Notifications
Clear all
Topic starter
09/06/2026 11:16 pm
TL;DR: Adding IT headcount quickly hits diminishing returns, with productivity gains falling from 16.59% in early growth to 3.19% at larger admin teams, while mixed operating-system fleets can drive the Productivity Factor negative, according to JumpCloud’s analysis of product usage data from over 5,000 organisations. The finding reinforces that identity and device complexity now outpace linear staffing, forcing more secure automation and tighter governance.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by JumpCloud: How Scaling Breaks IT First, Then Security
By the numbers:
- JumpCloud analyzed global product usage data from over 5,000 organizations.
- In early growth stages, each new IT admin brings an efficiency gain of up to 16.59%.
- In the 100 to 200 user tier, the device management Productivity Factor plummets to an astounding -19.96%.
Questions worth separating out
Q: What happens when identity and device management scale faster than IT headcount?
A: Productivity usually flattens because each new admin spends more time reconciling tools, exceptions, and fragmented policy surfaces.
Q: Why do mixed device fleets make IAM governance harder?
A: Mixed fleets create different enforcement paths for policy, posture, patching, and remediation.
Q: How do organisations know their IAM operating model is no longer scaling?
A: The warning signs are duplicate policy work, rising exception handling, slow access reviews, and admin teams spending more time reconciling systems than improving controls.
Practitioner guidance
- Map your identity blast radius before adding staff Count how many directories, device managers, and access policy engines must agree before a user or workload is fully governed.
- Standardise the device policy baseline across operating systems Define a minimum set of controls that must be enforced identically across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- Consolidate recertification around a single source of access truth Avoid running parallel access review processes across multiple identity providers.
What's in the full report
JumpCloud's full research covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- Detailed productivity-factor curves by organisational scale, including where gains start to flatten.
- Comparative usage data on mixed operating-system fleets and dual IdP environments.
- The underlying product usage methodology across more than 5,000 organisations.
- The report's roadmap for unified workflows, endpoint management, and AI-assisted operations.
👉 Read JumpCloud's research on how scaling breaks IT first and security next →
Tool sprawl and mixed device fleets: what it means for IAM teams?
Explore further
10/06/2026 1:32 am
Tool sprawl creates an identity governance ceiling, not just an operations burden. When every extra platform adds another policy surface, teams stop scaling control and start scaling exception handling. The result is a governance model that looks larger but becomes less consistent, especially when device, directory, and access decisions are split across multiple systems. Practitioners should treat sprawl as a structural identity risk, not a tooling preference.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 69% of security leaders agree identity management must fundamentally shift to address agentic AI systems, according to The 2026 Infrastructure Identity Survey.
- Only 13% of organisations feel extremely prepared for the reality of agentic AI despite the majority racing toward autonomous adoption.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How should security teams respond when identity sprawl starts driving negative productivity?
A: They should stop treating sprawl as a staffing problem and start treating it as an architecture problem. First, identify which directories, device tools, and policy engines duplicate each other. Then collapse the highest-value overlaps, because negative productivity means the environment is consuming governance capacity faster than the team can replenish it.
👉 Read our full editorial: Tool sprawl and mixed fleets are flattening IT productivity
