Primitive Skate is a skateboard and apparel company that launched in 2008 in Los Angeles. The business is the brainchild of professional skater Paul Rodriguez, also known as P-Rod, who co-founded the brand. Today, the company sells its gear online and in stores across the United States — and around the world.
The Challenge: Managing IT for a Rapidly Growing Company
Over the past few years, headcount at Primitive has increased nearly 10x. Today, the company has over 120 end users, explained Ricky Jordan, senior computer systems admin at Primitive, who’s been there since the beginning.
“I’ve been a one-man show for this whole operation,” Jordan said. “It’s been keeping me busy, but has also given me the opportunity to build a solid technology foundation for the company.”
As the company continued to scale, Jordan thought about bringing more people onto his team to take care of the ever-growing list of administrative tasks he found himself managing every day. Ultimately, he decided against it and implemented software solutions like JumpCloud to do the busy work. As a result, he was able to hire key players that are able to use these solutions as tools, as well as use automation features so that the department can better focus on providing proactive solutions.
“I’m not trying to get rid of positions or not have helpers in my department,” Jordan continued. “I’d just rather have people who are key players instead of doing so much treadmill-busywork-type of things.”
The Solution: Automating Busywork with JumpCloud
Rather than hire someone to do routine tasks, Jordan began looking for a technological solution to his problem of administrative overload. Since Primitive didn’t have any kind of user management solution or directory service in place, Jordan figured that was a great place to start.
“We had no domain, no Active Directory, no directory service at all,” Jordan explained. “We were managing 80+ users manually as well as all of the apps and those logins. It was very tedious and I knew I had to get something in place ASAP.”
To clean up that mess, Jordan searched Google for “cloud directory” and came across an ad for JumpCloud in 2018.
I ended up watching some JumpCloud YouTube videos, seeing the interface for the admin console, and that was it. I saw that and said, we need to implement this today.
Ricky Jordan, Senior Computer Systems Admin
Thankfully, Jordan’s boss, the company’s CFO, “has faith in me and lets me do what I need to do.” After discovering JumpCloud, Jordan was eager to present it to his boss, who was immediately sold on the platform.
“He looked at me and went, ‘That looks good, Rick. Do what you need to do,’” Jordan explained. “And I did.”
The Results: Complete Control Over All Devices
For Jordan, knowing he made the right decision couldn’t have been easier due to the number of benefits the Primitive Skate team has enjoyed since deploying JumpCloud as their cloud directory.
1. Rapid transition to remote work
As a company that had always worked out of physical buildings and warehouses, Primitive was hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everybody was in-house pre-COVID, even myself,” Jordan said. “I just remember getting the call about COVID happening and all of the execs told me, ‘Everybody needs to be remote in two days.’”
At the time, Jordan had already been working with JumpCloud a bit. The day before everyone started working from home, he put JumpCloud agents on everyone’s computers, did a little troubleshooting, and that was it — everyone was remote in two days’ time.
“Shoutout to JumpCloud for popping up on my Google Ads, and me for contacting JumpCloud and setting it up beforehand,” Jordan said with a laugh. “I look like a superstar.”
2. A centralized cloud directory
In the past, setting up usernames and passwords was a massive, time-consuming endeavor. Fingers were crossed that all data was entered into systems accurately; otherwise, Jordan had his work cut out for him.
“In the wild days before JumpCloud, if somebody’s name or email was misspelled, I’d have to go change it on Trello, on Slack, on everything,” Jordan continued. “Now, I can just go ahead make any needed changes inside of JumpCloud and push it through error-free to all of our connected apps and accounts.”
3. MDM made easy with zero-touch enrollment
JumpCloud makes mobile device management (MDM) easy — particularly with Zero-Touch Enrollment for Macs, which has enabled Jordan to set up nearly 50 devices without ever touching them.
“MDM is awesome for automating device deployment,” Jordan said. “I’ve probably done about five or six laptops now drop-shipped, which is a great process. Once the employee opens it up, I’ve got to push a couple of commands. But it’s super smooth.”
Compared to the old way of doing things, JumpCloud has been a life-saver, enabling Jordan to reclaim significant amounts of time he’d otherwise spend doing tedious manual configurations. He has since added additional staff to the Tech Department, and when paired with using and training everyone on the JumpCloud Platform, there is more time for everyone to collaborate and focus on other projects.
4. A strong user experience
JumpCloud has revolutionized Primitive’s end user experience. Not only is it the central hub for their employees’ user identities, but it also allows them to easily manage their login credentials, change their display names, bind their accounts with additional devices (including BYOD), as well as allow them to self-enroll into MFA.
“The skateboard industry isn’t really known for tech advancements like this and having everything streamlined to a single hub,” explained Jordan. “This makes for a great solution that cuts down on help tickets, account lockouts, and traditional questions.”
Because of this, any technology Jordan brings to Primitive needs to be designed for the average user and deliver a strong user experience. With intuitive, self-service functionality, JumpCloud delivered on both fronts.
5. Improved digital security and compliance
With JumpCloud, the Primitive team can rest comfortably knowing that their systems and network stay secure thanks to features like single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and Zero Trust security.
For our company, JumpCloud is a dream come true, especially for single sign-on because our users would have a hard time creating all these Google Auth accounts for all the different tools they use. Being able to have a single JumpCloud Protect™ account is awesome, and when paired with MFA to protect that account, it makes it even more desirable.
Ricky Jordan, Senior Computer Systems Admin
For Primitive, getting users on board with these security measures has been an easy feat.
“We have a full 100% adoption rate for MFA,” Jordan said.
JumpCloud also makes compliance easy.
“We were the Wild West without any management before,” Jordan explained. “But with JumpCloud, we have full visibility. We can see who’s locked out, who’s expired, and go ahead and assist them, which is awesome.”
6. A platform that prepares them for the future
To Jordan, the future of technology is obvious: Though the cloud is already important today, it’ll become even more important as time goes on. As Primitive continues to leverage cloud resources and move away from on-prem infrastructure, JumpCloud will play a critical role in ensuring everything keeps working smoothly and securely.
“It’s great to see where things are going solution-wise,” Jordan continued. “I love seeing all these features added and I love the back and forth we’ve had with our account rep. It’s been super helpful.”
Not only does JumpCloud give Jordan the tools he needs to grow as a professional, the platform has also helped seasoned tech veterans get more done every day.
JumpCloud has helped me excel and mature in my role. I feel like the magic man — I have the right tools at the right time in the toolbox. More recently, I’ve been able to train additional staff in the tech department on how to use these tools to their advantage. Some of our new staff have been in the tech industry for over 15 years and love how simple and to the point JumpCloud’s interface and feature set is.
Ricky Jordan, Senior Computer Systems Admin
Learn More About JumpCloud
JumpCloud changes the way IT administrators manage their organizations by providing a comprehensive and flexible cloud directory platform. From one pane of glass, manage user identities and resource access; secure Mac, Windows, and Linux devices; and get a full view of your environment.
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