Scaling Securely: The Enterprise Playbook for Modernization

Security, Scalability, Reliability: The Pillars of Modernization

Modernization is no longer optional, it’s a mandate. But as enterprises accelerate transformation, there’s one non-negotiable truth: moving fast can’t mean sacrificing security, scalability, or reliability. In fact, these are the very pillars that determine whether modernization delivers business value or introduces new risk.

That was the focus of my recent session at this year’s Workato’s WOW Conference with my colleague, Megan Hopkins, and Kiran Sana, Integration Engineering Manager at Helen of Troy, the company behind beloved brands like OXO, Hydro Flask, and Osprey.

Watch the full session to see how enterprises are modernizing without compromise.

What enterprises need to modernize safely

Across industries, the requirements are strikingly consistent. Enterprises want:

• Global enablement: data residency, sovereignty, and regional compliance.
• Deployment flexibility: options like Virtual Private Workato (VPW) for isolation, or PrivateLink for secure cloud-to-cloud connectivity.
• User lifecycle management: SAML SSO, SCIM, and JIT provisioning to streamline onboarding while enforcing security.
• Centralized governance: environments, role based access control (RBAC), custom roles, and segregation of duties that keep control without slowing down builders.
• Security and compliance: encryption key management, external secrets managers, BYOK, log streaming, and auditability.
• Reliability and scalability: guaranteed uptime, autoscaling, and disaster recovery to withstand peak demand.

These aren’t “nice to haves.” They’re the checklist every CIO and CISO brings to the table.

Helen of Troy: modernizing at global scale

When people think of Helen of Troy, they think of their brands, Hydro Flask, OXO, Osprey, and many more. What most don’t see is the complexity behind the scenes: a global portfolio of direct-to-consumer and B2B businesses, multiple ERPs, and the challenge of serving customers seamlessly across regions.

For Kiran and his team, modernization meant solving some pressing challenges:

1. Expanding globally while staying compliantWhen launching into EMEA, GDPR compliance was non-negotiable. Customer shipping and billing data had to stay within the EU. With Workato, Helen of Troy spun up a dedicated EU workspace, ensuring compliance with regional regulations while keeping order-to-cash flows uninterrupted. The result: faster go-to-market in new regions without legal or operational bottlenecks.
2. Absorbing massive seasonal peaksBlack Friday and Cyber Monday can make or break a consumer brand. For Helen of Troy, that means millions of orders hitting their ecommerce sites, passing into Oracle for fulfillment, and flowing to third-party systems for logistics and customer experience. All of this is orchestrated through Workato.Instead of scaling infrastructure manually or worrying about capacity, Workato’s auto-scaling absorbs the surge automatically. As Kiran put it, “The platform is very stable. Even during peak sales, everything works smoothly with no extra capacity planning needed.”
3. Integrating acquisitions without disruptionWhen Helen of Troy acquired Osprey, the brand ran on NAVBC ERP, while the rest of the business used Oracle. With Workato’s on-prem agent, the team securely connected NAVBC into their workflows. Over time, they migrated Osprey’s systems to Oracle without disrupting order flows, proving that modernization and M&A integration can happen in parallel.
4. Balancing agility and governanceFinally, Helen of Troy needed a governance model that balanced speed with control. Using Workato RBAC, Helen of Troy could have full access in dev and test, but production deployments are handled only by an infrastructure team in line with SOX requirements. Business analysts have read-only access to production dashboards, so they can monitor order volume or campaign performance without risking changes to recipes.This approach enforces the principle of least privilege while enabling every team to move at the pace the business demands.

In short, Helen of Troy shows how modernization without compromise works in practice: expanding into new markets faster, handling unpredictable demand seamlessly, integrating legacy systems securely, and giving teams the freedom to innovate, all without cutting corners on compliance or reliability.

Governance that empowers, not restricts

Enterprises like Helen of Troy need to scale builders without losing control. Workato enables this with identity and access controls like SSO, SCIM, JIT provisioning, and granular RBAC.

Governance isn’t a brake on innovation; with the right guardrails, it actually accelerates delivery.

Security and observability built in

Beyond access controls, enterprises need confidence that data is protected and activity is auditable. Workato delivers this through defense-in-depth capabilities, including:

• Encryption at rest and in transit, with hourly key rotation
• Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) support via AWS KMS
• External secrets management with AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault, and CyberArk
• Log streaming into SIEMs like Splunk, Datadog, or Sumo Logic for real-time monitoring
• Customizable data retention policies to control how long data is stored
• API traffic mirroring to help detect anomalies or misuse

With these capabilities, security teams get the visibility and control they need without slowing down modernization.

A look ahead: Enterprise Hub and Command Center

Another question I hear often is: how do we keep innovation from fragmenting as more teams start building? That’s where Workato Enterprise Hub comes in. Enterprise Hub gives enterprises a curated internal library of automations, recipes, and documentation. Instead of reinventing the wheel, teams can find and reuse what’s already been vetted. Hub makes it possible to democratize innovation while maintaining consistent governance. By centralizing best practices, Hub eliminates silos and democratizes innovation, making it easier for enterprises to scale.

As enterprises expand globally, managing multiple instances can quickly become complex. That’s why we’re introducing the Global Command Center, a single pane of glass for monitoring, governance, and security across all Workato deployments. IT leaders will be able to:

• Enforce policies consistently across regions
• Track consumption and performance trends
• Gain visibility into errors and operational health
• Push governance and security controls from one central place

For global organizations, this will make it easier than ever to modernize at scale with confidence.

Final thoughts

Modernization doesn’t have to mean choosing between speed and safety. With Workato, enterprises can expand into new markets, absorb seasonal peaks, integrate acquisitions, and empower more builders, all while staying compliant with the strictest security standards.

Helen of Troy’s story shows how this works in practice: GDPR compliance built in, order-to-cash processes scaling automatically during Cyber Week, secure integration of legacy ERPs, and a governance model that balances agility with control.

Looking ahead, innovations like Workato Hub and the Enterprise Command Center will give organizations even greater ability to scale safely, helping builders move faster while giving IT leaders visibility and governance across the enterprise.

That’s what modernization without compromise looks like: a foundation of trust, scalability, and resilience that frees teams to focus on innovation.