Reduced End-User Downtime Due To Faster Resolution Of Complex Identity Incidents Enabled By Gold

Evidence and data. Interviewees reported that Gold materially reduced downtime for employees who were unable to access critical applications due to identity-related disruptions. These incidents directly impacted business productivity because affected employees could not perform their core work until access was restored. Interviewees cited incidents including authentication failures, MFA or SSO blocks that prevented logins, provisioning and directory sync errors, conditional access misconfigurations, environment parity issues, and internal outages that blocked employees from accessing their work applications.

With Gold, employees affected by these disruptions regained access to critical systems much faster, which cut productivity losses and kept their workflows on track. Interviewees highlighted that Gold’s fast support and expert monitoring accelerated resolution. By providing clear troubleshooting paths, tailored technical guidance, and direct specialized expert involvement, Gold enabled interviewees’ organizations to sustain workforce continuity and focus on strategic, value-generating work. Interviewees also noted that beyond accelerating resolution of complex identity incidents, Gold’s proactive guidance, continuous education, and technical best practices helped minimize recurring issues and reduce internal-facing downtime risk over time.

• The VP of infrastructure and service desk at the manufacturing organization explained that their CSM invested time in understanding their organization’s environment to provide tailored guidance, which allowed them to anticipate and resolve identity incidents faster. They stated: “[Our CSM] is very quick to contact us with security concerns. I can tell there’s time put into the monthly report that comes out because it’s very customized to our organization. It’s saved us from having to cut our teeth on something that would’ve taken too much time for the value we would’ve gotten. We’ve had direct examples where they’ve advised us on practices that prevent these kinds of incidents from happening.”

• The director of identity and access management at an IT services organization explained that the guidance and recommendations provided with Gold helped prevent issues before they reached end users, ultimately reducing the likelihood of access disruptions. The director noted: “The team at Okta gives me metrics that are very meaningful to me to remain proactive. We also see personalized insights through Gold — like, ‘Hey, you could actually do even better if you did this.’ Sometimes it points out capabilities I hadn’t considered or misunderstood. It’s very helpful.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization has 15,000 employees.

• On average, 3% of employees are impacted per complex identity incident.

• The composite experiences six complex identity incidents in Year 1, five incidents in Year 2, and four incidents in Year 3 that result in internal-facing downtime.

• The mean time to resolve a complex identity incident before Gold is 8 hours. With Gold, the composite achieves a 70% reduction in resolution time for downtime-causing identity incidents, reclaiming 6 hours per incident.

• The average fully burdened hourly rate for a general employee is $44.

• For this benefit, the composite has a productivity recapture rate of 50%. Employees spend half of the time they save on activities that generate business value, but not all reclaimed time is dedicated to value-added work.

Risks. This benefit will vary among organizations based on the:

• Number of employees.

• Average percentage of employees impacted per complex identity incident.

• Frequency of complex identity incidents that result in downtime.

• Mean time to resolve complex identity incidents before Gold.

• Average fully burdened hourly rates of affected employees.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $546,000.

Faster Resolution Of Complex Identity Admin Issues Enabled By Gold

Evidence and data. Interviewees explained that Gold significantly accelerated the resolution of complex identity administration issues handled by internal Okta administrators — issues that did not necessarily result in end-user downtime but consumed significant admin time. They highlighted that Gold helped them address high-priority issues such as identity workflow slowdowns, MFA and SSO performance degradations, application launch problems caused by misconfigured identity integrations, new identity governance and provisioning process changes, and edge cases like unusual user roles or API token handling.

Gold reduced the time required to investigate and resolve these issues, often shortening multiday problem resolution cycles to just a few hours. Interviewees emphasized that faster resolution not only minimized disruption to identity services but also freed senior engineers and architects to focus on value-added administrative work and system improvements rather than repeatedly troubleshooting support issues without guidance. Gold’s proactive insights, clear escalation paths, and direct access to product experts ensured that internal admins could act decisively, resolve incidents faster, and maintain system reliability. Interviewees also added that Gold’s proactive guidance, continuous education, and technical best practices helped reduce the incidence of complex identity admin issues over time.

