Workday, Inc., is an American on‑demand (
cloud
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...
-based)
financial management,
human capital management
Human resource management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the effective and efficient management of people in a company or organization such that they help their business gain a competitive advantage. It is designed to maximize em ...
, and
student information system
A student information system (SIS), student management system, school administration software or student administration system is a management information system for education sector establishments used to manage student data. It supports communic ...
software vendor. Workday was founded by
David Duffield
David Arthur Duffield (born 21 September 1940) is an American billionaire businessman in the software industry. He is the co-founder and former chairman of PeopleSoft, and co-founder and CEO emeritus of Workday, Inc., two publicly traded enterp ...
, founder and former CEO of
ERP company
PeopleSoft
PeopleSoft, Inc. was a company that provided human resource management systems (HRMS), financial management solutions (FMS), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise performance management (EPM) softw ...
, along with former PeopleSoft chief strategist
Aneel Bhusri, following
Oracle
An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination.
Descript ...
's acquisition of PeopleSoft in 2005.
In October 2012, Workday launched a successful
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...
that valued the company at $9.5 billion.
Competitors of Workday include
SAP Successfactors,
Dayforce
Dayforce, Inc., formerly Ceridian, is a provider of human resources software and services with employees across its global footprint in the United States, Canada, Europe, Middle East, Latinamerica, Africa (EMEA), and the Asia Pacific Japan (AP ...
,
UKG, and
Oracle
An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination.
Descript ...
.
In 2020, ''
Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fate
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (19 ...
'' magazine ranked Workday Inc. at number five on their Fortune List of the Top 100 Companies to Work For in 2020 based on an employee satisfaction survey.
History
2005–2015
Workday was founded in March 2005 and launched in November 2006. Initially, it was funded by
David Duffield
David Arthur Duffield (born 21 September 1940) is an American billionaire businessman in the software industry. He is the co-founder and former chairman of PeopleSoft, and co-founder and CEO emeritus of Workday, Inc., two publicly traded enterp ...
and the venture capital firm
Greylock Partners
Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965, with committed capital of over $3.5 billion under management. The firm focuses on early-stage companies in consumer and enterprise software.
History
Greylock wa ...
. In December 2008, Workday moved its headquarters from
Walnut Creek, California
Walnut Creek is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, about east of the city of Oakland, California, Oakland. Walnut Creek has a total population of 70,127 per t ...
, to
Pleasanton, California
Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the Amador Valley, it is an upscale suburb in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 79,871 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 cens ...
, where PeopleSoft founder Duffield's prior company was located.
On February 6, 2008, Workday announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to purchase
Cape Clear Software. In May 2008, Workday signed a large contract with
Flextronics to provide human capital management software services. Companies that have publicly disclosed contracts or deployments of Workday include
Aviva
Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 19 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Aviva is the largest general ...
,
Chiquita Brands, and other firms.
On April 29, 2009, Workday announced that it had secured $75 million in funding led by
New Enterprise Associates
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With over $25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of t ...
. Existing investors Greylock Partners and Workday CEO and co‑founder Dave Duffield also participated in the round.
On October 24, 2011, Workday announced $85 million in new funding, bringing the total capital raised to $250 million. Investors in the latest round included
T. Rowe Price,
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in 42 countries and more than 80,000 employees, the firm's clients in ...
Investment Management,
Janus
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus ( ; ) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces. The month of January is named for Janus (''Ianu ...
, and
Bezos Expeditions.
As of spring 2012, Workday had 310 customers, ranging from mid-sized businesses to
''Fortune'' 500 companies.
In October 2012, Workday launched its
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...
(IPO) on the
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...
with
ticker symbol
A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded Share (finance), shares of a particular stock or Security (finance), security on a particular stock exchange. Ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols ...
WDAY. Its shares were priced at $28 and ended trading Friday, October 12, at $48.69, which "propelled the start-up to a
market capitalization
Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders.
Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by ...
of nearly $9.5 billion including
unexercised stock
options." It sold 22.75 million
Class A shares, raising $637 million. The IPO raised more cash than any launch in the U.S. technology sector since
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
's $16 billion IPO in May 2012. Its shares surged 74% in their IPO, underscoring investor interest in
cloud computing
Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...
