In today's demanding and risky digital world, establishing a sense of security for your customers is paramount. If they don't feel confident using your products or accessing your digital platforms, they won't engage with your brand or share their information. That's why developing a robust approach to Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) has become indispensable for businesses to build trust and foster customer relationships.

But as with all game changers in the realm of technology, the CIAM landscape is laden with a critical question - to build or to buy? It's a crossroads every enterprise finds itself at, the allure of customisation and control tugging from one side, while the convenience and efficiency of prebuilt solutions pulling from the other.

Brimming with the complexities of the digital world, the arguments for purchasing, rather than building, CIAM are persuasive, from increasing revenue to enhancing security. Here, in the heart of our discourse, I present you with three compelling reasons:

1. Accelerating Revenue Through Rapid Market Entry for Applications - Organisations must adapt to market opportunities or risk a financial loss when consumer needs fluctuate. A good consumer identity solution secures consumer experiences. Thus, developers avoid reinventing authentication, authorisation, and user management. Instead, they create unique app features and release them quickly. Scalability is essential to maintaining revenue during busy periods.

2. Reducing Engineering Costs - Third-party identity management is easy to deploy and switching on key features is easy. Imagine reusing thousands of development hours to write business logic instead of authentication. App development can resume after testing and ensuring security. Third-party solutions simplify identity provider integration and mapping processes, while out-of-the-box CIAM solutions with SDKs for common development stacks reduce system integration coding.

3. Enhanced Security - When did your team's password hashing algorithm update? Cyber attackers still target user data and Personally Identifiable Information (PII). However, user protection is routinely sacrificed for expansion or income. CIAM solutions securely store and transport user data while following regional compliance policies and certifications.

Consider the Schneider Electric case, a global leader in energy management and automation. They needed an identity management strategy that could scale with their growth in over 100+ countries. Okta Customer Identity Cloud (previously Auth0) was chosen because it reduced internal barriers, solved challenging identity integration issues, and sped up time to market. Schneider Electric supports buying over creating CIAM, as it offers improved security and resource utilisation.

Building on the experiences of industry leaders like Schneider Electric, and words from Scott Howitt, CISO at MGM Resorts International, “[Okta] is one of the things that I can put in my toolkit to say: Hey we’re gonna move faster because we have this identity component nailed.”, isn't it time you joined the movement?

Don't just build but grow faster with Okta Customer Identity Cloud. Harness the power of a secured digital future today.