Businesses @ Work

The strangest of bedfellows: Office 365 and Google Apps complement each other in the enterprise. We’ve discovered that a surprising number of Okta customers across all industries are inviting both cloud giants—Office 365 and Google Apps—into their businesses. Our survey data showed that over forty percent of companies using both Google Apps and Office 365 do so because different departments prefer different applications, presumably for online collaboration. Thirty percent of overlapping customers use Office 365 for licensing desktop products (Excel, Word and PowerPoint) only and use Google Apps for day-to-day email and collaboration. As one respondent put it, “The easiest way for us to license Office and keep it updated is via Office 365.”

Slack is killing it, but it isn’t killing email—yet. Slack was the fastest growing cloud app amongst Okta customers in the second half of 2015, with a 77 percent increase in adoption. Slack CEO, Stewart Butterfield, claims that, “the whole spectrum of communication within a company can happen inside Slack”, leading many to wonder if it will eventually replace email. While email remains the most widely assigned app today, Slack is picking up speed...and fast. Slack is one of the most widely assigned apps in our network today.

You get an app! And you get an app! Everybody gets an app! As the digital revolution goes mainstream, every type of worker—not just the knowledge worker—is using cloud apps. While email has been the gateway to the cloud for many enterprises, Okta’s data shows that cloud apps are now taking on a wider range of more specialized roles for these companies. Developers, creative pros, engineers and HR teams are using niche cloud apps to meet their distinct needs and make them more productive and successful at work. Not only are companies using off-the-shelf “public cloud” services, as mainstream adoption of the cloud continues, custom apps that fill even more specialized needs are growing in our network as well.

After years of attempted transformation, old school software vendors are successfully kicking it in the cloud. The popularity of cloud apps has not been lost on traditional software leaders like Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. In fact, Microsoft Office 365 extended its lead as most popular cloud app this year. Whether through internal development or via acquisition, these companies are re-inventing themselves in the cloud. Cloud application adoption within the Okta network from Adobe (Creative Cloud), SAP (Concur and SuccessFactors) and Microsoft (Office 365) grew 144, 133 and 116 percent respectively in 2015.

Enterprises are increasing their investment in security. With major breaches making headlines on a weekly basis, companies are continuing to increase their use of multi-factor authentication to secure their sensitive business information. Nearly one-third (30 percent) of companies are using multi-factor authentication in at least one app.

The digital revolution is here. For the first time, external identities have surpassed internal identities within Okta. According to IDG, 76 percent of IT decision makers say digital business initiatives to serve customers and partners are “very important” or “critical” in the next 12 months. And we’ve only scratched the surface. A recent report from McKinsey Global Institute says the US is operating at 18 percent of its digital potential. If the US fully realized the potential of digitization, this market could be worth $2 trillion dollars! While our data shows 80 percent of enterprises are building custom applications on their platforms, the average customer or partner is accessing five total applications via Okta. And, at least one off-the-shelf cloud app (Box, Jive, Salesforce, etc.) is being used by 83 percent of customers and partners today. The market opportunity here is tremendous.