Enterprise readiness checklist: Steps to scale your business

Previously, companies waited to implement SOC 2 compliance or enterprise-grade security features like SSO until they had large customers. But now, the need to secure higher contract values and reduce churn has made these capabilities essential from the start. 

In the AI space, enterprise readiness is accelerated by the downstream impact of SOC 2 compliance, robust data protection in LLMs, and a focus on core product development over non-proprietary features.

Read on to learn more about: 

• What enterprise readiness is and why it’s essential for AI companies
• The key components of enterprise readiness
• An enterprise readiness checklist
• Challenges and how WorkOS can help
• Major benefits 

What is enterprise readiness, and why is it important?

Enterprise readiness refers to a SaaS product's capability to fulfill the security, compliance, reliability, and support requirements of large organizations. Typically, organizations with over 1,000 employees have complex evaluation, procurement, and decision-making structures.

As companies grow, particularly in fast-moving industries like AI, they need to increase their capabilities to meet the higher expectations of enterprise clients. Relying on early product-led growth (PLG) is no longer enough; when it comes to enterprise customers, you need to meet strict requirements. 

Strict requirements such as SOC 2 compliance, data security, and scalable infrastructure quickly become non-negotiable. Without these, you could miss out on major deals — or worse, struggle to deliver on what you’ve promised.

WorkOS is critical in accelerating enterprise readiness for AI companies like Jasper, Copy.ai, and Hex, as well as businesses from other sectors. With easy-to-integrate APIs for SCIM and SSO, along with support for audit logs and role-based access control (RBAC), WorkOS enables companies to meet enterprise requirements easily without redirecting months of valuable engineering resources.

Key components of enterprise readiness

To win and retain enterprise customers, your product and business must meet specific standards from the start. Here are the key components to focus on:

• Organizational alignment: When every department — from engineering to sales — is on the same page, it becomes easier to meet the complex demands of enterprise clients without confusion or delays. This alignment ensures you can deliver on enterprise expectations from day one.
• Infrastructure scalability: It is key to supporting business growth, especially in industries like AI, where handling massive data sets is the norm. Whether expanding user bases or increasing data processing loads, your infrastructure needs to grow with you.
• Security and compliance: Compliance is critical for AI companies because they often handle sensitive customer data. Failing to meet strict security and privacy standards like SOC 2 and HIPAA can lead to severe consequences, including data breaches, loss of customer trust, and regulatory penalties.

Enterprise Readiness Checklist for AI Companies

AI companies face unique challenges when crossing the “enterprise chasm,” as it’s called, when trying to become enterprise-ready. Here’s a checklist for enterprise readiness assessments:

1. Assess Current Infrastructure:
   • Is your infrastructure scalable to handle increased user loads and data storage?
   • Identify any gaps that could limit your ability to serve large organizations.
   • Utilize tools like WorkOS to streamline infrastructure improvements with APIs for SSO and SCIM.
2. Align Team Roles and Responsibilities:
   • Engineering: Focus on compliance, security, and scalability features.
   • Sales & Marketing: Align messaging with enterprise client needs.
   • Customer Support: Implement protocols for enterprise-level support.
3. Implement Security and Compliance Protocols:
   • Achieve SOC 2 Type 2 compliance and regularly review controls.
   • Implement Single Sign-On (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
   • Protect data with encryption and comply with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA.
4. Develop Scalable Infrastructure:
   • Ensure your systems can handle an expanding customer base and increased data demands.
   • Plan for future scalability by investing in cloud services or distributed systems.
   • Work with third-party solutions like WorkOS to simplify scaling without heavy engineering overhead.
5. Create Customized Proposals for Enterprise Clients:
   • Identify their pain points and offer solutions that align with their compliance and security requirements.
   • Provide case studies or examples showing how your solution scales for enterprise use.
   • Include options for post-sale engagement and long-term partnership.
6. Ensure Company-Wide Adoption of Enterprise Readiness:
   • Train all employees on the importance of compliance and security.
   • Ensure that customer-facing teams can clearly communicate your enterprise capabilities.
   • Align product development roadmaps with enterprise client feedback to ensure ongoing readiness.
7. Plan for Post-Sale Support:
   • Schedule regular check-ins to maintain engagement and address any concerns.
   • Offer a dedicated customer success team to ensure clients fully utilize your product.
   • Proactively address any issues to increase client satisfaction and retention.

Benefits of being enterprise-ready

Here are the top benefits your company can expect from being ready to handle enterprise demands:

Enhanced data security for sensitive information

When an AI company is SOC 2 compliant, the compliance process is also more straightforward for its customers. Many clients also need to maintain their own SOC 2 compliance, and using a SOC 2-compliant service helps clients maintain their compliance status.

Enterprise readiness supports strong data protection measures for companies, including those working with sensitive technologies like Large Language Models (LLMs), by ensuring compliance with security protocols like SOC 2 and data privacy regulations. This is critical because LLMs can unintentionally store or recall sensitive customer data. Implementing encryption, SSO, MFA, and RBAC minimizes the risks of unauthorized access. In addition, data anonymization and pseudonymization reduce the risks associated with data breaches or misuse of sensitive information.

By having stringent safeguards in place, enterprise clients are reassured that their data is protected, even in AI use cases where privacy concerns are heightened. This builds customer trust and reduces the risk of data breaches, which could otherwise damage your company and your clients.

Improved operational efficiency

Being enterprise-ready allows your engineering teams to focus on developing your core product rather than spending time building non-proprietary features like SSO or SCIM user provisioning from scratch. While essential for enterprise clients, these features don’t contribute directly to product differentiation. 

By eliminating the bottlenecks caused by last-minute adjustments or piecemeal feature additions, enterprise readiness enables your teams to work more efficiently. In a competitive market like AI, this focus on core competencies gives you a distinct edge, allowing you to bring AI-driven solutions to market faster.

Increased customer satisfaction

When your product meets the strict security, compliance, and reliability requirements that enterprise clients demand, it builds trust. Satisfied customers feel confident that their data is secure and your systems are reliable, encouraging them to renew contracts and explore additional services.

This trust doesn’t just help with retention — it also speeds up the sales process. By eliminating compliance, security, and scalability concerns, your enterprise sales team can close deals faster, with less back-and-forth.

Greater agility and scalability

Enterprise readiness ensures that your infrastructure and systems are built to scale. As your customer base grows or enterprise clients demand more from your product, being enterprise-ready means your product can handle larger data sets, increased user numbers, and stricter security requirements without major overhauls. This scalability is essential for AI companies where data demands can grow exponentially.

Challenges in achieving enterprise readiness

Here are some of the most common obstacles AI companies face on the road to becoming enterprise-ready:

Initial setup challenges

Implementing enterprise features like SSO, SCIM, and audit logs can be technically challenging. For SSO, navigating different Identity Providers (IdPs) like Okta, Azure AD, and Google requires managing varying protocols such as SAML and OIDC.

For SCIM, you must deal with varying schema formats and attribute mappings between directory services. Developers must ensure that user data is synchronized accurately and in real-time.

Other enterprise-grade features, such as audit logs and role-based access control (RBAC), add further complexity. Setting up secure audit logs and configuring granular roles across large organizations require careful planning, configuration, and continuous monitoring.

It’s time-consuming

Companies face stiff competition in AI, so teams of highly skilled engineers in great demand should focus on developing and refining the core product differentiation. A common pitfall organizations face when building enterprise features like SSO and SCIM user provisioning is underestimating the time and resources required to develop and maintain these services. 

‍Ongoing maintenance

Post-deployment, enterprise-ready solutions like SSO demand continuous monitoring and updating. This includes keeping up with IdPs' changing security standards and protocols, regularly applying security patches, and adjusting to API changes from IdP providers. The development team must also stay on top of emerging security vulnerabilities, requiring frequent security audits and practices updates.

‍Operational challenges

Enterprise readiness requires high service availability, especially for essential features like SSO. Any downtime can lock out users, disrupting access to your product. Additionally, as new enterprise clients onboard, each potentially requiring custom integration or specific IdP configurations, the support and engineering teams must engage in detailed, client-specific implementation processes. 

This adds to the support workload and requires high technical expertise to address each client’s unique requirements and potential integration issues.

Integration with existing systems

Moving upmarket introduces new requirements like roles, permissions, provisioning, and security that aren't easily addressed with a consumer-oriented product. To successfully navigate these challenges, companies must focus on building enterprise-grade features from the outset.

Adding features like SCIM or SSO later can lead to compatibility issues and increased costs, as significant rework is often required. Solutions like WorkOS, however, can simplify the process by handling much of the heavy lifting.

Ensuring company-wide adoption

Another big challenge is getting the whole company on board with enterprise-ready processes. It’s not enough for the tech team to be ready—you need everyone aligned, from customer success to marketing. Without company-wide buy-in, gaps, whether in how security protocols are followed or how enterprise features are presented to clients, start to form.

How to overcome enterprise readiness challenges with WorkOS

Becoming enterprise-ready is crucial, especially in competitive industries like AI. However, it often comes with challenges related to costs, complex integrations, and the technical overhead of developing enterprise features. WorkOS simplifies this process.

With WorkOS, you can bypass the complexity of developing SSO/SAML, SCIM, and audit logs from scratch. WorkOS delivers these tools ready to go, allowing you to focus on landing bigger deals and scaling up the upmarket without getting bogged down by development and maintenance.

• Get started fast: With SDKs in every popular language, easy-to-follow documentation, and Slack-based support, you can implement enterprise-grade features in minutes rather than weeks.
• Support every protocol: With OAuth 2.0 integrations to popular providers like Google and Microsoft, compatibility with every major IdP, and full support for custom SAML/OIDC connections, WorkOS can support any enterprise customer.
• Real-time provisioning: While webhooks are also supported, WorkOS’s Events API means every SCIM request is processed in order and in real-time. You’ll never miss a provisioning request again.
• Streamable and exportable audit logs: You can track critical events and stream logs directly to your customers' SIEM provider with customizable audit logs.
• Avoid the back-and-forth: WorkOS’s Admin Portal takes the pain out of onboarding your customers’ IT teams and configuring your app to work with their identity provider.
• Pricing that makes sense: Unlike competitors who price by monthly active users, WorkOS charges a flat rate for each company you onboard — whether they bring 10 or 10,000 users to your app.

Sign up for WorkOS today, and start selling to enterprise customers tomorrow.

‍