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#263 - IDAC Sponsor Spotlight - Thales & OneWelcome Identity Platform · Identity at the Center

0:05
This is identity at the center. If it has anything to do with
0:10
IAM, this is the go to podcast now your hosts Jim McDonald and
0:17
Jeff Stedman. Welcome to the Identity at the
0:23
Center podcast. I'm Jeff and that's Jim.
0:24
Hey, Jim. Hey, Jeff, how are you?
0:27
Oh, not so bad yourself. Doing great.
0:29
I've been looking forward to this episode for a long time and
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I don't want to make this all about me right, but my entry
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into the Identity space was in B to B User Management and Access
0:43
Management, and essentially I didn't even know what Identity
0:46
Management was when I got into it.
0:48
Like most people, Identity chose me, but I just happened into
0:52
this B to B space and there's a tremendously complex use case
0:58
and you know how we manage our B2B dealer and in my specific
1:05
case was dealerships, how we manage those relationships came
1:10
back very much to how we did it at that company.
1:13
And you know, in terms of where the space was at the time, for
1:17
sure, there were no commercial solutions that solve that
1:20
problem. So we had to develop our own
1:22
application and I pretty much spent the next 20 years keeping
1:26
my finger on the pulse of that space and looking for solutions
1:31
that you know, hey, there has to be a commercial solution that
1:34
solves this complex B to B identity management case.
1:38
And I never found one. I mean I literally never found
1:41
one. And as you know, I do identity
1:45
advisory. I've been doing that for the
1:47
past 12 years and this question comes up a lot from different
1:51
clients who have AB to B use case to solve.
1:54
They say who has this? I say no one, no one does this.
1:57
You have to pretty much write your own program.
2:00
Now you can, you can get a platform, you can get a lot of
2:03
tools that are going to save you time.
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But at the end of the day, you're still developing your own
2:07
custom application. Now rewind or Fast forward to
2:11
about a year ago and then I became aware of the people that
2:16
were going to speak to you today and looked at their product and
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I was absolutely blown away. And I said to you, Jeff, you
2:22
have to see this and we have to get these gentlemen on the
2:27
podcast to talk about this a little bit.
2:29
And so I don't want to oversell it, but that's essentially the
2:33
genesis story of this episode. So I'm very excited.
2:37
I think I'm excited is an understatement.
2:39
You have been straight up fanboy since this kind of came about.
2:44
I guess you know, for those not familiar, before we get kind of
2:47
things started, you know Jim's been going back and forth about
2:49
this thing for for a while now. So you know he has a little
2:52
spring extra spring in his stuff I think for this conversation.
2:56
But today's episode is a sponsor spotlight episode.
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So that's one of the things that we do every from time to time
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gives us an opportunity to talk with, you know, the movers and
3:05
shakers, really dive deep into products and that's what we're
3:07
going to do today. These are special episodes that
3:10
we actually create in collaboration with our sponsors
3:13
to make sure that we're able to really get to the details of
3:16
things. So it's fully sponsored.
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Just making that crystal clear. We're going to get right into
3:21
it. Today's sponsor is Tallis 1,
3:24
Welcome, Identity Platform. You can find them on the web at
3:27
Cpl. tallisgroup.com. That's Cpl.
3:30
Dot THAL esgroup.com For those not familiar with the, the
3:38
solution and the and the group that we're going to be talking
3:40
to today, The tallest one welcome.
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Identity Platform offers a comprehensive solution for
3:44
managing digital identities, providing seamless and secure
3:47
access to applications and services across various devices
3:50
and platforms, ensuring a user friendly and protected digital
3:54
experience. Again, straight up fanboy Jim is
3:56
going to be very excited to have this conversation.
3:58
I am as well. We've got Marco Venuti, Director
4:01
of I am Business Acceleration for Tallis.
4:03
Welcome to the show, Marco. Thank you, Jeff, and great to be
4:06
here. Thank you so much.
4:08
Jason Keenehan, Director of I Am Product Management for Tallis,
4:11
Welcome to the show. Thanks for having us, Jeff.
4:15
Thanks for taking the time guys. You know we're we're, I'm
4:18
probably going to say the word fanboy a lot because Jim is
4:20
straight up fanboy right now. But before we get to that and
4:23
the and sort of the product and the and so the solutions that
4:25
you guys offer, let's talk a little bit about your identity
4:27
backgrounds. I think that's one thing that a
4:29
lot of people like to understand just you know the the viewpoints
4:32
that we're expressing here is what is that based on of right,
4:35
what's been our experience in the identity space marker, Let's
4:38
start with you. How did you get into the world
4:40
of identity and access management?
4:42
Yeah, well, it was, it wasn't deliberate decision.
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I used to work for a consulting company actually US1 Cambridge
4:48
technology partner which acquired the startup I was
4:51
working at. So I was now working for AUS
4:54
company. The literally two months after
4:56
acquiring us was itself acquired by Novell.
5:00
OK, this was year 2001. For those of you old enough,
5:04
they probably remember that brand NFL is still to these days
5:08
with different brands and player in the identity in the identity
5:11
space. So that's how my journey
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started. So I had a few years there
5:14
delivering identity solutions, then selling identity solutions,
5:18
then cooperating with product management or identity solution
5:22
before leaving and transitioning to a governance startup, this
5:25
time Italian in case there is any doubt left around where they
5:29
do come from. OK, so we had a small company
5:32
that we built the governance solutions for three years before
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again being acquired again, this time by IBM.
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OK. And again, so is to say there's
5:46
a longer story, which brings me to 1 welcome later on.
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Maybe too long to be fully, fully, fully fleshed out.
5:52
So I'm technically my third decade in the identity space.
5:56
That's not a way to say. That's that's a lot of
6:00
experience. We'll say.
6:01
That's a diplomatic way to say that you've been doing this for
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a long time, Jason. How about your background?
6:07
How did you get into the identity space?
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Yes, my my background's not quite as long as Marco's I think
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at this point. I've been in the IM space for
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about 12 years now. So the 1st 25 years of my career
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I was actually working at IBM, doing more product engineering,
6:28
product architecture, working on mainframes actually.
6:33
And I had a career shift and in about you know 1213 years ago I
6:40
got into product management and I was working in the this is the
6:45
time of Service Oriented architecture, SOA and I was
6:48
working in IBM Web sphere product line there.
6:53
And then, you know, fate jumped in and I met two of the leaders
6:58
for IBMI AM business, Ravi Srinivasan and Sridhar Mupidi.
7:05
So Ravi is now like the CEO at Voltero and Sridhar's an IBM
7:10
fellow and they kind of brainwashed me and brought me
7:14
into the IAM space and asked me to be the product manager for
7:18
their active management portfolio there.
7:21
Then time just happened to go on and I ended up getting
7:24
experience with other parts of the IBM portfolio.
7:26
That's where I actually met Marco.
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First was at IBM, I had a brief hiatus away from the IAM space
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and then last year got brought back into it here at Palace.
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So happy to be back into the the IAM discipline.
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You thought you could get away, and identity has this habit of
7:45
pulling people back into it. Yeah, you can never actually get
7:48
away. Marco, for people who aren't
7:52
familiar with Talus and the One Welcome story, can you talk a
7:56
little bit about that and how it has evolved since Warm Welcome
8:00
has joined the Tallis group? Absolutely, absolutely, yes.
