Workday Named Top-Tier Software Vendor by APPS RUN THE WORLD in the APPS and CLOUD TOP 500 Market Report

Workday Strengths, Domain Expertise, and Key Differentiators

Workday is aiming to become the system of record for a large swath of users among its target customers and verticals. The vendor has been able to grow organically, while shoring up its presence in markets such as AI, Blockchain, Enterprise Performance Management and procurement. That results in a big wallet share among its key customers. Our Buyer Insights Master Database shows that not only Workday has been able to show a growing penetration of its Core HR and Financial Management among its customers, it has also experienced a steady increase in such important point solutions like talent acquisition.

Among the 1,000 largest companies in the United States, nearly a quarter of them are now running Workday Recruiting for talent acquisition, according to its regular survey of these enterprise companies. With 2018 purchase of Adaptive Insights, a provider of cloud-based business planning and financial modeling tools, now under the Workday umbrella, there are an additional 5,500 organizations worldwide utilizing Workday for planning and plenty of other options to standardize on the Workday platform.

Workday Recent Developments

Workday's AI capabilities are recognized for their platform strategy, extensive dataset, and commitment to delivering responsible solutions. AI is seamlessly integrated into the core of the Workday platform, allowing for the rapid deployment of cutting-edge solutions across all applications. Workday's AI models draw from a substantial dataset generated by processing over 625 billion transactions annually, resulting in one of the largest and cleanest collections of financial and HR data globally.

This rich dataset, combined with Workday's responsible AI practices, ensures consistent accuracy and trustworthiness in its results. Leveraging its platform approach, the company has introduced several new AI solutions, including: Generative AI capabilities addressing common business challenges, such as creating job descriptions, knowledge base articles, employee growth plans, and statements of work, as well as contract analysis and corrections. The Workday AI Marketplace, designed to facilitate the discovery and deployment of proven, trustworthy, and responsible AI and ML apps within the Workday ecosystem. Workday AI Gateway within Workday Extend, enabling developers to create intelligent and responsible apps using Workday AI. Workday incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) seamlessly into its platform, allowing its applications to effectively utilize AI and ML within their workflows.

This technology contributes to improving employee experiences, streamlining operational efficiencies, and providing data-driven insights for faster decision-making. Workday maintains its software by providing weekly product updates and major feature releases twice a year, enabling its customers to stay current and benefit from a unified data and security model and a rich user experience. Workday primarily sells its solutions through direct sales on a global scale and offers professional services to assist customers in implementing their solutions and embracing new features.

In the third quarter of fiscal year 2022, Workday expanded its workforce management offerings by introducing Workday Scheduling and Labor Optimization. This solution prioritizes worker preferences and aligns them with labor demands, empowering organizations to optimize shift schedules and provide frontline workers with more flexibility and control over their work arrangements. In the field of Learning and Development, nearly 1,000 organizations are leveraging Workday Skills Cloud to effectively recruit, engage, and retain their workforce. Workday also introduced a new packaged solution called "skills foundation" to help customers expedite the development of skills-based people strategies.

Workday Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Activities

In 2021, Workday made significant acquisitions to expand its portfolio and enhance its offerings. In November 2021, they acquired VNDLY, a company specializing in external workforce management and vendor management solutions, for $510 million. Earlier in the same year, in January 2021, Workday acquired Peakon ApS, an employee success platform that transforms feedback into actionable insights, for $700 million.

Furthermore, in September 2021, Workday acquired Zimit, strengthening its financial applications. This acquisition allowed Workday to offer a comprehensive quote-to-cash process automation solution for service industries, enabling increased visibility across the entire revenue cycle. The addition of Zimit to its product portfolio facilitated the digital transformation of the office of the CFO.

In the field of data-driven human resources (HR), Workday acquired Peakon, a SaaS platform, in January 2021. This all-cash deal, also valued at $700 million, provided businesses with tools to engage with employees and gather real-time insights through ongoing surveys, ultimately aiding in reducing employee churn and retaining top talent. These strategic acquisitions reflect Workday's commitment to expanding its capabilities and providing valuable solutions to its customers.

Workday Customers in ARTW Customer Database

Leveraging a rigorous data-centric research methodology, APPS RUN THE WORLD asks the simple question: Who’s buying Workday applications and why? And we provide the answers – supported by decades of research – to our clients around the world. Our Customer database has over 100 data fields that detail company usage of Workday and other enterprise apps by function, customer size, industry, location, implementation status, partner involvement, Line of Business Key Stakeholders and IT decision makers contact details. List of Verified Workday Financial Management, Workday Human Capital Management, Workday Prism Analytics, Workday Professional Services Automation, Workday Student, customers.

Workday Key Enterprise and Cloud Applications

Workday Financial Management, Workday Human Capital Management, Workday Prism Analytics, Workday Professional Services Automation, Workday Student,

Workday Revenues, $M:

Workday Revenue Breakdown By Type, $M:

Workday Enterprise Applications Revenues By Functional Markets, $M:

Workday Enterprise Applications Revenues By Verticals, $M:

Workday Revenues By Region, $M

Workday Direct vs Indirect sales

Workday Customers - Breakdown by Geo, Size, Vertical and Product

List of Verified Workday Customers

No. of Workday Customers: 10000

No. of Workday Enterprise Applications Customers: 10000

No. of Workday Cloud Customers: 10000

No. of Workday Cloud Subscribers: 60 million

Workday serves a vast customer base of over 10,000 organizations with its software-as-a-service solutions, addressing complex business challenges. These solutions are designed to empower workforces, manage finances and expenditures in a dynamic environment, and prepare for unforeseen events. Workday primarily caters to medium-sized and large global enterprises spanning diverse industry sectors, including professional and business services, financial services, healthcare, education, government, technology, media, retail, and hospitality.

