Key outcomes:
Since optimizing its cloud infrastructure, WorkflowMAX has achieved:
23% reduction in cross-region user journey time.
28% lower cloud costs. Reinvested into further product development and infrastructure optimization.
Improved security and performance with a 90x increase in blocked unauthorized requests.
A fast-growing business that helps other businesses grow
With over 100,000 users worldwide—and counting—WorkflowMAX is a rapidly growing project management platform, purpose-built for professional services – from architects and engineers to accountants and consultants. Used by businesses across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, the platform manages the full job lifecycle from lead to invoice.
Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, the company has ambitious plans for growth, including a recent expansion into the USA, which has a large and well-established service-based economy.
However, the Northern Hemisphere expansion was proving more complex than expected, with infrastructure challenges preventing WorkflowMAX from realizing its full potential in the market.
Challenge: Optimizing a global platform for multi-region performance
WorkflowMAX's platform is hosted in Australia. As the company expanded into the UK and planned entry into the US market, cross-region latency became a performance constraint – particularly for response times on data-intensive operations. The platform was functional, but not yet optimised for a geographically distributed user base.
To support sustained international growth, WorkflowMAX needed to reduce latency, optimize cloud spend, and add additional security layers – without disrupting service for existing customers.
To address these challenges, WorkflowMAX partnered with Thoughtworks, leveraging its Managed Services to stabilize the platform and improve performance while reducing costs and enhancing security.
Solution: An optimized infrastructure for global expansion
The Thoughtworks team began by conducting targeted monitoring to diagnose performance bottlenecks, and a deep discovery process to identify cost-saving opportunities that wouldn’t compromise performance or security.
To ensure consistent performance, Thoughtworks utilized the AWS Backbone, the private global network connecting AWS data centers. This infrastructure was the primary contributor to stability, eliminating latency spikes during cross-region data transfers. Supported by AWS CloudFront for faster content delivery and AWS Graviton for efficient processing, the architecture delivered a robust and reliable user experience.
To further strengthen the platform's security posture, Thoughtworks fine-tuned and bolstered existing protections. The team refined AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules for more precise traffic filtering, tightened rate-limiting thresholds, and enhanced CAPTCHA configurations to better mitigate automated threats.
Outcomes: A faster, leaner, more secure platform
Since partnering with Thoughtworks to implement these improvements, WorkflowMAX has already created significant business value with its optimized cloud infrastructure.
- With Thoughtworks' Managed services, cross-region user journey time has been reduced by 23%. Faster application performance has improved user satisfaction among the UK customer base.
- Additionally, WorkflowMAX's monthly cloud spend has decreased by 28%, with savings reinvested into product development and further platform enhancements.
- The security improvements have also delivered impressive results, including a 90-fold increase in blocked requests due to enhanced WAF rules.
WorkflowMAX is reinvesting these cost savings into further software enhancements, focusing on improving search functionality with Amazon OpenSearch, optimizing CI/CD build times, and investing in chaos engineering and resilience testing.
Working with Thoughtworks has strengthened our platform foundation, allowing us to focus on what matters most – improving the experience for our customers across the world, and scaling into new markets with confidence, while maintaining robust security.
WorkflowMAX today: A platform built to scale
The infrastructure improvements delivered through the Thoughtworks partnership have become the foundation for WorkflowMAX's continued platform investment. Since then, the company has significantly enhanced its security posture by preparing for ISO 27001 certification, strengthening compliance monitoring, and tightening infrastructure governance across its AWS environment.
The platform now serves customers across more than 150 countries – with the architecture and operational rigor to support continued international growth.