8:03
So Tallis acquired 1 Welcome back in May the 2022 and 1
8:09
Welcome has been there before though for 11 years before being
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acquired, right. Actually one Welcome is itself a
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combination of 2 Dutch based identity company, one Genie and
8:22
one and I Welcome that is being competing for a few years and
8:26
then merging up and becoming the fact that the largest identity
8:29
player in Europe, which was an early mover in many ways in the
8:36
science space, in the consent infused within the science
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space. And even in the B2B domain that
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we're about to talk about today on both sides, there were
8:46
flavors, so to speak, of B2B solutions being created.
8:51
So when the acquisition came along, of course, there is a
8:54
very nice match because Stylus historically had a very solid
8:58
and very well known solutions in the authentication space.
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But was to complete the picture, to expand the portfolio to have
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a broader coverage of the identity spectrum with what I
9:09
welcome, one welcome provided, right.
9:12
So it was a very good match with literally 0 overlap.
9:16
And so it was July 2022, OK, since the acquisition happened
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and which which means that we are basically now 1 1/2 year
9:26
into into the joint journey. For those not familiar with
9:30
Tallis, it's a very large organization, right?
9:32
It's it seems like at least maybe people in the US aren't as
9:35
familiar with Tallis, but very large in in Europe and Asia and
9:38
things like that I guess. Can you talk a little bit the
9:40
size of Tallis group? Oh yeah.
9:44
Talus is indeed a very large company that spans multiple
9:48
domains including aerospace, transportation, defense and one
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of them is what we call DIS digital identity and security,
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which is a very large part of the entire, the entire business.
10:02
We have presence in 80 countries roughly, OK.
10:07
And we are about 80,000 people overall.
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Indeed we're having this conversation with you which you
10:13
are in the US and for historical reasons maybe the US is not the
10:17
country where we have strong brand awareness yet.
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I would, I would add, OK, well in Europe, in Asia we have,
10:25
we're coming from different again standpoints in terms of
10:29
number of customers but most importantly awareness of where
10:34
the what does Brandy's OK, I'm talking security here to these
10:39
days Europe is slightly larger than US which is again just a
10:43
reflection of the recent acquisition, OK, probably going
10:46
to be reverted very, very soon. Yeah, and despite my fanboy
10:51
statuses, as Jeff pointed out, you know, the more I interact
10:55
with folks from Talos, the more accents you hear.
10:59
So you got Marco. He mentioned the Dutch, You
11:03
know, start for one, welcome. You know, obviously Talos's
11:07
heavy in France. I mean I've I've watched videos
11:11
where I hear German accents and I mean it's all over the board.
11:15
But we also have Jason clearly got the US accent right and I'm
11:21
just trying to set this up as an excuse.
11:22
Again, I've been telling people you need to code your own and I
11:27
came across this is how I found out about 1 Malcolm was.
11:30
I came across a Cooper or Cole report on CIAM and they talked
11:35
about this company. 1 welcome. And in my defense, I mean you
11:38
look at these reports and there are a lot of companies listed.
11:41
A lot of them are very regionally focused solutions.
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And if it's not the region that you know you spend most of your
11:49
time in, maybe you gloss over. So you may have been there for
11:53
multiple years and I missed it, but going through that report, I
11:56
was like I'm going to do some further research and then the
11:59
more I dove in. So I guess the lesson learned is
12:02
when you see organizations sometimes listed in those, it
12:05
makes sense to do further research.
12:07
But certainly I'm glad I learned about this because I really feel
12:13
like this B to B space has been underserved.
12:18
I mean we hear about CIAM customer, I am and in a lot of
12:22
the B to B scenarios, the business to business that that
12:26
second B is the customer to that organization, it's their
12:30
distribution network, it's their channel for how they get their
12:34
products to market. But B to B could be more.
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And I also think that the term B to B can also have specific
12:43
connotations based on the vendors using it.
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For example, you know Microsoft has AB to B platform.
12:49
That's not typically how I thought of B to B because of my
12:53
background. And like B to B was really about
12:56
channel. But before again not making this
13:01
podcast about me and my experience me, ask Marco, could
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you just for the audience define B to BIM and explain how it's
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different from B to C&B to E? Absolutely happy to do that.
13:17
It's indeed it. It requires a definition because
13:21
different people mean different thing.
13:23
Is a bit of an overloaded term. So for us, B2B means of course a
13:28
byproduct of the digital transformation.
13:30
So let's set the stage first in terms of context.
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You have an organization. The organizations of course have
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relationships with other organizations, which might be
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customers, meaning B2B customers.
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That's one type but in my will be that is a go to market
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intermediary is a good example for instance is just thinking
13:51
for for a second around insurance is brokers, brokers
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are independent company which are companies made of people,
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OK. And they're not customers, they
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are in the middle before reaching customers, right.
14:04
And so that's already second type of B to B organization.
14:07
So you are not B to B customers, B to B intermediaries, but you
14:11
can even stretch it on the opposite side, meaning the
14:13
procurement side, OK, or the of the flow.
14:16
You might have AB2B suppliers, you might, you usually have B2B
14:21
suppliers. They're never people, right?
14:22
They're always companies, but all those kind of constituents
14:26
now suppliers go to market intermediaries or customers vary
14:30
depending on the vertical. So for instance, I just
14:33
mentioned insurance company and in the middle you find brokers.
14:37
If you're talking of a manufacturing company that will
14:39
be distributors. For instance if you're talking
14:42
of a grocery company, you have that suppliers are the one that
14:46
produce food that is going to be sold in the in the grocery
14:49
store. So what I mean with that, it
14:51
changed the way you call them. It might be a supplier, it might
14:55
be a go to market intermediary, might be a customer, but they
14:58
all have in common that they are organization that with a high
15:02
degree of volatility they keep coming and going or at least you
15:05
need to factor in that you have some volatility and most
15:10
importantly the people in there keeps coming and going again.
15:14
So you have two degrees of volatility, the number of
15:17
companies and the people belonging to that company that
15:20
are defining the boundaries of the B2B domain that you need to
15:24
deal with from an identity standpoint.
15:27
It's so fascinating when you bring up those examples.
15:30
Those are real world examples of how identity fits into the
15:35
business. I know early in my career is
15:37
like I I craved wanting to be close to the business and an
15:43
important cog in what made the business work and understand how
15:47
the business work and being kind of security and IT focused.
15:52
It was I felt like it was hard to do until I found the space of
15:57
the B2B I AM because really what you're talking about is like
16:00
this is how we go to market. You're talking about a grocery
16:03
chain, You're talking about this is how we get product on the
16:05
shelves, right? Absolutely.
16:07
Indeed is is really part more and more of the way you operate
16:12
to run your business, right. You really depend and rely on
16:15
those third party. And the reason why we're having
16:18
this conversation is because more frequently now than before,
16:22
as an organization, you centrally operate some
16:24
applications which are instrumental for the way you
16:27
operate your business. And those applications need to
16:30
be delivered access to people which are not belonging to your
16:33
application but rather to another one.
16:35
OK. So this is in a way an extension
16:40
from the traditional B2, E approach where you had people
16:44
coming from the HR system and now being required to deliver
16:48
fine grain access to some applications.
