Workday 13 Update
Workday provided a preview of the latest product update, Workday 13 at the end of April. This appeared to be a major release of functionality across their entire ERP suite including Workday HCM, Workday Payroll, Workday Initiatives (Work Management), Workday Financial Management, Workday Spend Management as well as some new user experience capabilities.
This was the first update we have received in about two years so it was really impressive to see how much progress the company has made not only with their products but also with their overall business. Here are some key facts:
- 200 customers and more than 130 of them are live
- Flextronics have over 100,000 employees using their systems
- Over 1,000,0000 employees are using their various products across their customer base
- Targeting an IPO for the second half of 2012
- Releasing about 3 updates per year, compared to 1 every 18+ months for their ERP competitors
Workday HCM
As I mentioned, the last time I saw a Workday product demonstration, they didn’t very much in the way of talent management functionality but that has really changed. They now have compensation planning, performance management, succession planning and competency management. They have wrapped these capabilities in a robust in-line analytics and decision support framework. This framework includes pre-packaged reports and some really slick user interfaces for workforce management. This screen shot is of their 9-box interface for their succession planning product. What I thought was really cool is how they have integrated their position management and organization charting capabilities right into this 9-box interface for their Talent Matrix. These capabilities look very competitive to most of the other leading SaaS TMS players in the market.
For capabilities that they don’t currently have in the their talent management products like recruitment they will continue to partner with leading specialists like StepStone (now Lumesse) who acquired MrTed and Taleo.
For learning management they have built an intelligent interface into Plateau (recently acquired by SuccessFactors).
When they demonstrated the Workday 13 product, the one thing that popped out at me was the user experience and how engaging it was. The user interface appeared to quite flexible, allowing the user to drill down, or across to access important information, as well as the use of compelling charts, graphs and dashboards. I thought it was interesting to see how an object oriented architecture can really impact the overall usability of your SaaS products.
Workday Payroll
For an ERP system it is very useful to provide a payroll solution to tie into. Workday’s product has been built from the ground up to be a SaaS-based payroll solution. Workday Payroll was launched in 2009 and supports US based payroll requirements. The news for Workday Payroll is a new partnership with OneSource VHR for payroll co-sourcing services such as payroll settlement, tax and garnishment administration. These are common requirements for organizations with very large workforces.
Workday 13 still offers integrations into third-party payroll providers and payroll aggregators such as Patersons and ADP.
Workday Mobility
Seems like every HR software company is now offering a mobile application for users. The news in this area was the announcement of limited availability of Workday for the iPad. Again, one of Workday’s strengths is user interface design and this product is no exception. The product is not intended for heavy transactional use but more for the executive or manager that wants to easily browse through talent profiles, monitor their Chatter-like personal Workday Workfeed or gain insight into their workforce by running a report or analytics. The general availability for Workday for iPad is planned for Workday 14.
Overall, I thought that the Workday 13 release contained some useful improvements and the product is really impressive. Given their 3 times a year release cycle, they will continue to innovate at a brisk pace which will be difficult for the traditional ERP competitors to keep up with. Also, their laser focus on usability will also become a huge differentiator when looking at incumbent solutions, as long as Workday can deliver the necessary functionality and security that enterprises are going to continue to demand.
