Workday, Inc.

Workday, Inc.
Public
Traded as NYSE: WDAY
Industry Software
Founded March 2005
Founders Dave Duffield and Aneel Bhusri
Headquarters Pleasanton, California, United States
Number of locations
 20+
Area served
 Global
Key people
 Dave Duffield, Co-founder, Co-CEO and Chief Customer Advocate
Aneel Bhusri, Co-founder and Co-CEO
Products Human capital management, payroll, and financial management
Services Online software
Revenue Increase US$ 468.9 million (2014)[1]
Number of employees
 3,700[2]
Website www.workday.com

Workday, Inc. is an on‑demand (cloud-based) financial management and human capital management software vendor. It was founded by David Duffield, the founder and former CEO of the ERP giant PeopleSoft, and former PeopleSoft chief strategist Aneel Bhusri following Oracle's hostile takeover of PeopleSoft in 2005. It targets the customers of rivals Oracle or SAP. In October 2012, it launched a successful initial public offering that valued the company at $9.5 billion.[3]

Early history

Workday was founded in March 2005 and launched in November 2006.[4] Initially, it was funded by Duffield and venture capital firm Greylock Partners. In December 2008, Workday moved its headquarters from Walnut Creek to Pleasanton, where PeopleSoft, founder Duffield's prior company, was located. Workday sells software and services using the SaaS model.[5][6]

On February 6, 2008, Workday announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to purchase SaaS Benefits.[7] In May 2008, Workday signed a large contract with Flextronics to provide human capital management software services.[8] Other large, multinational companies that have publicly disclosed contracts or deployments of Workday include Aviva,[9] Chiquita Brands,[10] CAE Inc., Fairchild Semiconductor,[11] Rentokil Initial,[12] Thomson Reuters,[13] and Time Warner.[14]

On April 29, 2009, Workday announced that it secured $75 million in Series E funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Existing investors Greylock Partners and Workday CEO and co‑founder Dave Duffield also participated in the round.[15] On October 24, 2011, Workday announced $85 million in new funding, bringing total capital raised to $250 million. Investors in the latest round included T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Janus, and Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment entity of Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos.[16]

The current CEO and Chairman of Workday is Aneel Bhusri. Mr Bhusri is a partner with Greylock Partners and has handled senior leadership positions earlier in PeopleSoft.

Initial public offering

As of spring 2012, Workday had 310 customers, ranging from mid-sized businesses to Fortune 500 companies.[17] In October 2012, Workday launched its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange with ticker symbol WDAY. Its shares were priced at $28 and ended trading Friday, October 12, at $48.69, "propelled the start-up to a market capitalization 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's $16 billion IPO in May 2012. Its shares surged 74% in their IPO, underscoring investor interest in cloud computing.[3]

Business model

Workday makes money by offering subscriptions to services rather than selling software. Expenses are booked up front when it signs on a new customer but the associated revenue is recognized over the life of multiyear agreements. Workday does "not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future". Its revenue more than doubled to $119.5 million in the six-month period that ended July 31, 2012, while recording a net loss of $46.9 million.[3]

Corporate governance

Duffield holds voting rights to Workday shares that were worth $3.4 billion and Bhusri held 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 much more unlikely.[3]

Product

Workday has released 23 updates to its product line as of January 2015. It releases a major update every 6 months.

Acquisitions

In February 2008 Workday announced the acquisition of Cape Clear Software, an Enterprise Services Bus (ESB) provider. Workday had already integrated Cape Clear's bus in 2006 into its HR and financial applications, for providing report services via Excel.

In February 2014 Workday announced the acquisition of Identified, a private company which was focused on using Big Data techniques to help recruiters find candidates. Identified was purchased for $15 million (funded with cash).

Investments

In 2013, Workday participated in round D funding of its Big Data Analytics Platform,[18] Datameer.[19][20]

In 2014, Workday also participated in Anaplan's $100M funding.[21]

References

  1. ↑ "Cloud-Computing Firm Workday's IPO Soars". Forbes.com. 26 February 2014.
  2. ↑ "Workday's CEO Discusses Q4 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript". Seekingalpha.com. 26 February 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Clark, Don (12 October 2012). "Cloud-Computing Firm Workday's IPO Soars". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  4. ↑ "Businessweek - Business News, Stock market & Financial Advice". Businessweek.com. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  5. ↑ Bing, Jeb (5 December 2008). "Duffield Is Back:PeopleSoft Founder Moves New Company to Pleasanton". Pleasanton Weekly. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  6. ↑ Temple, James (4 December 2008). "Workday Inc. Is Moving to Pleasanton". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  7. ↑ "Another ERP vendor buys into middleware ZDNet February 6, 2008". ZDNet. 6 February 2008. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  8. ↑ "Workday Lands Software Industry's Biggest SaaS Deal". InformationWeek. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ "Workday Lands Software Industry's Biggest SaaS Deal". InformationWeek. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  11. ↑ "Case Study: How Fairchild Semiconductor leverages the Workday Integration Cloud". ZDNet. 2 May 2011. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  12. ↑ "HR Magazine - Rentokil Initial implements cloud technology to manage data of 66,000 staff worldwide". Hrmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  13. ↑ "Workday launches Workday 14, wins Thomson Reuters deal". ZDNet. 15 August 2011. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  14. ↑ "Time Warner Deploys Workday HR and Payroll Solution". Financial.tmcnet.com. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  15. ↑ Barret, Victoria (30 April 2009). "Duffield Scores Biggest Round". Forbes. Archived from the original on 31 July 2012.
  16. ↑ Hesseldahl, Arik (24 October 2011). "Exclusive: Aneel Bhusri’s Workday Raises $85 Million at a Whopping $2 Billion Valuation". All Things D. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  17. ↑ "Workday Rising: Becoming Part of a Unique Customer Ecosystem". Blogs.workday.com. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  18. ↑ "Workday Unveils Big Data Analytics For HR and Finance". Workday.com. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  19. ↑ "Datameer Secures $19 Million to Meet Global Demand for Self-Service Big Data Analytics for Hadoop". Techcrunch.com. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  20. ↑ "Datameer Raises $19M As Market For Hadoop And Big Data Analytics Hits An Inflection Point". Datameer.com. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
  21. ↑ "Anaplan Raises $100 Million For Planning Software". Forbes.com. Retrieved 4 November 2014.

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