TL;DR

Achieve, a digital personal finance company, needed to modernize an identity program that had become manual, error-prone, and resource-intensive. With over 314 applications to integrate and compliance requirements including PCI and SOC 1/2, the team chose Linx to gain visibility into identity risks, automate lifecycle workflows, and implement just-in-time access. Within weeks of connecting their first integrations, they were already surfacing insights they had never seen before.

About Achieve

Achieve is a digital personal finance company that helps everyday people get on, and stay on, the path to a better financial future. Brian Miller serves as Senior Director of Governance, Risk, and Compliance and Identity Engineering, where he is responsible for all compliance and governance programs and ensuring identities are managed effectively across the organization.

The challenge

Brian and his team were running an identity program that relied heavily on manual processes. The approach was resource-intensive, and mistakes happened frequently. With hundreds of applications in the environment and compliance requirements including PCI, SOC 1, and SOC 2, the gaps were becoming harder to ignore.

"We were trying to modernize our identity program, trying to automate it as much as possible. Very much an accident-prone process we have in place right now. It takes a considerable amount of resources to manage all the identities, but it's also we make mistakes frequently."

Recent audits had surfaced gaps in the security environment. The team needed better visibility into who had access to what, and they needed tools that could help identify risky permissions and roles across a large application footprint.

"We had some compliance requirements, one of them being PCI and then SOC 1 and SOC 2. And when we did those, we did find some gaps that we had within our security environment. And so we're looking for tools that would help us plug some of those gaps."

The solution

With over 314 applications to integrate, Achieve needed a platform that could scale without turning into a multi-year implementation project. The team also wanted to move away from their legacy ticketing system toward a more streamlined approach to access requests.

Linx addressed these requirements directly. The platform's flexibility around workflows and integrations meant Achieve could connect their full application stack and build the automation they needed for onboarding and offboarding.

"Linx gives you unlimited workflows and unlimited integration. And we have over 314 plus applications that we needed to integrate. With the workflows, we wanted to be able to streamline our whole onboarding, offboarding process. So this gives us the capability to do that."

The team is also implementing just-in-time provisioning through Linx, replacing manual ticket-based processes with a system that provides both auditability and a better user experience.

"We're looking to utilize Linx with the JIT or Just-In-Time Provisioning that will potentially allow us to move off of our current ticketing system with Linx that allows us the auditability as well as just more of the user-friendly requests that they can perform."

Early impact

During the proof of value, Linx delivered immediate visibility into identity risks. The platform's AI capabilities helped the team identify issues and surface recommendations they had not seen before.

"During our POV, Linx delivered visibility into identity risks and they were able to help us identify through its AI capabilities any suggestions or recommendations. That was one of the main key takeaways that we got from Linx."

As integrations went live, the team started identifying areas of concern almost immediately. Even with connectors that had only been in place for a couple of weeks, the depth of insight surprised them.

"We were just looking at one of our cloud platforms today and amazed at how much information we can pull out of Linx. And we just literally connected it a couple weeks ago."

Outcomes in weeks

Within weeks, Achieve had moved from a manual, error-prone identity process to a platform that provides continuous visibility and a path to full automation. The team now has the foundation to streamline lifecycle management across their entire application estate and close the compliance gaps that audits had surfaced.

"Starting to get the integrations put into place, we started to identify areas of concern and issues and just had more visibility into our environment."

The partnership has also exceeded expectations. Dedicated support and frequent check-ins ensure the team is getting value from the platform as they scale their implementation.

"We have dedicated reps with Linx that meet with us on a frequent basis to address any issues and make sure that we're getting the value out of Linx."

Brian's advice to peers

"Wholeheartedly would recommend Linx to anybody, especially those that have dealt with some of the larger companies out there and have fought in trying to get them implemented and the complexity of it. I would stress to them that Linx is very quick to implement, and I would also stress to them that overall the company is fantastic to work with. We've built an amazing partnership with Linx in just a matter of weeks that we've been doing business."