VENDOR-MANAGED UPDATES

Vendor-managed updates means the cloud vendor automatically updates a customer's application (and supporting infrastructure) as part of a subscription. The SaaS business model replaces the traditional legacy system model of costly, invasive, and highly disruptive upgrades into automatic, behind-the-scenes, zero-cost non-events.

There are no surprises with SaaS. The frequency, schedule, and content of the updates follow a published calendar on the customer community web site. All new functionality is delivery switched off to ensure no disruption to business operations. The combination of an accurate and detailed vendor roadmap with a predictable update schedule allows customers to execute on their own HR service delivery plans with a level of accuracy and confidence not possible in the traditional legacy system world.

This business model offers many advantages to the customer:

Eliminate costly and disruptive upgrade cycles

Legacy system updates required hundreds of thousands of dollars and typically took many months to complete with dozens of internal staff and external consultants. Cloud vendor-managed updates are performed over a couple of weekends with typically one internal resource monitoring the transition.

Free up IT budget and resources for strategic projects

Legacy system upgrades are the primary reason why customers reside on old, outdated releases of software, running on old, outdated business processes that no longer reflect their current, highly competitive and ever-changing market.  Upgrades can be so costly and invasive that it becomes a major IT and business project in itself.  With SaaS, a vendor-managed update is a non-event, freeing up IT budget and resources for other strategic projects.

Always on the latest release

Now you can leverage best business practices and technology—from mobile to embedded analytics—allowing your company to maintain its competitive advantage without the traditional cost of upgrading to a new version.

Continually innovate at your pace

With a legacy system, the vendor dictates your HR service delivery roadmap through their own product roadmap, typically releasing a new version every 18-24 months.  In contrast, Workday delivers updates every 4 months.  With new functionality arriving switched off, you decide what vendor-delivered innovation to adopt and when.

Community collaboration

In today’s world of instant collaboration, SaaS enables you to seek advice and guidance from the subject matter experts within your industry peer group.  As everyone is on the same version of the software with no code level customizations, Workday customers are able to share their experiences online, on everything from deploying new functionality to popular report templates to change management best practices.