• The lead platform security architect at a health insurance organization noted how their CSM handled escalations and brought in additional resources as needed, explaining: “The CSM jumps in and handles any kind of escalation. She makes sure that any tickets we open, especially priority ones, are handled quickly, and she can pull in resources outside of Okta support to help us. For instance, we recently had an issue, and she actually was able to get a product engineer on a call to help us work through something. That’s huge. Otherwise, you’re trying to manage just through your own support resources.”

• The director of identity and access management at an IT services organization explained: “We use Gold to report issues as they arise and receive regular status updates. It’s great to have more visibility than someone without Gold. When we found something in our environment that wasn’t right, we used [the resources included in] Gold to figure out if it was really an issue or something else. Gold has given me that capability I would not have had otherwise. Faster resolution for issues absolutely shortens something that might have taken a couple of days down to an hour or two.”

• The global director of IT at a wholesale organization highlighted how Gold reduced the number of resources needed to resolve complex issues, stating: “We would usually need six internal people to work alongside our previous third-party support partner to handle an issue. Now, generally, two to three people handle an issue of the same severity, sometimes less depending on timing. With Gold, the right internal resources already have the historical knowledge and guidance they need, so we no longer need a large team to resolve an issue.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite experiences 12 complex identity administration issues that require escalation in Year 1, 11 in Year 2, and 10 in Year 3.

• The average time to resolve a complex identity admin issue before Gold is 40 hours.

• With Gold, the composite achieves a 75% reduction in mean time to resolve complex identity admin issues, reclaiming 30 hours per issue.

• The average fully burdened hourly rate of an Okta admin is $93.

• For this benefit, the composite has a productivity recapture rate of 50%. Okta admins spend half of the time they save on activities that generate business value, but not all reclaimed time is dedicated to value-added work.

Risks. This benefit will vary among organizations based on the:

• Frequency of complex identity admin issues requiring escalation.

• Average time to resolve complex identity admin issues before Gold.

• Average fully burdened hourly rates of Okta admins.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $35,000.

Routine Identity Task Productivity Gains Enabled By Gold

Evidence and data. Internal identity resources — including senior engineers, identity architects, and IT staff — previously spent substantial portions of their time on repetitive tasks such as managing access requests, provisioning or deprovisioning users, configuring groups and policies, troubleshooting stalled tickets, and addressing recurring workflow issues.

Gold addresses these challenges by providing distinct, targeted support features, including:

• Expert support for escalations. Gold gave identity teams direct access to experienced CSMs and TAMs who could step in on stalled or complex tickets, escalate issues, and bring in the right technical resources. Senior engineers and architects spent less time investigating issues themselves, while IT staff handling routine access requests and identity support tickets resolved them more efficiently without needing to escalate internally.

• Proactive monitoring and actionable metrics. Gold provided insights into system health, recurring misconfigurations, and potential security gaps. Okta admins catching issues early reduced firefighting and prevented repetitive troubleshooting, which reduced the number of incidents that interviewees’ organizations experienced and allowed their engineers and architects to focus on high-priority projects rather than recurring operational tasks.

• Guidance, training, and automation support. Gold delivered best practices, training, workflow guidance, and recommendations for automating routine identity tasks such as provisioning, group management, and access policy enforcement.

With the time reclaimed through Gold, engineers and architects focused on strategic identity initiatives, optimized identity governance, and implemented improvements to access policies and workflows, while IT staff handled higher volumes of routine requests and tickets more efficiently without additional resources.

• The lead platform security architect in health insurance said: “With Gold, I’m able to spend more time looking at my roadmap and my strategy and other areas of identity. I don’t have to spend another 10% of my time doing a lot of those routine tasks.”

• The solutions architect of identity and access for a subscription management and billing organization, added: “The support resources that we get with Gold are amazing versus being in a general queue with all the other Okta customers that are asking for stuff. When you’re able to go to somebody, if you’re stuck or not getting the support you need on a ticket, having that [access to a] TAM and account team as part of our Gold plan has been really helpful. When we need help with a ticket, we’re able to get them to light some fires and help get those things done.”
  The solutions architect continued: “The support we get with Gold frees everyone up to focus on what they’re good at. Some support engineers are great at working with people and fielding tickets. For others, it’s the last thing they want to do. Freeing people up from that allows them to focus on what they want to do, which improves morale a lot. The people we do get to employ are given more challenging work that they’re excited about.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite has 10 IT resources involved in routine access requests and identity-related support tickets.

