Opstream Taps Frontegg to Build Trust with Enterprises and Reduce Engineering Effort

About Opstream

Opstream isn’t just another procurement platform – it’s the orchestration tool that changes procurement from a back-office function into a strategic driver of business success. Their platform unifies procurement processes, leverages cutting-edge technology, and is built with real-world challenges in mind.

A history of building enterprise SaaS

Before becoming the CTO of Opstream, Mor Cohen-Tal had a history of building products for enterprise customers. With over 15 years of experience building relationships with enterprises, Mor joined Opstream with a clear understanding of the critical engineering infrastructure needed to acquire large clients. 

One of Mor’s top priorities was setting up an enterprise grade identity system. Opstream is a procurement platform that streamlines back office data and functionality to speed up purchasing processes. Since Opstream needed access to a huge portion of backend core systems, identity, and security would become a cornerstone in building trust with large clients. 

Trust above all else

Mor knew from previous experience that identity management would become a core part of Opstream’s business. In order to have an impact on procurement and approval flows, Opstream needed access to sensitive data and core systems, which would be controlled by advanced access permissions and security settings. Mor was going to need to build trust with large enterprises that Opstream could safely provide those features and protect sensitive areas of their business. 

“There are certain areas of the business that you don’t get much leeway trust wise. Identity is one of those areas. It can be hard to build trust between enterprises and our company, but one small identity mishap could quickly lose any credibility that we established,” said Mor.

But she also knew that identity wasn’t Opstream’s core competency. She didn’t want to dedicate her limited engineering resources to building out non-differentiating functionality. To Mor, anything that doesn’t help her out-compete in her industry is a non-differentiating feature.

“You need expertise to work with identity. I didn’t want to waste my team’s expertise on identity. I need them to be experts in our world of procurement.”

This dichotomy between identity being essential, but not wanting to waste engineering cycles prompted Mor to evaluate external identity solutions. This was Mor’s decision to choose “buy” over “build.”

Making sure identity is an asset

No matter which tool Opstream decided to leverage for identity management, Mor wanted to make sure that it served as an asset, not a hindrance. One of the key ways she evaluated solutions was to look at levels of abstraction.

In order to minimize the amount of work demanded of her engineering team, Mor wanted an identity solution that completely abstracted the backend of SSO setup. 

“If abstraction doesn’t exist, then you’re going to have to build everything multiple times for different configurations. Imagine setting up a SSO connection then having to repeat the process 10 times per customer, think of all the features we could build with that time saved!” said Mor.

Also top of mind was the ability to fill out RFP questions related to identity. At the enterprise level, roughly 20% of an RFP is some variation on identity and security questions. Mor wanted to be sure that whatever tool she selected would fulfill the identity criteria of the questionnaires so that she could focus on the remaining questions. 

Other key features evaluated include:

• SSO: Most of Opstream’s customers don’t use passwords. They rely on SSO for access. 
• MFA: When customers work with external legal or negotiating services, they need a secure way to grant their partners access to sensitive information. 

Why Frontegg

Mor chose Frontegg because of Frontegg’s ability to abstract away extra developer work without requiring a complex setup. 

“Frontegg allows me to control any component, turn things off and on, and get granular without needing to build things myself. It offers the right balance between configurable and flexible.”

Frontegg manages Opstream’s identity front to back removing any unnecessary burden from the engineering team. Frontegg’s prioritization of enterprise level identity management and self-service functionality helps Mor keep her engineers focused on making Opstream a better platform. 

Frontegg also has a feature roadmap that continually supports Opstream’s business.

“When we were evaluating tools we didn’t want just a short point solution. We wanted a solution that would continue to grow and scale as we grew and scaled,” said Mor.

But Mor’s favorite thing about Frontegg?  

“The most amazing part about working with Frontegg was the people. The team truly cared about my business and at the end of the day that’s what it’s all about.