Okta’s Businesses at Work 2024 Report Identifies App Growth and Trends
Okta, an identity and access management company, has recently released its Businesses at Work 2024 report detailing data and insights regarding the apps, security systems, and other tools that companies around the world depend upon for business. As a global leader in helping companies secure user authentication and helping developers build identity controls into products, Okta’s integration network provides a wealth of data for the latest technology trends.
Here, we’ll take a look at some of the most interesting findings from the report.
Top 10 fasting-growing apps
The top 10 fastest-growing apps range from commercial search engines like ZoomInfo to VPN services like Tailscale. All 10 had year-over-year (YoY) growth above 65%, while some had growth in the triple digits. Canva—an online graphic design tool—tops the list by number of customers, but Vanta—a data compliance tool—had the highest YoY growth percentage at 338%.
Graphic courtesy of Businesses at Work 2024, Okta
Standout app categories
Four categories of apps—business supply, travel, legal, and design—grew the most in number of customers and number of unique users. The category with the highest YoY unique user growth? Business supply apps at 63%. How about the highest YoY customer growth? Legal tools at 35%.
Interestingly, the categories with losses were shipping, consumer, telecommunications, job boards, healthcare, and e-learning while new entrants on the growth side were electronic signature tools and content collaboration apps.
Graphic courtesy of Businesses at Work 2024, Okta
Growth in number of apps used
Over the last few years, the average number of apps companies adopted each year slowed to a crawl, but now, businesses are once again adding new tools to their tech stack. On average, companies now use 93 apps, a growth of 4% YoY. In Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, this growth is even higher at 6% YoY.
But it is businesses in the U.S. and the Netherlands that hold the lead in the most apps used overall, averaging 105 and 108, respectively. That sets the stage for a lot of messy integrations and time-sucking context switching!
Most popular apps
Not surprisingly, tech startups that are new to the world have somewhat different business needs than Fortune 500 companies that have been industry leaders for decades. You might think this means startups use different apps than the Fortune 500, but on the contrary, there is quite a bit of overlap. That said, where exactly these apps rank in popularity for each type of business does vary.
The top 5 most popular apps among startups are:
1. Google Workspace
2. AWS
3. Microsoft 365
4. Slack
5. Atlassian Product Suite
The top 5 among the Fortune 500 are:
1. Microsoft 365
2. Salesforce
3. AWS
4. ServiceNow
5. Atlassian Product Suite
Graphic courtesy of Businesses at Work 2024, Okta
Multi-factor authentication
If it seems like most of the apps and websites you use have recently stepped up their authentication requirements, it’s because they have. More companies are adopting multi-factor authentication (MFA)—for example, requiring you to enter a security code they’ve sent via text message after you’ve already logged in with your username and password.
Some organizations are going a step further and requiring biometric authentication (e.g., Face ID on Apple devices) or security keys (e.g., a USB drive that connects to your laptop). For example, Okta found a 25% YoY increase in the number of companies using biometrics and security keys and a 52% YoY increase in government entities doing so.
App usage isn't slowing down anytime soon
What does all this data mean for your business? It means that automating and integrating apps and tools, and doing so securely and efficiently, is becoming increasingly important for businesses of all kinds. In order to stay competitive, companies need to have a strategy for managing the complexity that comes with the ever-changing and always-growing business technology landscape.
Glances can be a major player in that strategy. Our no-code integration platform works anywhere online—within any app or webpage—instantly pulling up all relevant data from any of your connected tools. And with Actions, you can complete tasks across apps without navigating away from your preferred platform, saving you and your teammates up to 20 minutes per task.
More helpful steps
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