  • Each IT resource spends 20% of their time on these routine identity tasks.
  • With Gold, the composite achieves a 50% productivity lift for IT resources performing routine identity tasks.
  • The average fully burdened annual salary of an IT resource is $72,800.

• The composite also has six Okta admins involved in managing users, groups, and access policies.

  • Each of these admins spends 30% of their time managing users, groups, and access policies.
  • With Gold, the composite achieves a 35% productivity lift for Okta admins performing these tasks.
  • The average fully burdened annual salary of an Okta admin is $193,440.

• For this benefit, the composite has a productivity recapture rate of 50%. Identity resources spend half of the time they save on activities that generate business value, but not all reclaimed time is dedicated to value-added work.

Risks. This benefit will vary among organizations based on the:

• Number of IT resources and Okta admins involved in identity tasks.

• Percentage of time spent on routine identity tasks.

• Average fully burdened annual salaries of IT resources and Okta admins.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $218,000.

Cost Savings From Reduced Reliance On Third-Party Services Enabled By Gold

Evidence and data. Prior to investing in Gold for their Okta products, interviewees’ organizations relied heavily on third-party services for training, consulting, and technical guidance. Hiring contractors to fill internal capability gaps was expensive, and external training for staff was time-consuming.

With Gold, organizations gained on-demand guidance, training resources, and direct support from specialized experts including CSMs and TAMs. This enabled internal teams to reduce reliance on external consultants with limited historical knowledge, accelerate internal capability building, and focus on strategic initiatives. The combination of structured training, accelerated support, and specialized and proactive guidance allowed staff to confidently manage platform administration, integrations, and access management internally, while avoiding significant third-party costs.

• The VP of infrastructure and service desk in manufacturing explained that Gold enabled their organization to save up to $200,000 annually in consulting fees by leveraging the expert success and support resources included with the plan. These savings represent only a portion of the broader value their organization has unlocked through Gold’s comprehensive success and support features.

• The lead platform security architect in health insurance shared: “We have a fixed headcount, so, for me, having the skills in-house to provide advanced support in our environment means hiring contractors, which is extremely expensive, especially when you’re talking about the identity space in security. We don’t have to do that with Gold.”

• The global director of IT in wholesale shared: “The level of training we get with Gold is much more defined and formalized than the training courses we previously outsourced. These are dedicated courses that train our people well.”
  The global director of IT continued: “The training and enablement component is incredibly valuable because the people that get certification provide tremendous value back to our organization. We’re not subject matter experts, but [Gold] really gives the people who are working on this to feel more confident in what they’re doing.”

• The solutions architect in identity and access at the subscription management and billing organization said: “The training that Gold offers is smart in that they don’t let you jump into something that would be over your head right away. They will train you up all the way from the bottom to the top, and that is key. The learning resources are great because the people they have around the labs are always really knowledgeable and have a lot of experience. It’s not somebody who just learned how to train a course; it’s somebody who works at Okta on that specific Okta product.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Before Gold, the composite spent $150,000 annually on support partner costs to fill in expertise gaps.

• The composite has 16 Okta admins and IT staff participating in Okta-specific platform and access management training through a third-party provider.

• Each participant attends one third-party training course per year.

• The average cost per third-party training course per participant is $3,000.

• With Gold, the composite completely eliminates these third-party support and training costs.

Risks. This benefit will vary among organizations based on:

• Annual support partner costs before Gold.

• Number of Okta admins and IT staff requiring training.

• Average cost per third-party training course.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $443,000.

Improved Business Continuity Due To Reduced Customer-Facing SEV1 Downtime Accelerated By Gold

Evidence and data. Before investing in Gold, interviewees’ organizations periodically experienced SEV1 incidents, critical events that caused significant service disruptions. These incidents affected customer-facing applications integrated with Okta security and often involved identity-related issues such as authentication failures, misconfigured access policies, or integration breakdowns between Okta’s customer identity and access management solution and critical applications during peak usage. According to interviewees, initial responses under their prior support structures could take several hours, during which customer-facing applications were inaccessible to users, which prevented transactions and, subsequently, revenue generation.

