US-based software vendor Workday is intensifying its expansion efforts in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, adding a regional office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
This is part of the next chapter in its growth strategy across the region, said Angelique de Vries-Schipperijn, Workday EMEA president.
De Vries-Schipperijn was speaking at the opening keynote of Workday Rising EMEA, hosted in Barcelona, Spain, with over 6 000 attendees from 70 countries, including SA.
This year marks 10 years of the event, where the company zeroed in on investments in artificial intelligence (AI) innovation, new product launches and what it termed a “new work day”.
De Vries-Schipperijn told delegates that engagements with several CEOs and public sector leaders indicate shared concerns about how their organisations navigate an increasingly complex and competitive landscape, with trade conversations and new regulatory expectations top of mind.
She noted this highlights that “innovation only matters if it drives clear business outcomes”.
As a result, she said the conference is framed under three areas: making Workday accessible to companies of every size, delivering business value with the help of AI, and leveraging local innovations for the EMEA region as well as across the globe.
To help organisations of all sizes in the markets in which Workday operates, De Vries-Schipperijn noted that the company opened customer experience centres, also known as innovation centres, to collaborate and share.
She added that offices have been opened in Dublin, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich and recently in Milan. “We are also opening offices and expanding our operations, so earlier this year we opened in Poland – the ninth largest economy in EMEA and our hub into Eastern Europe.
“We’re also launching our hub into the UAE and KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia], for the Middle East. We are investing to help businesses run Workday quicker and faster.”
The company last month announced a €175 million (R3.4billion) investment in an AI Centre of Excellence in Dublin, saying this aims to strengthen local support and serve as investment in more AI specialists for its 2 300-plus customers across EMEA.
Turning her focus to driving innovation while leveraging local ecosystems, De Vries-Schipperijn noted that AI platform Sana is now fully integrated into Workday following its acquisition earlier this month.
“We are also looking at opportunities to work with our local ecosystem in technology and through academic partnerships on pressing needs; for example, European Union (EU) regulation.
“The EU pay transparency directive, which aims for pay equity practices around the globe, will be live next June. With the help of Kainos, we developed the ‘Pay Transparency Analyser’. Innovating for the future requires a lot of new talents, so we are working closely with the universities.”
Founded in 2005, Workday is a Nasdaq-listed, California-based on-demand financial management and human capital management (HCM) software vendor. It offers financial management, HCM and analytics applications to mid-sized and large enterprises.
Workday is used by more than 11 000 organisations around the world and across industries – from medium-sized businesses to more than 65% of the Fortune 500.
In South Africa, clients Ampath Laboratories, Altron and Old Mutual have gone live with Workday HCM.
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