The integration layer we refused to outsource

We bought commerce capability and product-data management, then kept the one layer that was actually the business: a Workato orchestration tier exposing legacy databases to the commerce platform and to external partners.

Why we kept it

Partner-facing endpoints have adopters, documentation, versioning pressure, and revenue attached. An interface that outside parties build against is a product by any definition that survives contact with reality. Someone has to decide what it exposes, what it promises, and what it will never promise.

What it returned

That layer drove five million dollars in net new revenue, and it is the layer partners now build against first.