With Gold, organizations gained accelerated 24/7 support coverage and access to specialized experts, which made support readily available whenever such critical incidents occurred. One interviewee noted that Gold’s 30-minute initial response time drastically improved the speed at which they addressed customer-facing SEV1 incidents, compared with the several hours it could take under their prior support structure. Real-time troubleshooting guidance from Gold experts enabled identity teams to resolve the identity-related components of incidents more efficiently, which shortened investigation and remediation time and minimized downtime for customer-facing applications. Together, these capabilities helped organizations maintain critical operations and reduce the revenue impact of SEV1 incidents affecting key customer-facing services.

• The global director of IT at a wholesale organization said: “Dealing with SEV1 issues with Gold is like night and day. We get technical resources and extremely capable, confident, historical knowledge so we’re not reinventing the wheel. We can go ahead and jump into something to troubleshoot, and it’s actually saved us a number of times since we’ve been on Gold because we’re not subject matter experts. That’s why we have that level of support.”
  The global director of IT continued: “[Before Gold], these SEV1 incidents were not something we could generally plan for. But when something hits the fire and you have to be reactive, having that level of support saves time, money, all different things.”

• The VP of infrastructure and service desk in manufacturing shared: “I would say we have to spend half as much time on a SEV1-type issue because we know from an Okta perspective, we don’t have to do all of the investigating ourselves. Before Gold, if an incident took 16 hours from our engineer, it’s something that easily would be cut in half in terms of the time they have to spend. And of course, we have to provide information to Okta about our context, but we don’t have to dig for a bunch of stuff from the Okta side that’s readily available from them.”

• The director of identity and access management in IT explained: “I got a direct messages from [our] Gold expert resources saying: ‘We may have found a potential hole in your security you may want to know about. It may not be anything. Can you find time to talk?’ And we found time to talk the same day, and then discovered, well, not a big deal. But it’s nice that because of our relationship, we have the insight to look into things before they escalate and pose an operational risk to the business.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite generates $4 billion in annual revenue.

• Seventy percent of annual revenue is tied to customer-facing applications secured by Okta, which operate 24/7 (8,760 hours per year), resulting in a potential revenue loss of $319,635 for each hour of downtime.

• The composite experiences four customer-facing SEV1 downtime events in Year 1, 3.5 in Year 2, and three in Year 3.

• The average downtime duration per customer-facing SEV1 event before Gold is 4 hours.

• With Gold, the composite achieves a 15% reduction in downtime duration per SEV1 event, reclaiming 1 hour per event.

• The composite’s operating margin is 10%.

Risks. This benefit will vary among organizations based on the:

• Annual revenue and percentage attributable to customer-facing applications integrated with Okta.

• Frequency of customer-facing SEV1 downtime events.

• Average downtime duration per customer-facing SEV1 event before Gold.

• Operating margins.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $225,000.

Faster Onboarding Of Okta-Enabled Applications Accelerated By Gold

Evidence and data. Before investing in Gold, interviewees described onboarding new Okta-enabled applications as complex, error-prone processes. Teams often faced incomplete documentation, inconsistent configuration guidance, and the need to troubleshoot integrations in real time. Misconfigurations and missing integration standards could delay deployment and create unnecessary rework, particularly for applications supporting critical business operations or tied to revenue.

Gold provided interviewees’ organizations with direct access to specialized experts, proactive best practices on configuration and policy setup, and standardized integration frameworks for common applications. This allowed identity teams to validate applications quickly, ensure compliance with identity standards like SSO and SCIM, and avoid common pitfalls during onboarding. Structured guidance, real-time troubleshooting, and best practice knowledge reduced guesswork and accelerated deployment timelines.

Additionally, Gold enabled more strategic planning of application integrations. Access to roadmap insights, beta feature previews, and configuration guidance allowed identity teams to prioritize applications effectively, avoid missteps, and ensure integrations met security and functionality requirements from the start.

• The global director of IT at a wholesale organization said: “If you call regular support and say, ‘I’m building this application’ or ‘I’m customizing this application,’ they are not going to help you because that’s not what support typically does. But with access to Gold’s [specialized experts], that’s exactly what they do. They provide guidance, they provide best practices to get our apps up and running quickly.”

