Cost Center or Profit Center? An Expert's Take on Identity-Driven Revenue

For most organizations, Identity and Access Management (IAM) is seen as a necessary expense, a cost center necessary for protecting the business. But what if your identity program could be one of your most powerful engines for growth?

This was the central topic of our recent conversation on the Identity Stack podcast, where we sat down with Jonathan Edwards, Managing Director at KeyData Cyber. He argued it’s time to change the narrative around identity—from a defensive expenditure to a strategic revenue driver.

It All Starts with Redefining "Identity"

The first step to changing the narrative around identity is to think bigger. When the security industry talks about “identity,” it’s almost always in the context of access management and defense. We have focused on Identity and Access Management (IAM) as a pure security play, making it feel like more an insurance policy than a strategic asset. According to Jonathan, this narrow view misses the point.

"My point is,” Jonathan explained, “that identity is the foundation of all of this, and we as ‘Identity professionals’ need to step away from the label of identity-based security to really show the value of Identity."

Viewing identity purely through a security lens means you only see risk. With this mindset, customer attributes, login behaviors, and preferences are treated as liabilities to be minimized rather than insights to be utilized. This leaves marketing, sales, and product teams blind to data that could transform their strategies. 

When you see identity as the core data set that defines your customer, you can begin to appreciate its potential for driving sales, enabling marketing, and creating tailored user experiences.

Shifting IAM from an Insurance Policy to a Growth Strategy

For decades, IT security has been viewed as an insurance policy to protect you from cyberattacks, but it’s the wrong message.  

"Too many times vendors sell identity solutions as if they are in insurance sales," Jonathan stated. "Executives and boards…want to know how they can improve their top and bottom line, when far too often we focus only on bottom line.”

This means reframing the conversation from "how much will this cost to protect us?" to "how much revenue can this unlock for us?"

Where Identity Drives Real Revenue

Leading organizations today understand that the same data that secures the front door can also personalize the entire customer experience. So how does this work in practice? We already mentioned the value of identity for sales and marketing, but let’s look more closely at what that looks like in the real world.

Once a customer is registered, their identity profile stores information including their purchases, website browsing history, searches, and more to inform every downstream experience. With this information, marketing and sales teams can develop highly personalized approaches like dynamic ads and customized campaigns to increase engagement and upsells. Sales teams can use this information to segment contact lists for more effective outreach. 

Jonathan provided even more examples for how a robust identity strategy directly impacts top-line growth.

• For Driving Customer Loyalty: "Assume you are a holding or franchising company, and you own three fast food restaurant brands," he proposed. "Being able to have loyalty programs that work together across the brands can drive customers to use more of your products. It also can lend itself to building patterns in what people buy, which then can lead to targeted marketing."
• For Seamless Mergers & Acquisitions: The value of IAM in an M&A isn't just about reducing integration costs. The real prize is speed. "Being able to onboard those companies faster is more of a benefit because the services one company provides can now be consumed faster by the other’s customer base, resulting in more revenue."

A New Conversation with New Stakeholders

As identity becomes a business-wide function, the people at the table begin to change. While the CISO and CIO are still crucial, they are no longer the only buyers.

"We are seeing CMOs purchase identity solutions completely separate from security," Jonathan noted. "The fact is that these are solving business problems and not only security problems."

This is the ultimate milestone: when the Chief Marketing Officer starts to see identity as a tool for customer acquisition and retention, you know you’ve successfully moved beyond the "insurance policy" mindset to have real conversations about its potential for enabling growth.

To learn more about how you can drive revenue with robust Identity & Access Management, visit us at KeyDataCyber.com, where you can schedule a complimentary workshop and receive a roadmap to a secure and scalable IAM strategy that is a true engine for growth.