How Intercom built autonomous identity for over 1200 employees
Challenge: 1,200+ employees were facing clunky approval processes and lengthy delays — sometimes taking days to get the access they needed.
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About the company
Intercom is a customer communications platform that helps businesses build stronger relationships with customers through AI-powered messaging, support automation, and engagement tools across the full customer journey.
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Overview
As Head of IT at Intercom, Emanuele Sparvoli's responsibilities span across IT Operations, Engineering, Corporate Security, Infrastructure, Systems, and even Procurement.
"We pride ourselves on being a customer-centric IT team, ensuring that our 1,200+ employees have seamless, secure access to the tools they need," Sparvoli says.
However, as our company scaled, user access management was a growing pain point. Provisioning and deprovisioning access was largely manual, creating significant toil for our IT Operations team.
Even with our heavy investment in Okta and its IGA product, the end-user experience was frustrating and inefficient. Users faced clunky approval processes and lengthy delays—sometimes taking days to get the access they needed.
We needed a better way—a solution that could improve security without sacrificing user experience, and let our IT team focus on strategic initiatives, not on tedious access management tasks.
Challenge
- User Experience: We wanted a platform that met users where they are, be it Slack or the web, a multichannel, frictionless, intuitive experience is a must.
- Security and Compliance: Any solution had to meet our strict security standards, supporting zero trust and audit logging without adding user burden.
- Automation and Efficiency: Reducing manual toil for the IT team was critical. We needed access to be fast, auditable, and as automated as possible.
Solution
1. An AppStore built for users but with security at the core
When Okta's IGA product didn't meet our needs, we looked to Lumos. Their AppStore enabled employees to request and manage app access directly from Slack, while still ensuring strong security through device trust-based authentication.
2. Automating Access Management
With Lumos, most access requests are now self-service, governed by flexible policies tailored by system and role. Low-risk requests are granted instantly, while sensitive accesses trigger lightweight, secure approval workflows. IT no longer plays middleman for every request, dramatically cutting down on low-value toil.
3. Flexible Access Reviews
Previously, system owners had to manually review every user’s access — a painful quarterly ritual. With Lumos, we can now implement rule-based access which greatly simplifies the process of access reviews. IT can handle 90% of the reviews, escalating only true exceptions to system owners. This streamlined approach will make our compliance audits faster and less burdensome.
Impact
Access Time Slashed from Days to Minutes
In the past, getting access to critical systems could take days. Now, many access requests are completed instantly, and even sensitive approvals happen within hours. Our employees get what they need faster — and with far less frustration.
Eliminating Toil: IT Focuses on Strategic Work
Access management is no longer a major worry for me or my team. What used to be a constant drain on our resources is now a background task, freeing us to focus on higher-value initiatives that actually move the business forward.
Building IT as a Service Organization
By implementing self-service access for most requests we enhanced user satisfaction, while still meeting our security standards without compromise.
Why Lumos
Other vendors focused heavily on admin tools or compliance frameworks, but ignored the user experience. Lumos stood out because they cared about both sides of the equation: making IT's job easier and making employees’ lives better.
We chose Lumos because they listened to our needs, partnered closely with us, and delivered a product that was flexible, secure, and above all, loved by our users. Today, I'd have a very hard time finding a better tool to meet our goals.
At Intercom, IT exists as a business within a business and our employees are our customers. We’re here to serve them, not to stand in their way. Lumos helped us live up to that promise.
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