• The solutions architect of identity and access in subscription management and billing explained: “Because of the level of support we’ve had with Gold over the last couple of years, new apps can be integrated and reviewed quickly. When an app lands for onboarding, it’s already been through tests, verified secure, and checked to support SAML, SSO, and SCIM. The documentation for how to do it has been obtained. For example, all the AI products that have come online in the last 12 months were reviewed, contracted, and onboarded within a couple of months. Most of that time was legal and access scoping, not technical integration.”
  The solutions architect of identity and access continued: “Onboarding new apps is fast because we have multiple people with good knowledge who’ve worked directly with Okta. With accurate documentation and the settings we need, I can turn it up in minutes. Working with the success and support team, we built a framework for [our organization’s] identity systems and app integrations.”
  The solutions architect concluded: “Before, onboarding Okta complicated, especially if the app was built around direct authentication and lacked SSO integration. Now teams build apps using standard libraries for authentication, come prepared, and integrate seamlessly. When teams come to us now, they’re ready, provide the configuration bits we need, and we can plug that into our app framework to deploy apps quickly.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite deploys 10 Okta-integrated applications per quarter in Year 1, 15 in Year 2, and 20 in Year 3.

• The average time to onboard a new Okta-integrated application before Gold is 24 hours.

• With Gold, the composite achieves a 15% reduction in onboarding time, reclaiming 4 hours per application.

• The average fully burdened hourly rate of an Okta admin is $93.

• For this benefit, the composite has a productivity recapture rate of 50%. Okta admins spend half of the time they save on activities that generate business value, but not all reclaimed time is dedicated to value-added work.

Risks. This benefit will vary among organizations based on the:

• Number of Okta-integrated applications deployed per quarter.

• Average time to onboard a new Okta-integrated application before Gold.

• Average fully burdened hourly rate of Okta admins.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $24,000.

Faster New Hire Onboarding Accelerated By Gold

Evidence and data. Interviewees reported that during the onboarding phase, new hires were able to gain access to applications more quickly with Gold. Access provisioning tasks, which previously caused delays and required coordination through prior support channels, were resolved faster with direct guidance from Okta experts. This helped reduce bottlenecks and enabled IT teams to provision access to apps efficiently so that new employees could begin using critical systems and start contributing to business activities sooner. Gold also provided proactive insights and guidance on best practices to help IT teams anticipate and address potential access issues before they impacted new hires.

• The solutions architect of identity and access at a subscription management and billing organization said: “When someone new would join our organization, it would take almost a month for them to get up and running. Now, they’re up and running the first day. In sales, especially, that means from day one they have access to what they need. Once they finish onboarding, they sit down and start doing what they do to get new business, talking to customers. The value of that across all our employees is huge. The amount of time we get back is significant. Beyond that, we see it in the way people smile. They’re happy, they’re confident with Okta. That comfort and confidence is a huge return.”

• The director of identity and access management in the IT services industry explained how direct, real-time access to Okta support through Gold accelerated onboarding and provisioning for new hires, stating: “It’s that real-time access to somebody at Okta. That’s what Gold gave me — I could call them right away and check if they could accommodate what I needed, instead of waiting weeks for responses via email.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite has 15,000 employees.

• The composite has an average voluntary turnover rate of 13%, which yields 1,950 new employees per year.

• The average initial onboarding time related to access provisioning per employee before Gold is 5 hours.

• With Gold, the composite achieves a 10% reduction in time to provide new hires access to applications, reclaiming 1 hour per employee.

• The average fully burdened hourly rate of a general employee is $44.

• For this benefit, the composite has a productivity recapture rate of 50%. Employees spend half of the time they save on activities that generate business value, but not all reclaimed time is dedicated to value-added work.

Risks. This benefit will vary among organizations based on the:

• Number of employees.

• Average voluntary turnover rate.

• Average initial onboarding time related to access provisioning per employee before Gold.

• Average fully burdened hourly rate of general employees.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $96,000.

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:

• Strategic guidance and roadmap alignment. Interviewees emphasized that having access to specialized experts, such as CSMs and TAMs, provided critical support for long-term planning and product adoption. With regular check-ins and proactive outreach, organizations were able to stay informed about new features and best practices without diverting internal resources. Beyond tactical support, CSMs and TAMs helped align identity initiatives with broader business objectives through roadmap planning sessions to ensure that customers could prioritize upcoming Okta capabilities and prepare for future releases.
  The lead platform security architect in health insurance explained: “Having a dedicated CSM through Gold is a tremendous help because it helps me with strategic planning for our Okta investment. I meet with a CSM [regularly], and when things come up in between meetings, she’ll reach out. During [those regular] meetings we go over all the new features, and it’s a very large suite of SaaS products. That’s almost immeasurable, the help that I get through just having [access to a] CSM.”

