For a global distributor of industrial supplies, iC Consult designed and implemented a comprehensive identity architecture based on the best of breed principle.
By integrating SailPoint, Okta, CyberArk, and Auth0, iC Consult built a scalable, cloud-based platform that securely manages employees, privileged accounts, and customer identities across their entire lifecycle. Tailored managed and professional services based on the Service Layers platform ensure efficient, secure, and compliant operations at all times.
Content
Customer & Project Overview
Customer Profile
Industry: Industrial Supplies
Headquarters: United States
Number Employees: five-figure
The customer is a global distribution company for industrial supplies, offering a broad range of products for professional use across industry and commerce. The company has a large, global workforce and operates an extensive global logistics network.
As part of a multi-year transformation program, iC Consult modernized the historically grown identity infrastructure. The result is a best-of-breed platform built on SailPoint, Okta, CyberArk (now Idira), and Auth0, complemented by managed and professional services based on Service Layers for consistently secure and efficient operations.
SailPoint, Okta, CyberArk (now Idira), Auth0, Service Layers
Results
Best-of-breed architecture integrating SailPoint, Okta, CyberArk, and Auth0
Protection for a five-figure workforce, millions of external customer identities, and hundreds of applications
Company-wide Zero Trust strategy with Single Sign-On, MFA, and centralized Identity & Access Management
End-to-end governance and compliance across the entire identity lifecycle, including automated recertification processes
Consolidated PAM protecting privileged accounts, service accounts, and technical identities
Consistent, unified user experience for millions of external customers across all digital services
Cloud-based SaaS deployment and Service Layers managed services for maximum flexibility, high operational reliability, and permanently low administrative effort
Background
Identity as the New Perimeter
Cyberattacks increasingly target digital identities rather than firewalls or networks. Stolen credentials, compromised administrator accounts, and inadequately protected customer portals are among the most common entry points for successful attacks. Traditional company boundaries are blurring too: cloud applications, remote work, external partners, and digital customer services have made identities the real security perimeter.
As organizations grow internationally, regulatory, audit, and compliance demands grow with them. Identity security has to do more than manage accounts. It has to be the foundation of the entire cybersecurity strategy.
This is exactly the challenge an industrial supplies company in the United States faced, with a global sales and logistics network and numerous locations. Its goal was to fundamentally modernize a historically grown identity landscape while building a platform that would meet both current security standards and future requirements.
Given the high complexity and depth of integration the project required, the company brought in iC Consult early on to plan, design, and implement a suitable solution.
Solution
Four Specialists Instead of One Compromise
The new identity architecture combines four tightly integrated platforms, each a market leader in its segment, delivered over several years through parallel workstreams.
- SailPoint forms the foundation with Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), centralizing information about digital identities and automating access rights. iC Consult modernized the existing SailPoint environment step by step, moved it to the cloud, integrated numerous business applications, and introduced new recertification procedures. Standardized role models and governance processes now give the company full transparency and audit ready compliance.
- Okta serves as the central Identity and Access Management (IAM) platform for employee access, built from the ground up by iC Consult. Employees get convenient, secure access to hundreds of applications, governed by consistent Zero Trust principles: every request checked, every login evaluated, every policy enforced dynamically. The team migrated hundreds of applications to Okta, rolled out Single Sign On company wide, and established multi factor authentication. New applications can now be connected much faster.
- CyberArk (now Idira) forms the third pillar as the company wide Privileged Access Management (PAM) platform. iC Consult consolidated existing environments, added cloud capabilities, and built central protection for administrator accounts, service accounts, and technical identities. CyberArk controls, monitors, and fully documents all critical access.
- Auth0, integrated into Okta for several years, completes the platform as a Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) solution for millions of secure, convenient customer logins. iC Consult gradually migrated the company’s customer portals to this shared platform, giving customers a unified experience with a significantly higher security level and simpler management of external identities, fully in line with security and data protection requirements.
A central program and portfolio management office supported all four workstreams throughout, identifying dependencies early, standardizing processes, and integrating new requirements without disrupting business operations.
Why the Company Chose Best of Breed for This Project
The identity security market offers two broad strategic paths: bundling security functions into a single platform, or selecting specialized market leaders for each discipline and orchestrating them into one architecture. Both have clear advantages, and the right choice depends on an organization’s priorities, technology environment, and risk profile. For this project, the company decided that best of breed matched its goals best, for three reasons.
Depth of capability: specialized vendors focus their development on a single discipline and build deeper functionality than a suite provider could, a real advantage in a fast-moving field like identity security.
Risk distribution: spreading critical functions across several platforms, rather than one central system, limits the impact of a vulnerability or outage to individual components.
Long term flexibility: the company can modernize or replace individual components as requirements, compliance demands, or threats evolve, without rebuilding the entire architecture.
Integration Determines Success
Introducing four high performing platforms was only the first step. Best of breed architectures deliver their value once every component works together: identity governance has to inform workforce IAM, IAM has to hand privileged access to PAM, and customer identities have to be embedded securely across digital business processes. Identity data has to stay consistent across every platform throughout.
iC Consult developed the overall architecture, ran the cross platform program, and brought all four platforms together into one coherent identity strategy with unified processes and clear responsibilities.
Modern Identity Security Doesn't End at Go-Live
To stay future ready and relieve the internal team, the company chose a cloud and service oriented operating model. Nearly all identity components run as SaaS, complemented by managed and professional services on iC Consult’s Service Layers platform. This lets updates, new features, and security relevant changes roll out continuously, without the internal IT team building dedicated specialists for every platform. Service Layers also monitors the identity environment around the clock, supporting fast, decisive response, reducing operational effort, and keeping every platform on the latest technology.
Conclusion
Best of Breed as a Future-Proof Model
As digitalization and cloud adoption increase, identities are becoming the most important target for modern cybercrime. At the same time, they are becoming the central building block of an effective security strategy.
This project shows how a best of breed approach can succeed for organizations whose priorities call for it: the intelligent interplay of market leaders SailPoint, Okta, CyberArk, and Auth0 created a modern architecture that brings together security, compliance, usability, and future readiness in equal measure.
With strong program management, well thought out integration processes, and a service oriented operating model, iC Consult built a foundation that meets the company’s needs today and adapts to future technological and regulatory developments.