platform is built on the industry's most reliable and secure service.

Okta's Identity Cloud allowed MGM to retire multiple legacy products which saved them $1.5M off the bat. They also benefit from an average $700k in annual savings because of a more efficient IT help desk and thru the automation of their provisioning flows thru Okta. Adobe was able to grow their business faster by moving from a downloadable software organization to renewable revenue model via the Creative Cloud. 70% of their business is now recurring which has created a much more stable business model and another $1M in annual gains for productivity. American Express Secure is a Fortune 100 company built on trust and uses Okta everyday to keep their 125k users more safe and secure.

It's no question that Okta is the clear choice for Identity. Gartner has named Okta the leader every single year since Gartner started the Magic Quadrant for IDaaS. One of the biggest reasons why is that they have the most customers by far in the industry and are the most reliable and secure service in the market which makes us here at Digital Shift very proud to be partners.

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