Advances in Managing Data Create New Levels of Insight and Performance Accountability for Today’s Agile Organizations

SINGAPORE- Media OutReach - 30October 2020 - WorkdayInc.(NASDAQ: WDAY), a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, today announced availability of Workday Accounting Center and machine learning (ML)-driven predictive forecasts for Workday Adaptive Planning, as well as additional functionality across its financeofferings, to drive insights, agility, and efficiency. These innovationstransform the way customers engage with data, bringing new levels of visibilityand control to the office of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Today's finance teams are challenged to achieve greater agilityamidst the ever-changing business landscape heightened by the pandemic.Real-time data and insights are key to agility, yet many finance organizationshave disconnected data sources and legacy accounting systems, which can nolonger keep pace in today's changing world. Valuable time is spent collecting,reconciling, and validating data instead of delivering trusted insights to theorganization. To address these critical challenges, Workday continues toadvance its cloud planning and financial management solutions with ML and datamanagement capabilities.

Creating Agility with anIntelligent Data Foundation

Workday is going beyond the boundaries of traditional ERPsystems to solve a problem that has plagued the industry for decades--keeping upwith the ever-increasing volume of operational data and turning it intoaccounting and insight faster and more efficiently. Now commercially available, with earlyadopters such as CNA and Shelter Insurance currently inproduction, Workday Accounting Center represents a fundamental change in theway finance manages operational data.

Workday Accounting Center enables customers to ingest operational data, enrich it withmeaningful attributes, and transform it into accounting. This allows customersto manage operational and financial data from multiple sources with a singlepoint of control across the enterprise.

Forexample, with Workday Accounting Center, an insurance company is able to loadits operational transactions--such as claims or policy data--into the system,create accounting (journal) entries for those transactions, and then report andanalyze on those transactions with full drill down and visibility into the source transactions, whichis called data lineage. This eliminates the need for finance teams to rely oninformation technology (IT), with cost savings estimated to be upwards of 50percent to maintain accounting rules. Combining Workday Prism Analytics and Workday Financial Management creates an intelligent data foundationthat also fuels ML-enabled transactions and processes.

MachineLearning Powers Intelligent Planning, Delivers Predictive Forecasts

Planning has become even more critical for organizationsmanaging through the pandemic, with forecasting activity increasing up to 30X from pre-pandemic operations. To enable forecasting with evengreater accuracy, Workday continues to evolve its intelligent planningcapabilities, which allows planning without limits and anticipates what's nextwith greater accuracy and confidence, harnessing ML at the core.

Using time series prediction--the process of modeling events overa period of time to make more accurate predictions--Workday applies the power ofML to enable predictive analytics with Workday Adaptive Planning. The MLalgorithms use historical and current data to predict likely outcomes forrevenue, expenses, and other critical business variables creating a predictiveforecast. Predictive forecasts are created based on thousands or even hundredsof thousands of data points aggregated from across the enterprise, includingsales, HR, marketing, and manufacturing data, for example. Using anomalydetection in Workday Adaptive Planning, anomalies are identified andautomatically flag a planner about a potential issue. New reportingcapabilities make it easy to compare an ML-driven forecast against a planner'sforecast to detect potential problems before either forecast is acted on, soorganizations can make better decisions with confidence.

With predictive forecasting embedded in the analytics engine ofWorkday Adaptive Planning, it will continue to learn over time, and the moredata is added, even greater insights will be gained. The predictive forecastingcapability is available now to all Workday Adaptive Planning customers.

Continuous Innovation for the Office of Finance

The latest release from Workday also includes key advancesfor customers in the office of the CFO focused on enabling deeper insight andaccountability for performance. Notable advancements include:

• Embedded ad hoc analysis on real-timedata. Theavailability of Discovery Boards reflects Workday's enduring focus on embeddinganalytics in core finance applications. With Discovery Boards, accounting andfinance teams are able to easily see and analyze data in real time on liveWorkday transactions--all in one system. With access to nearly200 data sources across core financial management and spend management,customers can easily and securely perform ad-hoc analysis with an embeddeddrag-and-drop visualization tool.
• Unified planning and execution. Workday customers can now publish plansfrom Workday Adaptive Planning directly to Workday Financial Management andvice versa, making it easy to compare actuals to plan in the same system,further streamlining finance processes. This provides easier access forreal-time analysis and compresses the planning and execution cycle for greateragility.

Comments on the News

"We continue to deliver on our vision for the changing world offinance by expanding data management, self-service analyses, and machine learning-fueledprocesses to help finance leaders better navigate continuous disruption andchange," said Barbara Larson, general manager, Workday Financial Management."These innovations unlock the power of data in new ways, empowering customerswith eye-opening insights that were previously difficult--or evenimpossible--to glean. Together with our customers we're creating frictionlessfinance processes and best practices that deliver greater value to theorganization."

"With Workday Accounting Center, we've been able to retire ourcustom legacy accounting hub solution and have simplified our technologyenvironment, improved flexibility and scalability, and provided greaterbusiness ownership and control of software to our accounting and finance team,"said Bharat Shahdadpuri, AVP, Workday Finance & Data Management, CNA, oneof the largest U.S. commercial property and casualty insurance companies. "Now, financial data is provided to accountants using businesslanguage, without the need for technical interpretation. Financial reporting isdone in Workday, and we've been able to improve the systems used for financialanalysis, data lineage, and error correction. And, we're pleased that we'vealready reduced our cost of ownership while also being able to introduce newcapabilities faster."

"CFOs and CIOs recognize that they must embrace new digitaltechnologies in order to manage the ever-increasing volume and sources of datarequired today," said R "Ray" Wang, founder and principal analyst, ConstellationResearch, Inc. "And because it's so challengingto move off of legacy systems, leading companies recognize that they need asolution that can scale and evolve over the next decade and beyond. Intelligentdata, machine learning, and a robust ecosystem are critical factors forcompanies when choosing their next partner for financial management systems."

Additional Information 

• See a demonstration of Workday Accounting Center 
• See a demonstration of Workday Adaptive Planning  
• Read the blog "How planning is evolving to keep pace with a changing world"

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statementsincluding, among other things, statements regarding the expected performanceand benefits of Workday's offerings. The words "believe," "may," "will,""estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "expect," "seek," "plan,""project," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-lookingstatements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks,uncertainties, and assumptions. If the risks materialize or assumptions proveincorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied bythese forward-looking statements. Risks include, but are not limited to, risksdescribed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),including Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2020 and our futurereports that we may file with the SEC from time to time, which could causeactual results to vary from expectations. Workday assumes no obligation to, anddoes not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements afterthe date of this release.

Any unreleased services, features, or functions referenced inthis document, our website, or other press releases or public statements thatare not currently available are subject to change at Workday's discretion andmay not be delivered as planned or at all. Customers who purchase Workday, Inc.services should make their purchase decisions based upon services, features,and functions that are currently available.

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About Workday

Workday is a leading provider ofenterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. Founded in 2005, Workdaydelivers financial management, human capital management, planning, andanalytics applications designed for the world's largest companies, educational institutions, and governmentagencies. Organizations ranging from medium-sized businesses to Fortune 50 enterprises have selectedWorkday.