Microsoft and Workday accelerate planning in changing world

Microsoft and Workday have announced a strategic partnership that prioritises enterprise planning in the cloud, and expands the business solutions customers can use to better optimise their everyday work.

Through this partnership, Workday customers will be able to run Workday Adaptive Planning on the Microsoft Azure cloud. Microsoft will also adopt Adaptive Planning for its global finance teams for planning, budgeting and forecasting to help accelerate decision-making.

Tom Bogan, vice-chairman of Workday, said, “Now, more than ever, planning takes centre stage as companies return to the workplace, rebuild supply chains, and in some cases reimagine their businesses in our rapidly changing world.

“With cloud planning at scale and even tighter integration to help customers collaborate, this partnership underscores what Workday was built for — to help customers unlock potential in their people and the business even in the most dynamic environments.”

As businesses adjust and adapt to changing business environments, the need for real-time planning capabilities is accelerating. Making faster, informed decisions across all areas of the business requires a continuous planning process.

Workday Adaptive Planning offers a modern platform that ties data, people and plans together and is accessible in the cloud to finance, HR, sales and functional business leaders. Adding Workday Adaptive Planning to Azure, offers increased flexibility as customer demand for cloud-based planning grows.

The partnership also includes additional integrations and support, focusing on easier access, collaboration and security between Microsoft and Workday applications.

For instance, Microsoft Teams integration with Workday Financial Management and Workday Human Capital Management (HCM) makes it easier for users to access Workday to simplify day-to-day tasks such as submitting expenses, providing anytime feedback, looking up employees, or requesting time off, all without having to leave Teams.

Microsoft Azure Active Directory is also now integrated with Workday applications to enable users to access enterprise data and applications easily and securely through a single sign-on. With expanded integrations, joint users of Microsoft and Workday applications can confidently secure end-to-end identity lifecycle and entitlement settings for greater privacy and security management.

Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice-president of One Commercial Partner, Microsoft, added, “At Microsoft, we’re hyper-focused on continually innovating new ways to empower every person and organisation around the world with the tools and insights they need to securely drive productivity and business performance.

“In partnership with Workday, we’ll deliver new solutions that connect the people and financial insights of Workday to the cloud productivity of Microsoft Teams and cloud platform of Azure, so our joint customers can do more.”