16:50
You now have that typically in a larger number of people
16:55
belonging to a significant number of external organization
16:58
that you don't know, they come in with an identity which is not
17:02
as trusted as the one coming from the HR system.
17:05
OK. So again, there are implications
17:08
in terms of onboarding implication in terms of access
17:12
granularity delivered, OK, which are specific of the B2B domain.
17:16
Yeah, you know, I think the other thing is even like from AI
17:20
am a practitioner perspective, it's how do I build an ROI, how
17:28
do I build a business case for making investment in my IM
17:32
project. Well it's you increase revenue,
17:34
you decrease costs, you decrease risk.
17:36
So most security projects decrease risk.
17:39
A lot of times you can decrease cost by things like reducing
17:43
your password resets, doing more self-service.
17:46
Certainly everything we talked about reduces risk and you know
17:50
by doing better security tools and reduces cost.
17:55
But it also can be an increase in revenue.
17:58
It can be an enabler of new business and certainly customer
18:02
satisfaction. So what I found is like even in
18:05
times where maybe money isn't flowing and you can't just spin
18:10
off a bunch of expensive identity projects, B2B is still
18:14
an area that you know CEOs are willing to invest.
18:18
And and this is Jason. I wanted to to bring this to you
18:21
because you know, I, I feel like I just found out about 1 welcome
18:26
recently and to me this is like a solution is the totally
18:31
different than anything else I've seen in the market, right.
18:34
This is an area I study again. So there's got to be a lot of
18:38
folks who miss this boat. Now, if you're a company that's
18:42
doing business through B2B, if you're that grocery chain, if
18:45
you're that dealership, a company with a dealership
18:49
network or insurance company with brokers around the world or
18:55
around the country, what it however it works, you've already
18:59
built a solution, right? You're not, you're waiting for
19:01
something to come along so that you could conduct business,
19:04
right? So if you've done that, does
19:07
that mean that you don't need one welcome, Or you know how?
19:11
How should people look at it? But it's an interesting point
19:14
today as you pointed out when we talk about some of the B2B
19:17
models that exist especially with kind of that intermediary,
19:21
those business models have existed for decades, right.
19:25
So yeah, they they already have a solution in place because they
19:28
needed to build something in order to you know run, run their
19:31
business. But with anything that you do
19:35
that become that may maybe starts from a roll your own type
19:39
of solution that always comes with certain kinds of
19:42
constraints that are associated with it.
19:44
There's there's ongoing maintenance cost.
19:47
Usually it becomes more difficult to update and adjust
19:52
as your business priorities change or you need to adapt to
19:55
new use cases. Not that it's impossible, but it
19:59
it it comes with, you know, significant levels of
20:01
investment. And I think just kind of in the
20:04
age that we're in now, you know as much as possible
20:07
organizations want, want to use off the shelf tools where they
20:11
can, right. It just it helps drive your
20:14
focus on your business's core competency.
20:18
And allowing others to specialize where they specialize
20:20
and you can, you can take advantage of that.
20:23
So that's kind of the mentality that we actually take to on the
20:26
one welcome side is listen, you've probably got some
20:30
solutions that are already in place as a part of your identity
20:34
and access management without how you're looking to, you know,
20:38
manage users in your partner organizations.
20:42
So OK, keep keep those in plate if they're working well with you
20:46
and you know where where we can come in and maybe augment and
20:49
add some additional capabilities to sit alongside those
20:54
solutions. That's what that's what we're
20:56
looking to do as well. Basically you know kind of
20:58
looking at the overall B2B landscape, it's a multi faceted
21:04
problem that we're trying to solve.
21:06
But you know we look to see from the the Italicide, you know how
21:11
can we augment where you might already have solutions and
21:14
adjust pain point that you're not able to address today.
21:17
You know one of those that we see most often is around the
21:20
delegated user management part of the B2B problem where we
21:26
haven't seen you know a lot of good kind of off the shelf
21:29
solution for that. And you know, that's an area
21:32
that we think we can definitely bring additional value in
21:34
ourselves as well. Yeah, that delegated management
21:38
use cases you need to me that's the one that sticks out with a
21:41
blinking light and you know you you can't ignore it when it
21:45
comes to B. To B, it's for the most part
21:48
everything else is. I think maybe the small gap, but
21:50
it's that delegated administration.
21:52
It's such a critical use case because it's foundational to how
21:57
B to B works, especially the larger when you have larger
22:01
organizations on the other end of that B to B transaction.
22:04
But you know, I think everybody starts their journey.
22:07
No one just says we're going to build, right.
22:10
They do their build versus buy analysis or they start out with
22:14
we just want to buy something and the go to I think has been
22:18
all right, This is people kind of get B to E&B to C, right.
22:22
They're different. And I think people generally
22:26
start down the B to C route, right, because they think B to
22:30
B. Those people are outside of my
22:32
company. So they're kind of like
22:35
customers. This customer I am, let me look
22:37
at, you know, the authors of the world, the the forge rocks of
22:41
the world. What's different about what you
22:44
do than than those solutions? That's a very good question
22:50
because indeed you, you you already touched on that, right?
22:52
So B2B is slightly different and you can approach that coming
22:56
from the B2 E angle or the Siam angle.
22:59
The the to me or to us, the answer is that actually is a
23:03
combination of the two It cut across and as commonality with
23:07
those two domains, Let me be a bit more specific.
23:09
We assisted 2 customers which were now coming to us because
23:13
they tried to approach the B to B problem assuming that as they
23:17
already were running a governance solution, so they
23:20
already had what they needed to manage the delegation process
23:23
for those external users. Well, it was the case though, it
23:29
was completely lacking the onboarding part.
23:31
So they found out the odd way that it was not enough.
23:36
OK, they need something more and it was the other way around.
23:40
Customers running already a science solution.
23:42
So while we're good for the onboarding we can manage, we can
23:45
build a user journey to onboard with the right level of
23:48
assurance of users which are now belonging to our employees
23:53
ecosystem. They are externals and then we
23:55
need to manage them. Wow.
23:58
But now that means that we are managing that ourselves rather
24:01
than being able to offload that burden on them on that
24:05
organization one at a time, right, Delegating.
24:08
So on both sides you miss something.
24:11
OK. So it feels like the taxonomy
24:15
that we are operating under in terms of identity industry since
24:18
20 years now, OK, is built around pillars, the governance
24:22
pillar, the access pillars, now splitting the Siam.
24:24
OK. Well, B to B is kind of cutting
24:27
across. It requires a flavor of multiple
24:30
of those and that's why we are talking B to B here.
24:35
But in a way it's a combination so to speak.
24:37
Allow me of governance capability, light governance
24:41
capability for what we call delegation management, that's
24:44
where it's closer to, OK, very, very light, but still closer to
24:48
governance than to Axis, OK. And you still need onboarding,
24:52
so you need the two of them to do the job and hardly ever you
24:58
find them combining single integrated solutions.
25:01
So back to your point, to reduce the need for integrations to
25:06
renew the need for custom development, there are not that
25:10
many products around which are already designed for this sort
25:14
of use cases which are uniquely featuring that combination of
25:17
capabilities. Yeah, I want to go back to this
25:20
delegated administration because like I said, it's the the
25:23
blinking red bulb of B2B and want to understand how you
25:30
approach it. But at first I went throughout
25:32
an example. So this is a client that I
25:33
recently worked with who had AB2B scenario where they were
25:41
doing business with a large grocery chain in fact, and to do
25:45
the delegated administration, they created an organization for
25:50
each grocery store, right? And then if they had people who
25:55
spanned that organization, they manually added that person to
26:02
have entitlements over that specific organization.
