Topic starter
06/11/2026 6:39 pm
TL;DR: Identity programmes struggle when they must process 1,000 employees a week across millions of annual operations or govern 6,000 independently run organisations as one, according to READI, because rigid IGA and scripting alone cannot keep pace. The practical issue is not coverage in theory, but whether identity governance can adapt at business speed without collapsing under operational complexity.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by READI: “READI: An Agile Solution for IAM Challenges”.
Key questions
Q: How do identity teams scale provisioning across fragmented environments?
A: Identity teams scale provisioning by centralising policy and orchestration while using connectors, APIs, and event-driven workflows to reach disconnected systems.
Q: Why do rigid IGA workflows fail in complex enterprise estates?
A: Rigid IGA workflows fail when they cannot model real entitlements, ownership, or exceptions across different platforms, so requests stall or land with the wrong access.
Q: How should teams govern custom identity automation scripts?
A: Custom identity automation scripts should be treated as controlled privileged tooling with an owner, source control, change review, and logging.
Practitioner guidance
- Define the identity estate by operating pattern Separate systems by tenancy model, ownership model, and entitlement complexity before deciding how much automation each group can tolerate.
- Map manual work to governance failure points Track where identity teams fall back to scripting, spreadsheets, or service desk intervention, then treat those points as control design gaps.
- Test workflows against mixed environments Validate provisioning and certification flows across cloud, on-prem, and disconnected applications instead of only in the most standardised environments.
Bottom line: Identity governance breaks down when the environment becomes too diverse for a single operating model to describe cleanly.
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06/11/2026 6:41 pm
Identity governance fails first as an operating model problem, not a connector problem. The central constraint in this kind of environment is not whether a platform can technically reach more systems, but whether it can absorb local variation without turning governance into a patchwork of exceptions. Once identity work depends on scripts and ad hoc orchestration to survive scale, the programme has already moved away from repeatable control into managed improvisation. Practitioners should treat that as a governance signal, not a tooling preference.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What should identity leaders prioritise when mergers add multiple directories?
A: Identity leaders should first map where directories overlap, where they are authoritative, and how users, groups, and roles will be merged or separated. Mergers often leave duplicate identities and conflicting entitlements, so consolidation needs matching rules, account linking, access review, and a plan for decommissioning separate groups, roles, and local policies.
👉 Read our full editorial: Agile identity automation exposes the limits of rigid IGA