• Strong relationship with Okta. Interviewees noted that Okta’s approach to customer relationships was collaborative and flexible, even in challenging scenarios. Interviewees appreciated Okta’s willingness to work with them to adapt to unique requirements and support them through unexpected situations. For example, interviewees described receiving proactive guidance during major identity transformations, including roadmap planning sessions, and tailored success strategies to ensure smooth rollouts. This customer-first approach fostered trust and strengthened long-term partnerships.
  The VP of infrastructure and service desk in manufacturing shared: “Okta is more relationship-focused than most companies. It’s not like they start turning down your service or really turning the screws on you. We had a couple of scenarios where we were over licensed and under licensed, and they gave us time to rectify the situations. They’ve been flexible in providing us with additional environments when we need them, which has been great help to us.”

• Policy optimization and governance best practices. Interviewees’ organizations leveraged Gold to strengthen identity governance and security posture through consultative guidance and best practice recommendations. With access to specialized experts and identity strategy planning sessions, customers received tailored advice on configuring policies such as MFA, adaptive authentication, and lifecycle management to balance security with user experience. These engagements helped organizations align their identity strategy with compliance requirements and business objectives, while avoiding overly restrictive settings that could disrupt operations.
  The VP of infrastructure and service desk in manufacturing explained: “The higher-quality success and support services we receive allows us to better configure our policies such as MFA, to get consultative advice on what settings to make in what situations so that on the one hand, we’re getting as secure as possible, but we’re also not impacting our business by making it too rigid.”

• Enterprise-scale preparedness during growth. Interviewees described Gold as critical for scaling their organizations’ identity programs during periods of rapid growth. As companies expanded their workforces and technology footprints, Gold provided advanced resources such as prescriptive guidance and accessible expertise, which helped ensure identity architectures could scale securely and efficiently. These engagements helped organizations avoid common pitfalls during high-growth phases and accelerate time to value for new initiatives.
  The solutions architect of identity and access at the subscription management and billing organization said: “When I came on board, it was toward the tail end of that growth, moving from a small to medium business to train teams to run their stuff like an enterprise. That’s when you need advanced resources. We realized we didn’t even have an advanced level of support with access to critical expertise. We needed to add this to our account.”

• Maximize Okta investment. Gold enabled interviewees’ organizations to fully realize the value of their Okta investment by providing expert guidance on configuration, adoption, and optimization. CSMs and TAMs offered benchmarking insights and best practices drawn from other enterprises, helping customers make informed decisions and accelerate ROI. This eliminated trial-and-error approaches and gave teams confidence that their identity strategies aligned with industry standards and business goals.
  The solutions architect of identity and access at the subscription management and billing organization explained: “I would say we were between 60% and 75% confident in our ability to really fully leverage our Okta products to the best of our ability before Gold. After having Gold, we’re between 90% and 100% confident we’re doing things right. Having the guidance from specialized experts makes that go so much faster. You get rid of the learning curve. They’re able to say, ‘Here’s how we see our other customers doing it, and this is what we see is successful.’ That really makes us comfortable with what we’re doing.”

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Gold Premier Success Plan and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Early access to innovation. Interviewees shared that Gold provided direct access to specialized experts that could help align Okta’s product teams and roadmap discussions, allowing them to advocate for new capabilities, participate in beta programs, and prioritize internal development based on upcoming features. This level of engagement helped their organizations accelerate delivery and ensure their identity strategies remained aligned with evolving business needs.
  The director of identity and access management in IT services explained: “What Gold has done is it has just allowed me to move faster and get my voice heard by those decision-makers in the hopes of getting capability built-in that we need. If I was doing it without them on my own, I would be stuck submitting ideas through an external forum. With the relationship that we have, I can actually take time with Okta teams and say, ‘Here is where your product is deficient. This is a capability you need. Here’s why you need that capability and here’s how everyone else can benefit from it.’ And then they’ll say, ‘Hey, these are the new features on the roadmap. If you’d like to talk to somebody about them or get a demo while they’re still in beta mode, let’s do it.’ That allows me to prioritize my roadmap to get things done.”

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).