Defining the Power of One

There’s an important concept here at Workday that impacts our entire community called the Power of One. If you’ve spent time with Workday or attended Workday Rising, you know this is a concept we speak of often. Why are we so passionate about the Power of One? We thought we’d take a moment to define it and why it’s at the heart of everything we do.

At Workday, we have one version of software, one customer community, and one codeline. Together, these things empower us all in ways that weren’t possible in the legacy software industry. But before we do a deep dive into the Power of One, let’s look at why a new approach was so badly needed.

Workday Co-FoundersAneel Bhusri and Dave Duffield构思的力量when they started Workday to eliminate some major issues they identified in the world of legacy enterprise applications. In that world, a vendor’s software development organization, partner ecosystem, and customer base is split among supporting different versions of applications and database platforms, with different customizations and maintenance schedules.

This approach doesn’t empower a community, it drains it. Vendors and their partners have to split their resources among too many things. Customers have entirely different experiences from one another, which hinders communication, collaboration, and ultimately, innovation.

At Workday, all customers are on one version of software. Right now they are on Workday 24, encompassing our most up-to-date financial management, human capital management, and analytics applications. In the fall, we will all move to Workday 25. When Workday delivers new features and innovations to these applications between our major releases, they become available to all.

As the result, there is just one community. Customers and partners share ideas, collaborate, and help one other in ways that aren’t possible in the fractured legacy software world. In true democratic fashion, members of our community even suggest and then vote on new features. The Workday Brainstorm is an incredibly innovative program, with our customers having contributed hundreds of ideas to our products through the years.

Earlier, we mentioned the delivery of new features and innovations between major releases of Workday. Our Power of One gained even more momentum in the last two years when we moved to one codeline, making it possible for us to practice continuous development. We now deliver new innovations to our customers even faster, helping them be better prepared in a world ofconstant change and disruptionso they can focus their energies on growth. Mike Frandsen, executive vice president of products, support & delivery at Workday, captured the benefits of continuous development in ablog postlast year.

All of these things have culminated in creating what we believe to be the most empowered community in the enterprise software industry. Empowerment is the foundation of a happy customer base, and Workday’s latest measurement revealed 97% customer satisfaction. Jim Bozzini, executive vice president of customer operations at Workday, discusses Workday customer satisfaction and how we measure it in this recent post.

As Dave said in aprevious post, our customers “are behind us, pushing, inspiring, and working alongside us—mobilizing the power of one Workday community to move our business solutions forward for a greater common good.”

This is why we believe so strongly in the Power of One. It has made a profound impact on the success of our customers, and the success of Workday.