26:05
So there was no hierarchy, as I guess what I'm saying.
26:08
And there's no dynamism to it, right?
26:11
If that person left, they'd have to be removed from each one of
26:14
those organizations. The new person would have to be
26:17
added in their place. That's not how you guys would
26:23
have handled that problem, right?
26:24
So, So Marco, do you want to kind of get into contrasting,
26:29
you know, take that scenario and kind of go at it, if you would?
26:35
Absolutely, with pleasure indeed.
26:36
It is at risk to become a bit too technical, but let me just
26:40
make sorry, it's not going to be a technical in the end, no, but
26:44
thanks for the example is indeed very close to what we really
26:47
assist in terms of average case. Meaning you always have the need
26:55
to split the ownership, the authority, so to speak, the
26:59
scope of visibility of those delegated manager.
27:03
That's one of the foundational need of B2B.
27:05
You need to allow somebody which is not in your companies in
27:08
another company to be entitled to manage by himself the
27:12
onboarding and the access delivered to people belonging to
27:15
his own company. Though the company is not big
27:20
bucket, single unqualified can be itself structured.
27:24
So that's where the notion of hierarchy my kick in.
27:27
So you need delegates and sub delegates which are splitting
27:32
the task OK among them still belonging only to that specific
27:37
master company. Or maybe it's more complex, you
27:40
have a combination of different business dimensions, so to
27:43
speak. One is the organizational
27:45
dimension, another could be a geographical dimension.
27:48
So you might need to have a delegate which can manage people
27:51
as soon as they belong to that company and are in Europe.
27:55
And I'm just making a simple example, Your reality tend to be
27:58
more complex than that. That's why what defines a proper
28:04
B2B friendly capability in a product is also the ability to
28:09
win a point and click fashion model those different dimension
28:13
to slice and dice the responsibility across different
28:16
people. But doing that without creating
28:19
a separate tenant for each organization, without even
28:22
involving the AT to make it happen.
28:24
If a new company, if a new B2B entity joins tomorrow, I don't
28:27
want to involve the ATI, want a business user to be the one
28:31
onboarding that organization. That's the key thing.
28:34
Who is the persona that you involve, not just to be deliver
28:38
access, but to maintain the life cycle, the coming and going, not
28:42
just of the people but also of the organization, the B2B
28:46
organization in the first place? Yeah, I think what I wanted to
28:51
make this one point and this might sound minor to people, but
28:55
it's kind of a big deal because they, I think when folks look at
28:59
solutions, sometimes they say oh you call you know, our
29:05
customers, organizations, right. And we don't use that term
29:08
around here. Reject.
29:12
In other words, your product can't do what we want because
29:14
you call things things differently than we call them.
29:17
And I'm not saying that's right, but it is how the human mind
29:21
seems to work. One of the things that I noticed
29:24
in seeing a demo of the product was that you can even change
29:30
field labels. You don't have to use the
29:32
out-of-the-box terminology for things like organizations or
29:37
really very many of the fields at all.
29:41
You can call them what you want to call them.
29:42
And I think part of that also is that you know you've got some
29:47
language capabilities within the product.
29:49
So I did want to point that out. Feel free to comment on that.
29:52
But I also wanted to kind of transition into a discussion
29:57
around self-service and what are the kind of some of the keys
30:03
self-service capabilities in the platform and how you go about
30:07
addressing those? Yeah, well, that's indeed a very
30:12
important feature. I just mentioned that to be
30:15
addressing the right persona for the job is fundamental in B2B,
30:19
in traditional solutions. And I'm back to the analogy with
30:23
light IGA or IGA, right? All you can translate is the
30:26
name of roles you deliver for people.
30:28
That's the ocean and ocean and the language.
30:30
Sorry, the localizations. But as you mentioned, people
30:33
tends to refer to those metaphors in different ways.
30:36
So maybe we don't call them roles, we call them
30:38
entitlements. Or maybe that's not a group in
30:41
our language, that's the structure.
30:42
And and you, you cannot come up with a dictionary which pleases
30:47
everybody. There is no such a thing.
30:48
OK. So the only answer to that is to
30:52
allow people to pick their name they like better.
30:54
And again, how do you make that translation happen?
30:57
It's something that you need an IT guide to translate that.
31:00
You need this service engagement to reflect the language and to
31:04
absorb that. It's also itself something that
31:07
need to be managed by a non-technical individual.
31:12
I'm repeating myself in a way, but I think that the key to
31:15
finding elements of the philosophy behind the solution
31:19
we built is to not just reach feasibility, but of what we need
31:25
to properly address B2B, but to have that feasibility be
31:29
exploited be used to be leveraged by business people
31:32
with no technical skills. This is the way by which you can
31:37
refrain to even when you delegate somebody in a broker.
31:40
In an insurance example for instance that I gave, are you
31:43
expecting that individual to be technical to manage their
31:48
employees or to change the way the hierarchy, the structure of
31:51
people, whether the organization in this broker is managed.
31:55
It shouldn't be technical, right?
31:56
It's a broker, it's coming from broker company.
31:58
I mean that the level of skills is required to to feature.
32:02
It should be adequate OK for for the scenario.
32:07
Yeah, now what about the the self-service capabilities?
32:11
I mean, I think a big part of having delegated administration
32:15
that works is not throwing all all everything back on the
32:19
delegated admin who may have just an arm's length
32:23
relationship with the end user, right?
32:25
So people need to be able to manage their own profile, things
32:29
like that. How extensively can an
32:33
organization use Thomas Warm Welcome to extend self-service?
32:40
Yeah, it's. It's indeed also a very
32:44
frequently required case. You have people on boarding
32:46
himself, if you are on boarding somebody that somebody want to
32:50
be owning. Is own identity attribute is a,
32:53
is a defining tracks, right? So you can change the picture,
32:56
can change different attributes depending on the implementation.
33:00
Which extra attribute defines you?
33:02
And you also maybe need to request for discretionary
33:07
access? Maybe you're given access
33:09
automatically out of your attribute sets.
33:12
So actually based authorization applies here of course, but
33:15
maybe there are a few of them which are depending that cannot
33:19
be automated, right? So that's another notion of
33:21
self-service. You are allowed to request if
33:25
that the configuration that our customer requires to you're
33:30
allowed to request and then to follow an approval process
33:32
before being delivered a given access.
33:35
OK. So self-service applies in
33:38
attributes and access equally. OK.
33:41
In which flavors in which your level of granularity of course
33:45
varies depending on the specific customer needs, but it's
33:47
consistently pretty much all the time among the requirements that
33:51
we are tasked to task to fulfill?
33:55
Jeff, if you don't mind, I'm going to keep going.
33:57
I'm just, you called me out. Fanboy, right?
34:01
But I'm excited. About the Roll with it, baby.
34:02
Roll with it. All right.
34:04
I'm going to switch over to Jason because Jason we've been
34:07
talking a ton about B to B, you know identity management, the
34:12
delegate administration, things like that.
