I attended a conference on October 28-30^th, organised by the Workday company, called Workday Rising (that was two weeks ago, so they have no doubt risen some more by now). I was interested in looking at the product and the company to answer some questions and concerns I had, such as:

1. Can they establish trust in the On-Demand marketplace?
2. What is their marketing strategy in this highly competitive industry and is it sustainable?
3. Are they serious about going global?

Firstly, the On-Demand software marketplace is a new paradigm to many organisations and there needs to be a new level of trust with HR software suppliers: Not only do you need to trust the supplier to provide quality software applications but you need to trust them with your data.

In that respect Workday has no problem. The company is built around the personal credibility of Dave Duffield, the founder of PeopleSoft. Not only is Dave a marvellous human being, an honest family man, but a good bloke as well. But it is not a business that revolves around one man: From a succession viewpoint, he is supported by his son Mike who has inherited his father’s charismatic nature and business values when it comes to treating customers as important friends.

In order to understand the culture of a business it is important to see how they work. I had the opportunity to visit the Workday office at Walnut Creek, a short trip from the centre of San Francisco. The work environment is something that impresses you: The developers go about their business with not only a professional approach, but with a feeling of excitement at what they are doing and achieving. The other impressive feature is the admiration and dedication they have for Dave Duffield: They idolise him and he really has an inspired team.

Secondly, the marketing strategy: Workday pays a great deal of attention to their customers and really celebrate their success. But you cannot help noticing the amount of money it must be costing to maintain this marketing approach. The On-demand market will be savage. Some vendors will be giving away software free and the profit margins will be small. There needs to be a lean and competitive approach that focuses on volume of customers, rather than the acquisition of high profile organisations and great reference sites. They need to be innovative and apply the same initiative to their marketing strategy that they have applied to their technology. I am sure they understand that, but I don’t want to spoil the party in the meantime. That conference was great and there will be another one next year that promises to be even better. So I hope Dave doesn’t put away his wallet in the meantime.

Finally, are they serious about going global? I believe they are: They have a network of partners that are capable of helping the Workday company go global and a strategy to expand the reach of their product to Europe, South America and the Asia pacific region. It appears to only be a matter of time.