As part of his grand plan to make Workday one of the world’s largest and most profitable enterprise software companies, co-CEO Carl Eschenbach is eager to push ecosystem partners to greater and greater opportunities while: We expect them to offer more in return.
In a recent interview for this Partners Ecosystem Innovation series, Eschenbach said: Will it help me find new customers?” “
This candid sense of “reciprocity,” as Eschenbach put it, underscores the great ambitions he has for Workday. At Workday, co-founder and co-CEO Aneel Bhusri will move on after about 10 months, making him sole CEO. He is promoted to chairman and devotes all of his considerable energies to his first love: product and strategy.
It’s clear that Eschenbach won’t wait until February 2024 to start pushing Workday to meet a tougher set of expectations, and that ambition certainly extends to the Workday ecosystem. This article offers a unique insight into Eschenbach’s thinking. Check out the full video interview with Eschenbach here.
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Company Profile: Workday reported $1.5 billion in subscription revenue for the fourth quarter ended January 31 and is committed to reaching $10 billion in annual revenue over the next few years. With more than 50% of Fortune 500 companies using his HCM products and a rapidly growing suite of financial applications, Workday says it offers recession-proof “mission-critical” applications. said co-founder and co-CEO Aneel Bhusri. Workday also constantly deploys advanced technology to differentiate itself from its larger competitors and deliver new levels of innovation to its customers. We’re starting to focus on infusing AI and ML capabilities throughout.
Ecosystem Leader: Co-CEO Karl Eschenbach oversees global sales and go-to-market operations, including ecosystem
Ecosystem location: “We are committed to providing our clients with the true concept of digital transformation and helping them build this intelligent digital backbone to support their two most important and important assets: their employees and their finances. You can,” said Eschenbach. “Today, our ecosystem is so strong that we are helping people experience true digital transformation and build the infrastructure that will enable them to move from a more agile work-based world to a skills-based world. That is what is happening and thanks to the ecosystem and our platform working together to help our customers through this journey.”
Ecosystem priorities: Eschenbach said his advocacy for a strong and fully engaged ecosystem was shaped by his years of experience driving VMware’s rapid growth and the last seven years of leading young companies as a venture capitalist. increase. And he’s looking for something big, very big, from his Workday ecosystem. “Over the years, Workday has built a strong practice with global system integrators such as Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, and regional SIs,” he said. “And most of the partnerships today are doing one of three things. Frankly, they’re doing a great job.Some of these partners have built practices that are worth over billions of dollars over the years, and we They’ve done a great job of getting the product deep into the market, implementing it and helping us get customer value… But they’re not just that, they’re actually leveraging our platform and the Extend architecture to is building its own solutions and innovations on top of Workday’s customers.That said, more than ever, we’re leaning toward our partners.With our latest earnings call providing guidance to the market, , said one of the things he specifically talked about was service revenue, which could actually be flat or down slightly. deceleration business, you Growing work. ‘We’re doing this because we increasingly want to outsource these implementation and innovation services to our partners to further penetrate Workday into our customer base and net new customers. ”
Innovation Agenda: “Our system integrators can win HCM and Financials. More importantly, what’s starting to happen. With our ecosystem partners,” said Eschenbach. “Georgia has done exactly this. Workday does not have the skill set to implement a full platform across Georgia. We are the cloud leader in HCM and have emerged as the leader in finance, but when you combine the two, no other company has two systems of record like we do. We believe that if we can build our services around that, not only will Workday continue to grow about 20%, but our partners will be able to grow their services around us even faster. allow them to innovate on top of us and build their own IP, like Accenture did with their Skills Cloud service, building with customers and reselling them to market. We are very strong, and we are entering the market both horizontally and vertically to ensure alignment with our partners.”
Unique approach: “At the sales kick-off conference, we had 4,000 people in Las Vegas and a set of ecosystem partners who were there for a general session with us. We don’t break them down because we really consider them part of the force. I would like to ask for a little bit of reciprocity in building these big businesses, working days. Can you help us promote new services and find new customers?” “At the sales kick-off conference, we had 4,000 people in Las Vegas and a set of ecosystem partners who were there for a general session with us. We don’t break them down because we really consider them part of the force. I would like to ask for a little bit of reciprocity in building these big businesses, working days. Can you help us promote new services and find new customers?” “
big quote: People across the Workday organization say that the arrival of Eschenbach about four months ago has markedly spiked the energy and ambition of the sales organization. Here’s how Eschenbach described the prospect in an interview:this is growth It’s a company, a company that is constantly growing,” said Eschenbach. “We’re on track to reach $10 billion in size over the next few years, and we have a good operating margin. And there’s no reason we can’t do that. Looking at the market opportunity that we have, I’m all in and I know my team is all in. [co-founder and co-CEO Aneel Bhusri] Aneel is working hard. This is an exciting journey. And I will continue to work hard every day so that I can improve even a little. If we can do that, the future will be as bright as we want to create it. ”
Get the full story: Read the full video interview with Workday Co-CEO Carl Eschenbach here.
