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Introduction
Engineering the Perfect Pivot for a Cybersecurity Platform
Client: A fast-growing US-based cybersecurity company in the Identity & Access Management (IAM) space
Industry: Cybersecurity (Identity & Access Management)
Indexnine’s strategic product engineering transformed a niche auditing tool into a mission-critical identity platform, creating exponential enterprise value.
Identifying critical security gaps
Challenge
The client had built an auditing product capable of identifying critical security gaps, but not solving them. With strong demand from existing users and potential new customers, the client wanted a solution that could capitalize on this major opportunity. They needed to evolve from a passive reporting tool into an active, enterprise-grade management platform.
Solution
A multi-year strategic engagement with Indexnine to architect and execute a complex product pivot. This involved engineering a secure, scalable provisioning engine from the ground up and a continuous product modernization effort to meet enterprise demands.
- Secure
- Scalable
- Provisioning Engine
- Modernization
Key Outcomes
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Mission-Critical Integration
Evolved the product from a supplemental visibility tool into an indispensable, action-oriented, core operational system for enterprise customers. -
Enterprise Architecture
By delivering a robust, secure, and scalable platform, the client could now meet the rigorous technical and compliance standards of its expanded customer base as well as the acquisition standards of a publicly traded company. -
Upgraded Scope, Expanded Value
By transforming the product into a comprehensive Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) platform, it could provide an IGA solution to a broader range of enterprise customers, expanding its total addressable market. -
Successful $165M+ Acquisition
The pivot directly enabled the company’s acquisition by a global leader in identity security.
The Paradox of Visibility
Challenge
The Paradox of Visibility in a Sprawling Digital Estate
The IT landscape is a chaotic one; applications and data are no longer confined exclusively to a secure, on-premise data center; they’re distributed across hundreds of SaaS platforms like Salesforce and SAP, multiple cloud providers, and countless homegrown systems. For a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), this creates a nightmare scenario for managing who has access to what.
The client was founded to solve just this problem. Their initial product was brilliant: an auditing tool that could connect to this fragmented digital estate and give CISOs a unified view of all user permissions, answering at a glance the fundamental, critical question of infosec: “Who has access to things they shouldn’t?”
The product was a success. The company quickly acquired 100+ customers, including major enterprises. They’d successfully navigated the launch phase of their product lifecycle. But in doing so, they found a new challenge.
“This is great, you’ve shown me that I have security issues. Now, how do I fix them?”
— Consistent customer feedback across 100+ enterprise clients
Their customers loved the reports, but they all came back with the same feedback: “This is great, you’ve shown me that I have security issues. Now, how do I fix them?”
With customers empowered to see problems instantaneously, they wanted a way to solve those problems just as fast.
The company found itself with a product that could show customers their security problems. Now, they needed the product to offer security solutions. Until it was overcome, this customer friction could prove a roadblock to continued growth and a potential threat to the company’s long-term viability. They were at a strategic inflection point and needed a partner with the technical depth and product development expertise to help them navigate their next move.
Solution
The Pivot, From Audit to Action
The client’s challenge was a perfect match for the core DNA of Indexnine. This wasn’t a simple feature request; it was a mission-critical product pivot that required a decisive intersection of experienced strategic consulting and best-in-class engineering execution.
Phase 1: Charting the Course
Our engagement began with a series of in-depth strategy workshops led by our Discovery and Engineering studios. We worked closely with client leadership to internalize their customer feedback and map out a new product vision. Plans quickly took shape on how to evolve the product from a passive, read-only auditing tool into an active, read-write provisioning platform capable of identifying and remediating access issues entirely within the product.
Phase 2: Engineering an Enterprise-Grade Provisioning Engine
Moving from a system that reports on permissions to one that changes them is an order-of-magnitude increase in technical complexity. It required us to architect and build a secure, scalable, and resilient provisioning engine from the ground up. This involved solving several substantial challenges:
API Integration at Enterprise Scale
The engine needed to communicate with hundreds of disparate third-party systems. This meant architecting a highly extensible integration framework capable of handling modern REST APIs, legacy SOAP APIs, and everything in between.
Transactional State Management
The system had to guarantee that when a user’s access was revoked, it was revoked across all target systems. We implemented a sophisticated, transactional state management architecture with robust rollback capabilities.
Security-First, Zero-Trust Design
As a security product that would be granted privileged access to a client’s most sensitive systems, the provisioning engine itself had to be a fortress with least-privilege access, end-to-end encryption, and comprehensive audit logging.
Scalable Microservices Architecture
To handle the load of managing millions of permissions across enterprises, we architected the provisioning engine using a microservices-based approach allowing independent scaling for different system integrations.
Phase 3: Continuous Product Modernization for an Enterprise Future
Our partnership didn’t end with the launch of the provisioning engine. As the company grew and entered the acquisition conversation with an interested party, the demands on the platform increased. The client expanded our engagement, leveraging Indexnine’s product development expertise to focus on product modernization to ensure the platform stayed ahead of the curve:
Refactoring for Enterprise-Grade Security
We worked to refactor and harden the codebase to meet the rigorous security and compliance standards of a publicly traded company, aligned with our ISO 27001 certification standards.
Performance and Scalability Optimization
We continuously monitored and optimized the platform for performance, safeguarding it against increasing load demands from larger and more exacting enterprise clients without degradation.
Value of Excellence
The Value of Excellence
$165M+
Acquisition Value
100+
Enterprise Customers
Mission
Critical Status
IGA
Platform Evolution
Excellence Values Delivered
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Transformed a Feature into a Platform:
Our work elevated the product from a niche auditing tool into a comprehensive IGA platform. This dramatically increased the client’s TAM and positioned them as a major player in the cybersecurity landscape. -
Created a Mission-Critical Product:
By solving the problems identified by the original auditing tool, the product we helped build became indispensable to customers. It elevated the client's product from a "nice-to-have" tool to a "must-have" operational system for managing enterprise security. -
Created a Mission-Critical Product:
By solving the problems identified by the original auditing tool, the product we helped build became indispensable to customers. It elevated the client's product from a "nice-to-have" tool to a "must-have" operational system for managing enterprise security. -
Enabled a $165M+ Acquisition:
The strategic pivot from auditing to provisioning was the single most critical factor in the company’s acquisition. We didn’t just build a feature; we helped build the core asset that created exponential enterprise value.
Our partnership with the client exemplifies how strategic product engineering can transform market positioning, create exponential value, and deliver outcomes that exceed expectations.
Why It Worked
The story is a quintessential example of our core values and differentiators in action.
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Product-centric Development:
Our team, with its ingrained product mindset, understood the strategic importance of customer feedback and leveraged it to inform our vision for the client's pivot. -
Deep Engineering Expertise:
Building a secure, scalable provisioning engine is a formidable engineering challenge. Having industry veterans with years of expertise in API integration, microservices architecture, and enterprise security was critical to the project's success. -
Partnership Across the Product Lifecycle:
Our engagement spanned multiple phases, from the critical “Pivot” phase into the ongoing “Mature” phase of the client’s evolving success. We believe in commitment to our clients as a long-term strategic partner. -
A Founder's Mindset:
We approached the problem with the same sense of urgency and ownership as the client's leadership team. We understood that the success of this pivot was a defining moment for the company, and we would deliver nothing less than excellence for it.
Ready to Engineer Your Perfect Pivot?
For any company at a strategic crossroads, we provide the transformative power of strategic product engineering. Our work reinforces our firm belief that, with the right partner, a major challenge can be engineered into a market-defining opportunity.
Want to take your product to the next level? So do we. Set up a free consultation with Indexnine today.