Workday's extensive customer portfolio encompasses a range of its specialized products. Their customer base spans mid-sized businesses to more than 50% of the Fortune 500 companies and over 70% of the Fortune 50.

Specifically, Workday Financial Management has been adopted by renowned organizations such as 21st Century Fox, Airbnb, Aon, Netflix, and many others, showcasing its relevance and adoption across various industries. Workday Human Capital Management is trusted by prominent companies like Amazon, Bank of America, IBM, and Unilever, among others, attesting to its widespread use among global enterprises. These endorsements underscore Workday's significance and its role in addressing critical business needs across different sectors.

Workday Market Opportunities, M&A and Geo Expansions

Workday has reached a significant milestone with over 2,000 customers in the EMEA region, including prominent European-headquartered companies like Asda, Basic Fit, franprix, Glovo, Mazars, and Telpark. The company has experienced substantial growth in countries such as France, Germany, and the UK, making its applications now utilized by more than 40 percent of the FTSE100 and DAX40, and over 30 percent of the CAC40.

Recent acquisitions, namely Vndly and Zimit, reflect Workday's strategic intent to expand into contingent labor management and salesforce-centric applications. This expansion suggests that the Workday suite is poised to cover a broad spectrum from back-office operations to customer-facing solutions.

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent surge in remote work arrangements presented new and rapidly growing opportunities for Workday. This alignment with remote work has proven to be fruitful, evident from a 20% year-over-year revenue growth reported in fall 2021. Workday's flagship Human Capital Management (HCM) and Financials software applications have gained traction as preferred choices among major corporations.

Furthermore, Workday has extended its reach into the midmarket segment, collaborating with deployment partners like Deloitte to provide fixed-fee and preconfigured packages for midmarket customers in the United States. This template-based approach is expected to drive further growth and potentially double or triple the customer count as Workday expands its midmarket presence globally.

Workday has strategically partnered with tech giants Microsoft and Salesforce, enabling integrated solutions to support businesses during the pandemic and beyond. Workday's collaboration with Salesforce has resulted in joint offerings that facilitate a safe return to work, leveraging real-time worker information and skills insights. In conjunction with Microsoft, Workday has prioritized enterprise planning in the cloud and provides customers the opportunity to run Workday Adaptive Planning on the Microsoft Azure cloud. The partnership also includes integrations with Microsoft Teams and Azure Active Directory, enhancing productivity, collaboration, and security for mutual customers.

Workday's continuous innovation in user interface and its commitment to ease of use further enhance its value proposition for a diverse customer base. This innovation caters to a broad range of employees and stakeholders across various devices and touchpoints, aiming to save time and resources for its customers. Workday's evolution into asset-intensive industries and the introduction of solutions like Workday Inventory and enhancements to Workday Procurement demonstrate the company's adaptability and customer-focused approach.

Workday Risks and Challenges

As Workday expands its footprint, the risk lies in which market segment it plans to build out and where to backfill. The acquisition of Scout RFP may well foreshadow Workday's attempts to leapfrog competitors like Coupa, GEP, and others in the procurement space. Workday's ability to wrest control of the back-end financial management and processes is strengthening with a growing installed base even though most customers still consider Workday a serious HR apps contender, not full-blown enterprise applications play. Its recent acquisitions of Vndly and Zimit will give Workday's additional prove points to change that perception.

The question is whether the expanded portfolio is changing the DNA of the company, which for the most part of its history relied heavily on a few moving parts to drive a common data model as well as unified user interface. Not resorting to rampant acquisitions was a given at Workday. It's fair to say that the mission of consuming Workday with its original packaging and flavor has given way to a decidedly ambitious agenda of catering to multiple consitituents with more apps.

Workday Ecosystem, Partners, Resellers and SI

In fiscal year 2023, Workday introduced its Industry Accelerator program, which brings together Workday's partners, solutions, and services to facilitate cloud transformation efforts, initially targeting industries such as banking, healthcare, insurance, and technology. This initiative is expected to bolster the Workday ecosystem, fostering innovation and delivering additional solutions to Workday customers.

Workday has actively invested in growing its partner network, certifying over 6,000 partner consultants to meet customer demands. Partners like NGAhr, now part of Alight, have filled gaps in the Workday portfolio, particularly in the realm of payroll support for countries not currently covered by Workday offerings. Workday will also inherit VNDLY's managed service provider (MSP) relationships.

The Workday ecosystem is further strengthened through investments from its venture capital arm. Companies like Beamery, a talent engagement platform, have received strategic investments from Workday Ventures and joined the Workday Software Partner Program. Additionally, Workday Talent Acquisition has selected Beamery products to enhance its efforts in identifying early-stage, passive candidates, complementing Workday Human Capital Management (HCM).

Workday Cloud Infrastructure Insights

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Research Methodology

Data used in research reports are derived from publicly available documents, continuous surveys of applications vendors, customers, resellers, Independent Software Vendors, systems integrators and other verifiable sources.

Vendor shares and market forecast results are based on a combination of existing databases as well as demand side and supply side research conducted throughout the year with validation from vendors, customers, channel partners and documentations such as earnings releases and 10Q and 10K filings, vertical industry studies, regional and country-level statistics from public and private institutions(i.e. colleges, universities, government agencies and trade associations).

For additional information on our methodologies, here's the link: