Workday has taken a huge step forward as it targets Oracle and Microsoft’s dominance in the Federal government market. Workday Government Cloud received FedRAMP Authorized status at a moderate security level on July 11th, according to the FedRAMP Marketplace listing.
This is the same level as most of the Oracle solutions in the marketplace. Microsoft has a higher security level for Dynamics365, though. It means the federal agencies and institutions requiring FedRAMP authorisation can now acquire Workday solutions confidently. It had taken Workday less than a year to achieve this, starting the process in August 2021, when it was FedRAMP ready. The authorisation process commenced in March and was completed by Coalfire Systems, Inc.
Workday can now offer a full range of its solutions to U.S. federal, state and local government customers, U.S. government contractors, and Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs). Delivered via Amazon Web Services (AWS), those solutions include:
- Workday Core Financial Management
- Projects
- Project Billing
- Expenses
- Procurement
- Inventory
- Grants Management
- Human Capital Management
- Cloud Connect for Benefits
- Payroll for the United States
- Cloud Connect for Third-Party Payroll
- Time Tracking
- Recruiting
- Prism Analytics
There are solutions missing from this list, including the Workday Adaptive planning solution and Workday Peakon Employee Voice.
Wayne Bobby, vice president, US Federal Government, Workday, commented: “Our official entry into the federal market is a significant moment in Workday’s growth story. The sector is facing increased complexity, and rapid change and agency leaders want to empower their people to be agile and feel supported in the midst of an evolving environment.
“We remain committed to bringing federal agencies the finance and HR insights needed to accelerate transformation, streamline work processes, and keep pace in a changing world.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
With the likelihood of recession increasing, this is good news for both Workday and government agencies. It will offer the agencies more choice for solutions as they look to modernise and move applications to cloud-based solutions.
Importantly Workday has already deployed solutions to several public sector organisations that did not require FedRAMP authorisation. Examples include The City and County of Denver, where the Executive Director of the Office of Human Resources noted: “When we migrated to Workday, we eliminated over 75% of the paper we were processing. Workday provided an enormous benefit for us.”
For Workday, it opens up a lucrative market. It is one that it will already have been working on for some time. It will be interesting to see how quickly Workday announces competitive wins in the space and which vendors it replaces. This is a green field opportunity for Workday and a huge one at that. Its share price has not reflected the change, but it has ticked up slightly over the last day (137.78 from 134.27 – source Yahoo finance.
Federal organisations can now take advantage of the leading HCM and Finance solutions that Workday offers. Powered by AWS, they are also in a secure environment that offers the scalability that the larger federal bodies will require. What is yet to emerge is which of its partners Workday will engage with to tackle this market and how quickly will the deals come?
