Welcome to the KuppingerCole Analyst Chat. I'm your host. My name is Matthias Reinwarth, I'm the director of the Practice Identity and Access Management here at KuppingerCole Analysts. This is the first episode of 2023. So yes, we're back again with a new set of episodes for this year. And when we talk about last year, the final episode that we did, Martin Kuppinger and I, it was a retrospective on 2022 and what happened and what we can take away for the next year. And this time, this is again an unusual episode because we are looking into the future, we are looking at new services and therefore I welcome for the first time here at the Analyst Chat, Christie Pugh. She is the Digital Product Manager here at KuppingerCole Analysts. Hi, Christie.
Hi, Matthias. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Great to have you. And when I say “unusual” episode, you're no analyst. This is the Analyst Chat. So let's make the best out of it. And we'll want to talk about services, and of course, they are related to two analysts work and the work we do here at KuppingerCole Analysts. We are introducing a new set of services, a new type of service. And this is why we want to talk about what the service is about, what is it for, who has benefits from it? So let's start with that. So what is this new service that we want to talk about?
Yeah, most definitely. The new service which we revealed earlier this week is called KC Open Select. And it's fitting, yes, that we're talking about it now, that we're having our first podcast of the year looking towards the future. That's exactly where the idea of KC Open Select came from. We want to be proactive at KuppingerCole and provide our clients with services that make their lives easier. And while the analysts provide us with an abundance of amazing information that brings massive value to our organizations every day, it's a lot of information. And so we were thinking, how can we provide a faster time to value for our clients? So we've developed a service that allows you to opt in or select your organization's unique requirements and you'll be provided with not only a list of tools that fit those unique requirements, but also the intelligence backed by those analysts.
Right. So and when we talk about it... you are the Digital Product Manager, so it's a digital service. So it's an online service that people can access on our website?
Absolutely. It's a free online service, which is amazing because there are so many tools out there in cybersecurity, in IAM. And no matter where you are within your organization's IAM maturity level, it's a lot, right? So beginning a new project, you have a very robust practice. There are still ways to grow and improve and reimagine, you know, your ideals and your goals, and that can be expensive at times. So when you're just starting out, how do you find how do you weed through all the information that's out there? How do you identify your organization's specific requirements when you have that robust environment? How do you figure out what technology is biggest and brightest, but not only that, that fits your organization. So there's a lot of information out there. How do you find it?
Right. And this is something that I'm as an advisor doing all the time with our customers, with our end user customers. So identifying distilling these requirements that are essential for a specific organization. So we have these Leadership Compasses, but it's not always useful to just pick the product in the upper right corner of the resulting diagram. But it's really important to match that to the existing requirements, which might be different from other organizations. So finding the right spot within this Leadership Compass might also be a big challenge, and this is something that can be done now interactively by the users themselves once they know their own requirements?
Absolutely. While the Leadership Compasses are a great piece of collateral for your research process, it's a lot, like I said, and it doesn't have that interactive aspect. And so a lot of times when you're in the discovery phase of figuring out next steps, you have a lot of collaboration on your team, a lot of input, and that input could change throughout the process. So how do you capture that? And with KC Open Select, you'll be able to make a customizable comparison chart and be provided with KuppingerCole's signature spider graph along with ratings of all the independent use cases that are pertinent to your project, the strengths and weaknesses of each tool, and then you'll be able to download that collateral, take it a step further, and once you have that next phase and you're trying to build a business case, you're already provided with that clear view is to ensure what your research is articulating.
Right? So it's really operationalizing the work that we did before and gathering it in one place to get to this result. As you described a comparison chart, a comparison spider graph that we use in advisory as well to make sure that you understand the pros and cons of the individual services or products to look at when you're looking at a specific market segment. That's really fascinating to have this as a free service, you mentioned that. So what are the first steps that we can look at? What are the first market segments that we can look at for the upcoming future?
Well, we are showcasing initially Passwordless so you'll have access to all the different passwordless organizations that have included in KC’s, or KuppingerCole’s research. But I do want to say, Matthias, you mentioned the services advisory that we provide before. KC Open Select is no way a service that will be replacing the Leadership Compasses, all of our research, the advisory sessions, in fact, it'll help you prepare for those interactions. The Leadership Compasses are robust. They have a lot of information. And whether you're just starting out or an expert in the field, it's a lot to go through. So you may not know what key points to hit initially. And looking at all the information. And then speaking to an advisor. In a previous life, I worked with analysts on a daily basis and sometimes it's hard. You don't know what you don't know when you're going into an advisory session, so it'll help you prepare, gather questions, ask where are gaps, identify them, show them, create a storyboard for that conversation for you. So rather than replacing those services, we're enhancing those services with KC Open Select.
Right. Fully got the point because I think it's really important also to make the first steps to be well prepared for potential upcoming steps, so not necessarily making the advisor unemployed, but really getting to the right steps at the right time in a project preparation phase maybe, and then reach out for such a free service. That is really interesting. And to already maybe convince the C-level within your own organization that you need to do something and this is really of importance to do the right steps at the right time. We've been very cautious to mention the name earlier. I’ve hinted at this in earlier episodes, and I could not mention the name. Now we can say it. It's KC Open Select, but this is still in a very, not in a very early phase, but in an early phase. So we are launching that, I think, early February. So there will be this service available with this first iteration of Passwordless Authentication services and products. Am I right? And what will be the next steps for those who are interested in actually using that?
Yeah, definitely. We are launching very soon, early February, so it’s exciting, right around the corner and I know we'll be able to leave this conversation with a link to our website. If you want more information, if you want to set up a call for a demo or just collateral and we're actually KC Open Select is and when it will be available, alerted when it will be available, we'll provide that link to you on our website.
Well, that's perfect. And I think we will follow up in further episodes later this year. When it comes to looking at new market segments. So we will roll out in different market segments over time, I think every two months or so where we will add new content to this KC Open Select, starting out with a very popular topic and we hope it will be get popular as well for the KC Open Select service with... let's try this again: Passwordless Authentication. But there will be other topics around CIAM, IAM and cybersecurity in general. So there will be more and we will hopefully see you very soon again as a partner in this Analyst Chat. Thank you very much Christie, for being my guest today. Any final things you want to add before we close down and show the link to where you can get more information?
Yeah, absolutely. Just a quick note. Thank you for mentioning this, but yes, we will be adding more topics to the solution or the service this year, but also keeping it up to date. We want to keep it current. Yes, there's a there's a lot of information out there. There are a lot of organizations out there doing great work within cybersecurity, and IAM. But that just drives innovation, right? So we want you to have the information as quickly as possible. So we'll keep these continuously updated for a better solution.
Absolutely. And as you said, we want to keep this updated. So maybe this is also, in some brackets, a hint to the vendors to provide us with the most recent information so that they are represented within the KC Open Select with their latest features, their latest capabilities that should be highlighted as well so that we get to a win win situation for the users, for the user organizations who are looking for a solution and for the vendors who want to be presented as neutrally as relevant as possible. So thanks again, Christie, and looking forward to having you very soon again. And great to have you on the team for this digital product. Thanks.
Thank you for having me.
Bye bye.