34:15
Does the toss one welcome IM solution just cover that or are
34:20
there other capabilities that you know or other products or
34:25
solutions that Talos makes available that how does this all
34:29
fit in beyond just the identity? Yeah.
34:33
So the the one welcome identity platform Jim is but I refer to
34:38
it more as kind of like a comprehensive access management
34:41
platform as Marco mentioned the you know the heritage that you
34:46
really have been in the CI AM space, you know CI AM covering,
34:51
you know all types of different external users in this case.
34:55
So the the delegated user management or the identity
34:58
management is definitely one key component.
35:00
But other things that you would expect in the platform doing you
35:06
know single sign on session management kind of traditional
35:10
access management capabilities are are definitely all there
35:13
too. All different forms of
35:17
authentication, multi factor authentication as well as
35:23
authorization at different levels.
35:25
And especially in the B2B context that we've been talking
35:29
about here, authorization becomes kind of a a key
35:33
component of the the overall solution.
35:36
And it's and it's not just about defining or governing the
35:41
authorization policies, but being able to have kind of that
35:46
dynamic contextually aware decision engine as well that can
35:53
integrate with multiple different, you know, policy
35:55
enforcement points to to ensure that those authorization
35:59
decisions are are carried out. I've got to imagine that you've
36:03
run into all kinds of scenarios where somebody's more or less,
36:07
we'll call it Greenfield. In other words, everything so
36:10
legacy that they want to replace the whole stack.
36:12
Then you probably have scenarios where somebody went out and
36:16
bought, you know, like a Ford Rock or an off 0.
36:20
You know, we should say Octo or a ping to do the authentication
36:26
side of the house and maybe need the identity.
36:28
Or they build a custom app that they're really happy with and
36:31
now want to do, you know, a strong authentication with an
36:35
identity verification solution. So is is the platform?
36:40
Is the solution kind of flexible that you can do parts and
36:43
pieces? Or is it all or nothing?
36:45
No, absolutely. It's it's flexible because I
36:47
think as you said, I mean we run into you know customers and and
36:52
prospects and and all different kinds of scenarios.
36:56
You know some that are looking to as we talked about earlier
36:59
augment what they what they have to solve kind of a very specific
37:04
slice of the problem. Others that are you know maybe
37:09
looking to to fully replace and that's fine too.
37:12
But then there's others that are more Greenfield, which you know,
37:16
we haven't talked a lot about here, but you know Marco
37:19
mentioned earlier on around kind of that overloaded buzzwordship
37:24
digital transformation kind of driving some of the B2 BI mean.
37:28
So as as more businesses are you know kind of digitizing their
37:32
operations, we do see some that are venturing into areas that
37:37
you know of, you know new ways that they want to do business
37:41
and engage with other organizations, what I refer to
37:46
as like these collaborative networks.
37:49
And in doing so they are looking for you know a solution from
37:54
scratch or or or in in totality right.
37:57
And then in that case you know we we try to help them not just
38:02
with kind of the piece meal parts or the the individual
38:05
modules but bringing together the the entire solution as well.
38:10
Yeah, one thing with this episode, you know, in looking at
38:13
the one welcome tallest solution or tallest one welcome solution,
38:17
I I felt like there's just so much there that I was afraid of
38:21
like, hey, let's talk about these ten different things and
38:25
spend 5 minutes talking about each one, including B to B,
38:28
right. So we're focusing on B to B.
38:30
But I also wanted to mention like this, this piece I saw was
38:34
called It's Me and it was like identity verification and then
38:37
the fact that you're a company with roots in Europe, European
38:43
Union, there's just such a heavy privacy focus as well.
38:47
So I think if you know, I got to think that you know either from
38:52
an industry perspective or somewhere somehow your company
38:56
footprint is geographically, you know, where things like identity
39:01
verification, things like privacy really jump out.
39:04
I mean, do any examples come to mind for you of that?
39:08
Yeah, absolutely. So I mean the concept of privacy
39:14
is I think it's just in in our DNA as as we've said, you know
39:20
one welcome comes from the heritage in Europe and you know,
39:23
very much focused on supporting complex privacy regulations like
39:28
GDPR, right. But beyond that as well Palace
39:34
as a whole was very much focused on you know emerging things in
39:39
the identity space like self sovereign identity as well.
39:44
So you mentioned you know like it's me which is you know one of
39:47
the the European identity, the Eids that that that exist in in
39:54
in Europe each one of the different countries have kind of
39:57
their own national electronic IDs and so you know that being
40:02
able to consume those so that citizens.
40:05
Or or users can bring their own identity with them.
40:10
That's the core part of the of the platform as well.
40:14
And you know Talus I think of the whole embraces that you know
40:19
other parts of our business inside the digital identity and
40:24
security business line that we have focused on things like
40:29
digital wallets and mobile driver's license.
40:32
We actually are the supplier for for those for a couple of the
40:36
states in the US here as well for the the mobile driver's
40:39
licenses that they have And identity is just kind of at the
40:43
core of everything that we do when it's foundational.
40:48
And so you know protecting the privacy in that in that sense
40:52
it's been very important. And when we look at the One
40:54
welcome identity platform, I think there are some kind of key
40:57
features that we focus on as well to support this for
41:01
organization. The consent management is an
41:06
absolutely critical piece. So whether that's at the
41:09
document or the attribute level, so you know, making it easy for
41:14
either administrators or data privacy officers to be able to
41:18
manage the life cycle around different types of consent to be
41:22
able to keep up with regulation. But then also to the point that
41:25
Jimmy were talking about with self-service, it's about making
41:29
it easy for end users to to be able to see what consent they've
41:35
given and actually manage those, maybe remove those as well as,
41:40
you know, their preferences change or evolve.
41:45
And then another key part around privacy is around the focus on
41:50
data security and encryption. Those that are familiar with
41:55
Talus in the cybersecurity place in the cybersecurity space.
42:00
This is where Talus has made its name.
42:02
A lot is on the data security side.
42:04
So we're very well known for our HFS and key management solutions
42:10
as an example. And so we've actually built that
42:13
heritage into the one welcome identity platform as well
42:17
allowing even though what we deliver is a public cloud fast
42:21
solution like a multi tenanted solution.
42:25
You know we give different options for people that want
42:27
different levels of control as well.
42:29
So maybe you want a dedicated instance in the public cloud
42:31
environment, so we can do that. Or we can support use cases like
42:36
bring your own key and hold your own key again, that give those
42:40
organizations more control as well over their data and who
42:45
might potentially have access to it.
42:47
That's fascinating stuff. What I also wanted to kind of
42:53
transition into in terms of the discussion.
42:56
So I think you guys get lumped into CIAM.
43:01
So here's the thing I think is like when I look at most CIAM
43:05
solutions, they say here's the stack.
43:08
You bring over your users and you populate our directory with
43:12
your users. We don't care how it gets there
43:15
right now. So that's the whole B to B part,
43:18
but there's not analyst reports on B2B.
43:22
So where do you put one welcome, you put them into the CIACI AM
43:28
function. So given that distinction, when
43:34
we talk about the analyst reports, and I'll bounce this
43:36
one to Marco, where do you, where do you end up positioned
43:43
in the analyst reports and what do you think factors into that
43:46
positioning beyond kind of the things I said?
