With Okta handling workforce and customer identity, Navan can focus on innovation

In 2015, Navan disrupted the travel and expense (T&E) space with its technology-forward platform. The simple, consumer-grade interface put power back into the hands of travelers, while offering business customers improved visibility and simplified compliance. 

The company’s obsessive focus on delighting customers led to its meteoric rise during a time when identity-based attacks were also increasing. Because Navan collects payment information, personal identifying information (PII), and other sensitive data, its in-house customer identity and access management (IAM) solution soon proved inadequate.

Navan had implemented Okta’s Workforce Identity Cloud (WIC) In 2019, to help streamline processes and secure the internal environment while the company was in hypergrowth. “Okta helps us make sure the employee experience is frictionless—that they always have access to the systems they need to be productive,” says CIO Kim Huffman. 

Three years later, when it was time to upgrade customer identity, Okta’s Customer Identity Cloud (CIC) was the obvious choice. Using Okta WIC and CIC together increased visibility and control over IAM across the company’s IT systems, reducing customer and employee security risks while simultaneously simplifying access and reducing friction. 

It’s a recipe for building and maintaining customer trust over time. Freed from identity concerns, Navan developers can now focus on building a world-class T&E platform.

Identity’s role in maintaining customer trust

Trust is paramount to the Navan brand, and that means delighting customers by exceeding their expectations as well as keeping customer information secure. “Without a certain level of customer trust, we essentially couldn’t have a business,” says Kelly Soderlund, Senior Director of Corporate Communications.

As the company grew, the importance of identity became clear. “Every customer has different needs and requirements, and our job is to recognize and meet those needs wherever they are, on whatever device they are using,” says Chris Price, head of business technology at Navan. “You can only do that if you take an identity-first approach.”

It made sense for the team to centralize IAM and partner with the leader in the space. “Ease of use, ease of integration with our customers, as well as reputation in the space—that all played a role in our decision to centralize on Okta for customer and workforce identity,” says Huffman.

“From a security perspective, it’s critical to have a central identity strategy to protect against evolving threats,” says Prabhath Karanth, head of customer trust and security. “As a company collecting customer data, Navan is responsible for meeting a number of certifications and compliance requirements, and identity is central to all of that. It’s also a starting point for in-depth stack defense and zero trust.” 

Workforce and customer identity: Better together

Centralizing customer and workforce identity on Okta gives the Navan team an end-to-end understanding of identity security—a single data set to work with. “It’s a huge advantage when security issues pop up,” says Price. “Having all that data holistically across the system, rather than having to segment and look at things individually, helps us resolve issues much faster—and speed is always critical when you’re under attack.”

With Okta handling customer identity, Navan developers can put all their energy toward building a world-class T&E platform. “That’s exactly where they should be focused,” says Huffman. “Having Okta in place sets us up for more innovation.”

“We are not an identity company,” she says. “If we were building our own identity cloud, we wouldn’t be enhancing it, investing in it and focusing on it like Okta is.”

All about the customer, all the time

The Okta Customer Identity Cloud for SaaS Apps includes the Workforce Enterprise Connection feature, which makes it easy for Navan developers to integrate with business customers. For them, it means their employee travelers face less friction, so they’re more likely to use the app and stay compliant with company travel policies. For Navan, it means more users on the platform, increased business value, and increased adoption, travelers, bookings, and revenue. 

With Okta’s vendor-neutral approach, the Navan team can build their stack their way, and tailor their identity solution to their unique business needs—all of which syncs beautifully with Navan’ approach to its own customers. “We give our travel and expense managers a lot of flexibility and also a lot of control over their T&E policies,” says Huffman. 

CIC’s Organizations feature makes it simple for Navan business customers to configure custom, organization-based IAM branding and policies within their T&E solution. “We have some highly regulated customers and others with a higher risk tolerance,” says Karanth. “With Okta CIC, we can tailor their service to the level of security that they need.” 

As an early Okta customer, Karanth has followed the company’s evolution over the past seven years. “The beauty of Okta innovation is that it’s based on customer needs,” he says. “I’m always amazed at how well their product road map aligns with what I’m thinking about.”  

Replacing friction with trust

The Navan team recounts a long list of additional Okta benefits: Reduced password resets, scalability, the ability to launch new products and onboard acquisitions with speed and agility. Okta’s role in helping the company build and maintain customer trust, however, is foundational to the relationship. “As we add new customers, we can offer them the same security that we provide for ourselves,” says Soderlund. 

If you think of trust as a matter of reducing friction between potentially opposing ideas, you begin to see clearly how Okta is delivering for the Navan team: For Karanth, Okta reduces security risks while enabling more robust revenue opportunities. For Huffman, Okta helps Navan deliver a stable, reliable product with speed and flexibility. For Price, Okta offers easy access to a wealth of applications and processes, while safeguarding customer data with strict, zero trust security policies. 

“Normally, the tension between security and access creates a lot of friction,” Price says, “but with the Okta platform, that’s gone.”