Okta helps keep CNA Financial’s complex hybrid environment organized

Speaker 1: CNA is the seventh largest property and casualty insurer in the US. We're a global company. We have offices in North America as well as in Europe and also in Asia Pacific.

Speaker 1: Our vision for IT at CNA is really to be able to provide the right services at the right cost and with the right level of quality. Up til now we've provided a lot of IT technologies, but not really a true service offering. And so we're moving more into providing IT as a service and really starting to focus on the customer experience overall and what we can do to improve that. As well as enabling our business to make more informed decisions at the time of engagement.

Speaker 1: We started down that path with software as a service and now we're starting to build in infrastructure as a service using more of the private cloud. We're looking to build in some automation and also now take advantage of public cloud, which is going to end up for us being a hybrid environment for some period of time as we look to consume public services. Again, no stranger to software as a service, but now consuming things like infrastructure as a service or even platform as a service are game changers for our business.

Speaker 1: We were looking for a technology or capability to enable our business to provide a more seamless integration when accessing third party applications or other services. And we compared Okta with some of the other providers that are out there in the hosted space as well and integration, but no one could provide us the level of integration with the scalability, and the needs that we needed internally as well for some of our internal applications, with the seamless network and security management that Okta solution could bring to us.

Speaker 1: The top features that stand out to us would be, number one, speed to market. Again, can't tell you how fast we were able to stand up Okta, have it integrate with our environment was a real game changer for us and it really opened up our eyes to a lot of the services that Okta could provide us internally. Not only just from an identity management, but even some of the mobility space now that we're starting to explore.

Speaker 1: Second area would be in terms of the number of integrations, right. And I think, you know, we heard that Okta is now opened up some of the integration to open source community and we think that's great. And we think that's only going to lead to more and more integration in the future and less work for us to have to worry about building some of those customizations.

Speaker 1: Working with Okta is really working with a partner. We've had a couple needs come up, specifically around some re-authentication for some of our financial apps or HR related applications. And so we've been able to reach out to Okta and they've been very receptive in that need and are actually currently working to develop that capability for us and to release it this year. So that's pretty exciting stuff that we can have that sort of a conversation and dialogue and really influence and provide some of the change necessary that'll help our business and hopefully other businesses in the future.

Speaker 1: If you are another CIO out there and you're looking for an identity management solution, I mean, I don't think you'll find a better one than Okta. It really takes a lot of the burden and the stress out of having to deal with this in your everyday life. And so, you know, I think it's well worth the investment and then it allows you to go and focus in other areas of your business that are really going to make more of a difference.