43:49
Yeah, well, in this right, there's no B2B report, right,
43:54
not specific though we we're happy to report that the latest
44:02
Garner Magic Quadrant was calling out already from the
44:05
abstract in the front page the B2B relevance as an increasing
44:10
aspects that Access management need to be qualified against,
44:15
qualified with, right. So actually, this is an
44:18
interesting and interesting and very, very happy finding from
44:21
our side. So that is now I would say,
44:25
finally, OK, gaining recognition in terms of relative relevance.
44:29
Why I'm saying finally, because we have been in the space for
44:32
five, 5 1/2 years now since we started rebuilding our B2B
44:36
solutions, but a bit struggling in even having a unified way to
44:44
call it. Now we call it B2.
44:45
BAM, we're already doing that today, right.
44:47
But if you check what happened up until a few years ago, it was
44:52
partner AAM, guest user management, there was all sort
44:55
of naming to reference what we now call better BWAM.
45:00
So back to your questions, we are indeed consistently present
45:06
in the major analyst reports talking of the Garner one which
45:10
is the magic quantum for access management, the site we are in
45:14
the in the visionary space also because it's a reflection of
45:20
what we just said, right, that we came in along with the
45:23
acquisition of 1 Welcome, a European based company.
45:26
So we are literally on the right side in terms of vision, but
45:32
still being primarily European in terms of heritage, not in the
45:35
leaders quadrant for the ability to execute which is what we look
45:38
forward to enter with the next edition.
45:41
OK. Out of the execution which we
45:43
are already assisting, assisting and again coming from Europe, of
45:47
course we have an historical presence in the Kufinger coal
45:50
leadership campus which publishes the access management
45:53
of the Siam. We are proud of leader, market
45:56
leader, visionary leader depending on which one on you
45:59
pick. But we have definitely we are
46:02
definitely as you mentioned present there along with other
46:07
vendors which maybe are historically not so visible in
46:12
the US OK. So we are maybe more than most,
46:16
most of them even more now, so because of the of the Talis of
46:21
the Talis acquisition. So, all right, I'm going to
46:25
throw you a curveball marker. Not because I want to try to
46:27
stump you, but because what Jason was talking about with the
46:33
authentication and I thought back to my experience with B2B
46:38
identity and authentication, one of the most important parts was,
46:43
OK, here's the scenario, I am an employee of that second B.
46:47
So one of the customers or one of the suppliers, now you know
46:53
the the organization, the main organization, the first B has a
46:58
contract with their customers or suppliers, right, Maybe they
47:03
have contract codes and things like that.
47:05
They don't have a contract with necessarily those agents of of
47:09
that second B, the people that work there.
47:12
But the second be those people are the ones that log in.
47:18
So they need to bring with them attributes of the organization
47:23
that they work for. Some other words like what I
47:26
would call inheriting attributes of that object or you know,
47:31
gaining entitlements because of belonging to this organ.
47:34
See, to me, this is one of the most complex things, and it gets
47:38
that delegated administration. But it's not about
47:40
administration, it's about authorization, right?
47:44
So is this something? Am I just babbling or does this
47:48
make sense to you? This is something you see.
47:51
This is something we definitely see, and again is a perfect
47:53
example of spanning multiple traditionally siloed domain,
47:57
right? So to answer this kind of
48:00
scenario would involve a part of a Federation story.
48:03
We federate with your ADP of the second B and we carry along as
48:07
part of the way you get in some attributes of your identity
48:10
record. Which one?
48:12
The one that we need to identify you or maybe also some of them?
48:16
Some of those that we need to authorize you the right way?
48:19
Because there is an attribute based authorization automations
48:23
of what you now need to be get delivered with OK, which can be
48:28
automatically computed out of where you belong in terms of
48:31
geographical placement, organizational placement or
48:34
other attributes, right? Or maybe it's more complex than
48:40
that, it's contextual. So it's partially due to what
48:44
you are out of your identity record.
48:47
OK, but maybe also out of what how you relate to other people
48:52
or to other entities. We have cases where I'm allowed
48:57
to operate as a delegate on another user only if we were
49:01
jointly working on the same contract before.
49:05
What was the contract? The contract is not an identity,
49:08
yet another entity that has nothing to do with people,
49:12
right? So we are now entering the
49:13
domain of managing fine grain authorizations out of
49:17
relationships between entities which are beyond the the
49:22
identity realm right? Are entering the business object
49:25
model of what the business operates under, right?
49:29
So I think that might be a bit of a complex answer, but that's
49:33
why you trigger me. Sorry, this was your fault.
49:35
It's not OK. It's perfect.
49:37
It's kind of what I was looking for.
49:38
But I the reason it was a curveball, I think Mosley was
49:41
because of the placement of it within the show.
49:44
But it just kind of struck me. I mean, as we're having this
49:47
episode of having flashbacks, good flashbacks, we are running
49:53
a little long. So I wanted to kind of bounce it
49:57
to Jason to talk about, you know, where are things heading?
50:01
You know, where is this one welcome platform?
50:05
What are the future opportunities for growth in the
50:08
identity space for for Talisman Malcolm?
50:12
Yeah, Jim, I think you know the the the B to B phase is an
50:16
obvious one. That's what we've been talking
50:17
about today mostly. So you know we see that as kind
50:24
of a Nathan market opportunity or a Nathan industry and you
50:27
know we kind of we want to be at the forefront of that and and
50:31
help shape what the industry sees as a whole as kind of the
50:36
the right way to do B2B. I AM and we don't want to do
50:41
that in isolation obviously we want to, we want to partner with
50:43
other vendors and clients in the in the industry to help help
50:48
evolve that. So that's that's an obvious
50:50
focus area. But in general we've talked
50:54
about Tallis and our heritage being in you know not just in
51:00
the fiber security space but in other highly regulated
51:03
industries. And so towards that end, you
51:06
know we have a particular focus in the BFFI segment, so banking,
51:11
financial services, insurance, which fits very nicely into a
51:17
lot of the capabilities I think that we offer both for the, you
51:21
know the identity management side, but also the security
51:25
aspects as well. And then another focus area for
51:32
us is kind of the continued evolution of authentication and
51:39
password list in the industry. I know Jim and Jeff you spoke to
51:43
one of our colleagues, Pedro Martinez back at the
51:45
Authenticate Conference in October episode 242, if I'm not
51:50
mistaken a little plug there for you.
51:53
And you know Pedro is one of our subject matter experts in the
51:58
area of password list and pass keys.
52:03
And again, we think that this is going to reshape the the
52:07
industry around authentication, making it not only easier but
52:11
more secure. So again that's that's an area
52:14
that we're going to kind of continue to invest in as well.
52:18
And then the last thing that I would just say is Talos made
52:22
another acquisition at the end of last year of Imperva who you
52:28
guys might be familiar with like in a data security and
52:31
application security space. So we see a lot of synergy
52:35
possible between the identity space, the data security space,
52:39
the application security space. So you know, we're spending a
52:42
lot of research and investment dollars there as well on how do
52:46
we, how do we address new and emerging use cases by bringing
52:49
identity and data and application security closer
52:53
together. So it seems like Thomas is
52:55
really kind of developing one welcome as this force to be
52:57
reckoned with in the industry and I appreciate the plug.
53:01
Thank you very much for for plugging Pedro show.