.
2015–present
In 2016, Workday launched a cloud-based
student information system
A student information system (SIS), student management system, school administration software or student administration system is a management information system for education sector establishments used to manage student data. It supports communic ...
to augment its portfolio of financial management and human capital management products. In 2018, Workday acquired Filip Doušek's company Stories.bi.
The CEO of Workday was
Aneel Bhusri, who is a partner with
Greylock Partners
Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965, with committed capital of over $3.5 billion under management. The firm focuses on early-stage companies in consumer and enterprise software.
History
Greylock wa ...
and handled senior leadership positions earlier in his career at PeopleSoft. In 2020, Chano Fernandez was promoted to co-CEO along with Bhusri. Dave Duffield served as the chairman of the board until his resignation in April 2022, after which Aneel Bhusri took over as the chairman.
In November 2021, Workday announced its acquisition of VNDLY, a startup that helps companies manage external workforce personnel, for $510 million.
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...
's Carl Eschenbach replaced Fernandez as co-CEO in December 2022. The company also announced that Eschenbach would become its sole CEO after March 2024, when Bhusri will move to the role of executive chair. Eschenbach is now the company's sole CEO.
It was announced in February 2025 that Workday would cut 8.5% of its workforce in favor of investing in
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
to counter a "softer
macroeconomic
Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes regional, national, and global economies. Macroeconomists study topics such as output/ GDP ...
environment".
Adaptive Insights
Adaptive Insights was a
software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...
company founded in 2003 and headquartered in
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
Th ...
. The company was acquired by Workday in a $1.55 billion deal completed in August 2018,
renaming the company and its core product to Workday Adaptive Planning.
In 2003, Robert S. Hull and Richard L. Dellinger co-founded Adaptive Planning to market enterprise budgeting, forecasting, and reporting software as an alternative to
spreadsheet
A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...
-based planning or larger
on-premises software
On-premises software (abbreviated to on-prem, and often written as "on-premise") is installed and runs on computers on the premises of the person or organization using the software, rather than at a remote facility such as a server farm or clo ...
. Adaptive Planning was an early user of the
software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...
(SaaS) model for
business intelligence
Business intelligence (BI) consists of strategies, methodologies, and technologies used by enterprises for data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of BI technologies include Financial reporting, reporting, online an ...
and corporate performance management. In 2003, it was incorporated in
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...
as Visus Technology, renamed as Adaptive Planning. It was incubated at Onset Ventures in
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park ( ) is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, California, Eas ...
.
In 2009, Adaptive Insights partnered with
NetSuite, Inc. and is currently a member of the SuiteCloud Developer Network. The company also integrates with other cloud ERP solutions from
Sage Intacct,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
, and others.
Adaptive Insights partners with associates in
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
,
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
, the UK and the United States.
In September 2012, the company acquired the
Louisville, Colorado
The City of Louisville () is a home rule municipality located in southeastern Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 21,226 at the 2020 United States census. Louisville began as a mining community in 1877, experienc ...
based company ' for an undisclosed amount. By October 2013, Adaptive Planning held a fourth round of
fundraising
Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...
, totaling $45 million. The company also added
salesforce.com as a backer.
In February 2014, Adaptive Planning was renamed Adaptive Insights and released a new version of the software with an updated user interface.
In January 2015, the company appointed Citrix Chairman Tom Bogan as CEO. In June, the company reported another investment round of $75 million with several investors, including
Norwest Venture Partners
Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, ...
, ONSET Ventures,
Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) is an American venture capital and private equity firm headquartered in San Francisco. Outside the United States, it has offices in India, Israel, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom. In 2024, Venture Capital Journa ...
, Cardinal Venture Capital, Information Venture Partners, and others.
In April 2018, the company announced it added 500 net new customers in 2018, bringing Adaptive Insights' total
customer base
The customer base is a group of customers who repeatedly purchase the goods or services of a business. These customers are a main source of revenue for a company. The customer base may be considered a business's target market, where customer behav ...
to more than 3,700 customers worldwide in FY2018. In August, Workday completed the acquisition of Adaptive Insights, announcing that the company would operate as Adaptive Insights, a Workday company.
