Workday Rising 2024: How Partners Can Drive Success in the Age of AI
Having returned and recovered from my second Workday Rising, I thought it would be a good idea to recap my experience and make note of some key takeaways. I once again attended as a vendor and partner, so all of my experiences are framed through that lens. Before we get any further, I want to say thanks to the Workday events team for putting together a great conference and continuing to show how much they value their employees (workmates), customers, and partners.
Below are my 4 key takeaways from Workday Rising 2024.
1. The best companies create the best events
This was my second year at Rising and I have to say, the team continues to show how it values its partners. Just by virtue of having padded carpet throughout the expo hall, Workday shows that it cares. The layout of the hall was airy and bright and the spacing between vendors was roomy, which made it feel welcoming and easy to engage with attendees visiting or walking by our booth.
Food was readily available and there were hot and cold options at every meal. I was a huge fan of the spicy tuna poke bowl, but accessible coffee is another must, and the Workday events team provided. Enough about logistics, though. Let's move into the more practical takeaways.
2. We are in the trough of disillusionment for AI
During his innovation keynote, Aneel Bhusri (Workday Co-founder & Executive Chair) talked about Workday's core values. When he got to the platform, he remarked that AI is the future for most industries but shared the Gartner technology hype cycle (see below), which compares a given technology's visibility over time.
Source: Gartner
Last year, we were riding the "peak of inflated expectations" wave, where AI was going to perform any and every mundane task and revolutionize work as we knew it. Bhusri commented that he believes we are headed to, if not already in, the "trough of disillusionment." There are many AI initiatives happening, but proving the value of those is difficult right now. He also remarked that he foresees this being a shorter hype cycle than cloud computing was and that by this time next year, we could be well on our way towards the "plateau of productivity," where AI is adding real business and quality of life value.
He closed this section out showcasing Workday's history with innovative technologies and laid the groundwork for Workday to be able to ride the AI wave to success for itself, its employees, and its partners and customers.
3. Workday is seeing 3x innovation when it comes to Workday functionality
After Bhusri shared some higher-level thoughts, Dave Summers (Workday Chief Product Officer) took the stage to share how Workday is seeing what he coined as “3x innovation on the Workday platform,” leveraging the collective strengths of the Workday ecosystem to become a force multiplier.
Built by Workday – the Workday product team is able to build key applications and features that work seamlessly together and address a broad set of customer requirements. As an example, Summers referenced the grants management capabilities, which works across HR, finance, payroll, and planning and serves key industries like the public sector, higher education, health care, and non-profits that rely on grants for funding.
Built by Customers – Workday extend lets customers build apps that serve their organizations and industries. For example, Target built their employee discount app in Workday extend, managing more than 4,000 current and former employees.
Built by Partners – PwC built region-specific apps to meet unique, country-specific requirements. For example, they built one app to manage Dutch legislation requirement for employees returning from sick leave and another for financial services to meet UK compliance regulations.
4. Higher education organizations are beginning to modernize
Anyone that's worked in the education system at any level knows that these industries are slow to innovate. Personally, when I was teaching computer science in the mid-2000s, my school was still using Borland Turbo Pascal IDEs from the 1990s! All because that was what my school had licenses for, and we were slow to adopt new technology.
While on the showroom floor, I spoke to more employees from higher education institutions than any other single industry. It became apparent that these slow-moving organizations are on the cusp of the same kind of modernization that many other industries saw 5, 10, or even 15 years ago. For Workday (and for us), that means figuring out how to innovate with our products and offerings to best meet these growing needs, which often means simply being able to access application (Workday) data in the tools they're already using (see our Santa Clara University case study ).
CData and Workday: Better together
Most of my conversations revolved around how anxious customers were to get started with Workday, while balancing their need to be able to continue finding value from their data. I also met many customers who worked with trusted managed service providers to help them implement, maintain, and innovate on top of Workday. And I even had the pleasure of speaking with current CData customers who are making the most of Workday with our connectivity solutions . In a landscape of growing expertise and specialization, finding the right partner can help you make the most of your technology investment.
What's next?
Partner with companies that take care of their partners (padded carpets!).
Know where you are on your AI journey and be realistic about its current capabilities (while still dreaming of big futures).
Take advantage of 3x innovation with Workday, including partnering with CData, who makes it easier than ever to work with Workday data wherever you want.
Choose the right partner. No matter where your data is or how it's being used, the right partners will help you work better with Workday and meet your goals.
See you in San Francisco at Workday Rising 2025!
Get started on your data journey today by joining our CData Community . Check out all our Workday solutions to learn more about making the most of your Workday investment!
