Okta Grows AWS Collaboration, Drives Business Growth and Revenue through APN Customer Engagements (ACE)

Okta, an AWS Partner that provides identity solutions for global customers, expanded its co-sell opportunities with Amazon Web Services (AWS) by participating in the APN Customer Engagements program. By participating in the program, Okta has been able to easily scale new customer opportunities, accelerate time to market for customers, support revenue growth, and mature its partnership with AWS while giving customers access to new AWS services.

At a time when more than 80 percent of businesses have had their data stolen by hackers, identity and access management are more critical than ever. Okta was founded to help enterprises stop this problem. Okta provides cloud software to help companies manage and secure user authentication and help developers build identity controls into applications. The company works to help organizations across the globe enhance identity and access management to guard against cyberattacks.

Okta has seen rapid growth over the past several years, most recently experiencing a 43 percent year-over-year revenue increase in fiscal year 2023. This growth has been fueled in part by the company’s participation in the AWS Partner Network (APN). Okta, an AWS Partner since 2012, now runs its Workforce Identity Cloud and Customer Identity Cloud solutions on AWS. Today, thousands of Okta customers leverage more than 20 AWS integrations available on the Okta Integration Network. “Identity is the core of digital transformation, and AWS and Okta together deliver a powerful combination to drive that digital transformation and cloud-native success for our customers,” says Henry Sotomayor, senior manager of the Americas Cloud Alliances at Okta.

Several years ago, Okta faced a new challenge: how to scale its identity platform faster to meet customers’ growing needs for innovation. To support this requirement, the company knew it had to expand its collaboration with AWS. “We really wanted to grow our co-selling opportunities with AWS so we could align on joint customer opportunities and better leverage AWS sales and technical teams,” Sotomayor says.

Okta decided to grow its AWS collaboration by taking part in the APN Customer Engagements (ACE) program. Through the program, partners securely collaborate and co-sell with AWS, leveraging a platform for managing a pipeline of joint customer opportunities. AWS Partners can increase revenue by sharing sales opportunities with AWS and receiving leads and opportunities from AWS. “The ACE program helps us connect better with AWS by sharing opportunities together,” says Sotomayor. “We can input what we need to let AWS know in advance what the customers’ needs are, and then we can share organizational structures and customer requirements.”

The ACE platform within the AWS Partner Central provides visibility to Okta to the joint pipeline, facilitating effective collaboration on deals, Okta gains access to new opportunities to cross-sell, up-sell, and co-sell solutions with AWS. Additionally, Okta and AWS can jointly engage customers around specific AWS-based architectures to optimize customer environments.

Okta has also leaned on its AWS collaboration to expand its business by offering its Okta Identity Cloud platform through AWS Marketplace. The platform includes Okta Workforce Identity Cloud, which offers features including single sign-on, universal directory, automated lifecycle management, and multi-factor authentication.

By working closely with AWS teams, Okta has scaled new business opportunities more quickly. “The ACE program is the most efficient way for us to connect with the AWS sales field, and that has helped us scale our co-selling to the level it’s at today,” Sotomayor says. This scalability is the result of better alignment between Okta and AWS sales teams in the field. “Working so closely with AWS provides a competitive advantage for Okta field sellers,” says Sotomayor. “The ACE program has enabled our sales teams to accelerate their sales cycles by aligning with their AWS peers to better understand customer needs to ensure we are delivering the right solution for each customer.” Okta and AWS are also collaborating more effectively on technical projects, helping Okta simplify the deployment of complex, large-scale identity projects for customers.

Okta’s collaboration with AWS through the ACE program has contributed to the company’s recent revenue growth. “AWS is our fastest-growing route to market for new solutions,” says Sotomayor. “Whether it’s through direct sales, channel partners, or the AWS Marketplace, our sales and revenue numbers continue to grow. A lot of this is directly related to the benefits we’re seeing from the APN and ACE programs.”

Okta’s participation in the APN and ACE programs has also led to a maturing relationship with AWS. “When it comes to co-sell opportunities, the ACE program helps us put it all together as the conduit for aligning our co-sell resources—our account executives and solution engineers—with AWS teams,” Sotomayor adds. “We have a much stronger alignment with AWS now, and we can present a ‘better together’ story to our customers in terms of messaging and technology.”

Through this alignment, Okta and AWS are already working more closely on a joint innovation roadmap that includes newer AWS services such as Amazon Security Lake and AWS Verified Access. “Our roadmap alignment, which includes more than 20 AWS integrations, means we have access to technical capabilities we didn’t have before so we can better support digital transformations for our customers,” Sotomayor concludes. “This will ultimately help our mutual customers solve their identity and access management challenges. We are excited for what’s to come as we continue to innovate with AWS.”