In May 2020, Adaptive Insights rebranded once again and was renamed Workday Adaptive Planning.
Business model
Workday sells
subscription
The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century. It ...
s to its services.
Expense
An expense is an item requiring an outflow of money, or any form of fortune in general, to another person or group as payment for an item, service, or other category of costs. For a tenant, rent is an expense. For students or parents, tuition i ...
s are
booked up front when it signs on a new customer, but the associated
revenue
In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of product (business), goods and services related to the primary operations of a business.
Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some compan ...
is
recognized over the life of multiyear agreements. In the first quarter 2016, Workday announced annual revenue in excess of $1 billion for the first time ever in fiscal year 2016.
Corporate governance
Duffield holds voting rights to Workday shares that are worth $3.4 billion and Bhusri holds voting rights to shares valued at $1.3 billion. Collectively, they hold 67% of the company's voting shares. This voting structure makes the event of a
hostile takeover
In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (law), company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are publicly listed, in contrast t ...
much less likely.
Product
Workday provides a software to help businesses manage finances and
human resources
Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ' ...
.
Key features include:
* Global workforce and recruitment management with real-time reporting and analytics.
* Financial management capabilities, including accounting tools, expense tracking, and financial planning insights.
* Employee self-service, such as with onboarding and time-tracking tasks.
In February 2014, Workday acquired the startup Identified and its artificial intelligence
Syman to create its Insight Apps line of products. The first products running SYMAN were announced at Workday Rising 2014.
In July 2017, Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri announced that the company had decided to open up its platform to developers, partners and third-party software. As a result, Workday will enter the
Platform as a Service
Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a cloud computing service model where users provision, instantiate, run and manage a modular bundle of a computing platform and applications, w ...
(PaaS) market. Bhusri said the move will allow customers to build custom extensions and applications to work with Workday.
In January 2018, Workday announced that it acquired SkipFlag, makers of an AI knowledge base that builds itself from a company's internal communications.
Workday has released 39 updates to its product line as of September 2022, the most recent being "2022 R2". It releases a major update every 6 months, in September and March.
Workday operates data centers located in
Ashburn, Virginia
Ashburn is a unincorporated settlement and census-designated place (CDP) in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. At the 2020 United States census, its population was 46,349, up from 3,393 in 1990. It is northwest of Washington, D.C., and par ...
;
Lithia Springs, Georgia
Lithia Springs () is an unincorporated community and census-designated place, formerly incorporated as a city, located in northeastern Douglas County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 census, the community had a population of 16,644. The ...
;
Portland, Oregon
Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...
;
Dublin, Ireland
Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
;
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area. Located in the D ...
; and also uses
Amazon Web Services for its primary computing infrastructure platforms in order to accelerate its worldwide expansion.
Workday Adaptive Planning
The Workday Adaptive Planning application is a cloud-based software app designed to help organizations with financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting. It is a part of the broader Workday suite of enterprise applications, which includes solutions for human resources, finance, sales, operations, and HR in their planning processes. The app covers the planning, consolidation, analytics, and reporting functions with its Business Planning Cloud. It automates consolidations and integration of data from other systems and enables collaboration and real-time updates via its on-demand SaaS-based model.
Acquisitions
Sponsorship
In May 2021, Workday signed a sponsorship deal with
Formula One
Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...
as the regional finance & human resource enterprise partner across the UK and Germany. The deal was renewed and expanded in 2022, where Workday will be a regional partner of Formula One in a multiyear deal.
In March 2023, Workday signed a multiyear sponsorship deal with
McLaren
McLaren Racing Limited ( ) is a British auto racing, motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. The team is a subsidiary of the McLaren Group, which owns a majority of the team. McLaren is best known a ...
as an official partner.
See also
*
Cloud computing
Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...
*
Corporate performance management
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Software companies established in 2005
American companies established in 2005
2012 initial public offerings
Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Companies based in Pleasanton, California
Cloud computing providers
Companies listed on the Nasdaq
Human resource management software
ERP software companies
2005 establishments in California
Software companies of the United States