53:04
So well done professional podcaster Jason.
53:07
I don't listen to this conversation.
53:09
I didn't want to interrupt fanboy Jim really geeking out
53:13
about this stuff because he has so much experience in the space.
53:15
But it got me thinking that, you know, a lot of this sounds
53:19
difficult to do and do it right. And I guess I want to close the
53:23
conversation out on what does it actually take to implement
53:27
something like this. So if I'm going to deploy 1
53:30
welcome for my use cases, I guess what does a typical
53:35
implementation look like? And I know that's a loaded
53:36
question because the consulting answer is it depends.
53:40
But you know what? I guess, kind of briefly walk me
53:43
through the process. What does it take to set up,
53:46
What does it take from a resource perspective?
53:49
You know, if I'm a customer, what should I be bringing to the
53:52
table for like roles? Is it all technical people are
53:54
there business analyst, business representation?
53:59
Do we get the actual B to B people involved as part of this?
54:03
Help me kind of understand what it takes to deploy something
54:05
like this. And maybe Marco, then, maybe
54:06
that's a question for you. Yeah, happy to.
54:09
Happy to address that. Of course I can answer along the
54:11
line of what is the approach that our partner system
54:14
integrators are following the the methodology they usually
54:18
follow basically split the task into two parallel threads.
54:22
There is an onboarding orchestration thread.
54:25
So how do we get the people in, what is the user journal like
54:28
what form of authentication, is there any verification involved,
54:31
is there any, is there any look up in some back end system to
54:35
make sure that you are really you OK.
54:37
So that is more on the science side so to speak.
54:42
OK. In terms of task, in parallel to
54:45
that there is another work thread potentially and very
54:49
often led by different people, which is around how do we model
54:53
the split of who can manage and should be managing whom.
54:56
So what is the delegation model? So how do we segment out of the
55:00
identity record the scope of responsibility, OK of different
55:05
companies, different product line, different Geo.
55:08
What belongs to the segmentation which is now the technical
55:11
conversation is more of a business process and business
55:13
model type and also along the same in the same thread what
55:19
kind of persona are we looking at?
55:21
Do we have a delegated manager, do we have a partner manager.
55:25
So somebody who's also really job is to on board partner but
55:29
not people. I mean these are the two parts.
55:32
So there is an on boarding thread in a delegation
55:37
management thread. Those are the two things usually
55:40
in parallel. Very often the phased approach
55:45
misused at least to reach a first release which is meant to
55:49
show the value and to tune later on that what need to be
55:53
adjusted. This first phase is what we call
55:56
a minimal lovable product. Minimal lovable approaches in
55:59
the three months range usually. So Jim, got to throw a curve on
56:04
that. Throw one more.
56:06
I'm listening to this. I'm an IM practitioner not to
56:08
listen to those podcasts. What is the hardest thing about
56:13
this sort of deployment and what are things that I should be
56:16
thinking about as someone in the IM world out in the business?
56:19
You know, whatever it may be practitioner to say, OK, I'm
56:23
this sounds really interesting. I need to plan around this thing
56:27
because it tends to be the hardest part of an
56:30
implementation. Can you get my for any guidance
56:31
on that? The hardest part, I mean, so for
56:38
us usually the hardest part is to get identified as a provider
56:41
of that solution that actually exists as a market solution and
56:44
they don't need to reveal that from scratch.
56:46
So the hardest part for us is actually to be called in rather
56:50
than to deliver the thing. OK, maybe I'm not dodging the
56:53
question. I'm just literally commenting on
56:55
what is the hardest part for us so far going into once we're in.
57:00
So now we got selected say right and what is the hardest part?
57:05
The hardest part is usually to well you you in a way I do
57:12
revise A resemblance with IGA, OK, is to understand and to help
57:17
our customers in structuring, OK.
57:20
The the segmentation of who can do what?
57:24
OK, in a unified format, OK, because not necessarily that was
57:31
thought through before and there was no need for it, OK.
57:34
The fact that you had an help desk, it means that that logic
57:36
was in the brain of the L desk people.
57:38
It was not built in the solution that now can handle that.
57:41
So you need to transpose that logic from what is the business
57:46
as usual approach of delegation management onto a tool which is
57:50
allowing you to do that. But now that you have a tool,
57:53
you need to understand the metaphors and the configuration
57:56
option offered by the tool to absorb your requirements.
58:00
So it's more of a logical conversation that a technical
58:03
one, which demonstrated to be interestingly more challenging
58:08
than maybe integrations with exotic systems of all sorts or
58:13
federations with third party ADP and so forth.
58:16
So I think that kind of was what I was thinking about too.
58:19
Jason, what do you have as far as what do you think is the
58:21
hardest part of a deployment? So, so I would add to what Marco
58:26
said and look at when when these projects are going on.
58:30
It's not just about implementing the tool specifically, but it's
58:34
about usually some kind of an evolution of the business
58:39
process at the the organization and the tool here is only one
58:44
part of that that's kind of helping that out.
58:48
So typically there needs to be some kind of a rollout for your
58:53
the B2B organizations that are that you are interacting with.
58:58
So there's training that needs to go and and happen on you know
59:03
what is, what is the new philosophy, what is the new
59:05
approach for accessing the the applications or for managing the
59:11
users. So it's kind of that that
59:13
distributed training of the end users, obviously everything
59:17
needs to be intuitive, but ultimately you might be changing
59:22
the way that your partners or that those different
59:25
organizations are interacting with you.
59:29
And so that becomes kind of a a part of the overall project or
59:33
the overall life cycle, not just the implementation of this, this
59:36
one particular part, it's usually part of a a larger
59:41
deployment project in general. I love those tips because I
59:44
think those are things that are real world valuable.
59:48
So I appreciate that we've got a ton of experience, you know, on
59:52
this conversation between the four of us.
59:55
And I want to close out on a lighter note, and maybe not
59:59
necessarily lighter, but more informative note, let's put it
1:00:01
that way. Or recommendation note.
1:00:03
What's a piece of advice that has stuck with you throughout
1:00:06
your career? Marker.
1:00:08
Why don't you go first all? Right, Yes.
1:00:12
So the best piece of advice I ever received over my career is
1:00:18
definitely from one of my early manager in the identity space.
1:00:23
OK, the name name is Marcus J Krauslow.
1:00:26
Let's give him the credit, OK? Which apart from being a great
1:00:30
salesman, he was very wise in many ways.
1:00:32
And his advice was if you're good at what you're doing you're
1:00:36
making, you should be aiming to make yourself redundant.
1:00:39
Meaning you should be teaching to others what you're good at so
1:00:43
that they can do that without you being involved.
1:00:46
OK, so that was a very sticky thing and I think makes a tons
1:00:51
of sense. So that's what I feel like
1:00:54
sharing. I like that.
1:00:56
That's good, Jason. How about yourself?
1:00:59
So yeah, thinking about this, that's a good question.
1:01:03
So one of the things that comes to mind isn't necessarily kind
1:01:06
of one in one advice that I have been given, but from an
1:01:12
executive leader from my prior organization had seen them
1:01:18
giving, you know, an internal talk on what does it mean to be
1:01:22
a good leader. And he talked about the seven
1:01:25
CS. Now, I don't mean bodies of
1:01:28
water, but the action like the the letter C so.
1:01:31
So he mentioned seven things. Confidence, calmness, committed,
1:01:38
consistency, clarity, constructive and compassionate.
1:01:44
And it always just stuck with me.
1:01:45
So I actually have a post it that I have on my desk.
1:01:48
I'm holding it up here. You can't see that on the
1:01:51
podcast. But that used that as a reminder
1:01:53
to myself every once in a while when I'm like, you know, am am
1:01:56
I? Am I doing the best I can to be
1:01:58
a leader in this organization? And I kind of go through the
1:02:00
checklist and see where where I can improve along the way.
1:02:04
So that's kind of stuck with me. That's another fantastic big
1:02:07
that's that's going to be a tough one to top.
1:02:09
Jim, how about yourself? I I can't top either of those,
1:02:12
but I will go back to I think this podcast put me back to my
1:02:18
late 20s self rolling out my first Identity project, which
1:02:21
was AB to B identity project and my CIO at the time, John Stout
1:02:27
said just always do what's right for the company.
1:02:31
It seems like such simple advice, but I remember back to
1:02:35
times where there were people who were with the company 30
1:02:40
plus years. Right now I'm sure they're doing
1:02:42
what they thought was right for the company, but they were very
1:02:46
resistant to change, didn't want to become part of this B to BIM
1:02:51
solution. They wanted to do things the way
1:02:53
they had always done. And as Jason can imagine, they
1:02:56
were from the mainframe era, right?
1:02:57
And they ran the, the order entry applications and things
1:03:01
like that, that the dealers used and they webified the mainframe
1:03:06
essentially, right. And they didn't want to become
1:03:08
part of the IM solution. And what would have been easier
1:03:11
for me would have been just to keep the peace and kind of try
1:03:15
to find some kind of watered down compromise solution.
1:03:18
But that was not what was right for the company, was right for
1:03:22
the company was to move forward and provide a better experience,
1:03:26
more secure experience, all that to our customers.
1:03:30
And so I used that advice. We ultimately did.
1:03:34
Now, I'm not saying that we took an uncompromising position
1:03:37
because that rarely works in life.
1:03:39
But truly, if you just use that mantra, do what's right for the
1:03:44
company, I think more times than not you'll do what's right and
1:03:50
it will always be defensible. If you truly believe that what
1:03:53
you're doing is was the right thing for the company, then you
1:03:56
know in the end that you followed your your guiding
1:04:00
principle. Jeez Jim, that's pretty good.
1:04:02
Let me see for mine. So you kind of stole my Thunder
1:04:08
but I'm going to shift to a different one because the my my
1:04:10
thinking was is you can always get smarter it's OK to get
1:04:13
smarter. So that idea of evolution and,
1:04:18
you know, just because it's the way we've done it in the past,
1:04:20
doesn't mean we have to do it in the future.
1:04:21
And yes, mistakes will be, hey, that's part of life.
1:04:24
How do you get smarter? So you stole kind of my Thunder
1:04:26
on that one. I'm going to go back to my
1:04:28
restaurant days and restaurant manager I had his name was Bill
1:04:32
and we were just about to open up this new bar and, you know,
1:04:37
staff meeting, hey, let's get everybody together.
1:04:39
And I think one of the things that stuck out with me and this
1:04:42
is, you know, decades later, the customer is not always right,
1:04:46
which I found fascinating because I had worked in food
1:04:48
service and restaurants and bars for years at that point.
1:04:51
And you know, the customer is always right.
1:04:53
It was like, well, no, the customer is not always right.
1:04:56
Sometimes you need to help your customer figure out what they
1:05:00
need to do. They may not know, you know what
1:05:03
is in their best interest. And I I will just go back to
1:05:07
that because it's been such a, it was so ingrained in in that
1:05:10
business and customer service was like, oh, the customer is
1:05:12
always right. Well, no, not necessarily.
1:05:14
You've got to figure out how to help the customer move forward
1:05:16
sometimes and kind of I think goes along with kind of what
1:05:19
you're what you were saying Jim as well.
1:05:21
So, so that's my customers. I thought you were going to say
1:05:24
your your ranch dressing is not always the most important thing
1:05:27
in the world. That is definitely another one
1:05:29
of the things that I've learned. 5 table section shout out to all
1:05:33
my chili heads or former chili heads out there.
1:05:35
A 5 table section at Chili's on a Friday or Saturday night is no
1:05:39
joke. Hardest job I've ever had.
1:05:41
Learned a lot in restaurant business.
1:05:42
But yeah, so you learn at that point the ranch dressing is not
1:05:45
the most important thing in the world.
1:05:48
OK. I think, I think we've we've
1:05:50
covered a lot of ground as part of this conversation.
1:05:52
I think one thing that's going to be helpful for folks is the
1:05:56
team from Tallis, when Welcome is going to be at a few
1:05:58
different conferences throughout the year.
1:05:59
I'm looking forward to see them at a few myself.
1:06:02
So they're going to be at Gartner's I Am Summit, RSA
1:06:06
Identiverse, Cooper, Cooper Cole Conference.
1:06:10
So we're going to get a chance to to meet the folks there as
1:06:12
well as Jim and I head up to those, but definitely reach out
1:06:15
to Marco, reach out to Jason. We'll have links to their
1:06:19
LinkedIn profiles and our show notes, as well as a link where
1:06:22
you can check out more about the Tawas One welcome solution.
1:06:26
That website againcpl.tawasgroup.com,
1:06:29
cpl.thalesgroup.com. It'll be in the show notes, so
1:06:36
easy to click on there and definitely appreciate you guys,
1:06:39
Marco and Jason for for being part of this.
1:06:42
Marco, I'll give you the final word, followed by Jason.
1:06:45
What's 1. One thing that someone should
1:06:47
take away from this conversation Who's been listening?
1:06:50
Well, that B2B exists. It's no longer a blind spot, OK?
1:06:53
You have solutions, Good to go to make that easy and doable in
1:06:57
a matter of weeks. OK.
1:06:59
That's the take away from what we just discussed.
1:07:02
That's good, Jason. How about yourself, Final World?
1:07:05
Yeah, I think, you know No2 situations look alike in the in
1:07:10
the B2B world or that that might be the the case on the surface.
1:07:14
But there are lots of patterns and lots of institutional
1:07:19
knowledges that have been built up to help you solve those
1:07:21
problems. So don't go it alone.
1:07:25
Look for help and there's many across the industry who are
1:07:30
willing to jump in and lend a hand and lend their expertise.
1:07:33
All right. I can't stop that.
1:07:34
So we're going to end it there for this week.
1:07:36
Appreciate everyone for listening.
1:07:38
You can find us on the web, IDAC podcast.
1:07:40
Got Pod. Nah, that was terrible.
1:07:42
Let me do that again. Appreciate everyone for
1:07:45
listening. You can find us on the web at
1:07:47
idacpodcast.com, at Twitter, at IDAC podcast and Macedon IDAC
1:07:53
podcast at Infosec dot exchange. So with that, thanks everyone
1:07:56
for listening and we'll talk with everyone in the next one.
1:08:00
You've been listening to Identity at the Center.
1:08:04
We hope you've enjoyed the show. Make sure to like, rate and
1:08:08
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1:08:11
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1:08:15
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1:08:23
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