Workday卧薪尝胆，甲骨文严阵以待

    外界对Workday的预期也在稳步而迅猛地提升。“Workday终将取代传统企业级人力资源软件供应商，成为这个领域的领导者，”Cowen and Company公司分析师彼得•高德曼彻在最近发表的一份报告中写道。他指出，这家公司的服务能百分之百取代甲骨文人力资源管理软件、仁科人力资源管理软件、以及SAP人力资源管理软件。而且，它能以相对更为优惠的价格，更为低廉的总体成本，提供更现代化的特性集合，原因在于企业只需将之作为一项服务买入，无需为取得所有权而掏钱。他补充说：“我们认为，企业最终会发现，甲骨文和SAP的解决方案是并购的产物，只是一个大杂烩，目前仍有待进一步整合；与之相比，Workday的软件更具吸引力。”

    要完全取代甲骨文和SAP的人力资源服务，Workday仍任重而道远，因为这两家巨头迄今仍分别拥有1万多家客户。但是，布斯里和达菲尔德确实有本事让大型竞争对手寝食难安。尽管市场研究机构高德纳公司（Gartner）的分析师詹姆斯•霍林柴克表示，并不是所有企业部署了Workday的服务之后都能大幅节省资金，但许多企业表示，管理成本确实出现了大幅降低。比如，金吉达公司就报告称，与传统的本地部署人力资源系统相比，部署Workday服务，5年内他们节省的成本将超过30%；其中节省最多的一块在于，无需再支付传统软件部署的前期投资和每年的维护费用。

    巨头们也在纷纷竭力迎头赶上，甚至不惜为此一掷千金，重金收购。去年12月，SAP宣布，将以34亿美元的价格收购人力成本管理软件公司SuccessFactors。同时，甲骨文以19亿美元收购了Taleo公司，后者专注于开发员工招募软件。它们的目的均在于，要填补某种程度上已被Workday占领而自己过去有所欠缺的领域。接受《财富》采访的分析师们一致认为，这些都可称得上是防御性措施。但它恰恰证明，布斯里和达菲尔德的模式行之有效。“他们（大公司）定会全力以赴。现在，他们已经摸着了门道，而且已经进场，”前仁科高管史蒂夫•谭南特说。“所以，我认为他们还有机会。”

    译者：大海

    Expectations for the firm have steadily skyrocketed. "Workday will ultimately dominate the Enterprise HR space at the expense of the legacy providers," wrote Cowen and Company analyst Peter Goldmacher in a recent report. As he sees it, the service is a 100% replacement business for Oracle HR, PeopleSoft HR and SAP HR, offering a more modern feature set at a better price and a lower total cost because businesses can buy into it as a service rather than having to maintain ownership over it. "We believe enterprises will find this pitch more compelling than Oracle and SAP's hodgepodge of M&A based solutions that still need to be integrated," he added.

    Still, Workday is a long way off from displacing Oracle and SAP's competing HR services -- both companies still serve over 10,000 clients each. But Bhusri and Duffield have definitely come up with something to worry larger firms. Though Gartner analyst James Holincheck says some businesses may not see significant savings from Workday's services, there are many businesses who see their cost overhead shrink significantly. Chiquita, for instance, reports it will save more than 30% over five years with Workday, compared with a traditional on-site HR system, the greatest cost savings coming from not having to deal with the up-front investments of traditional software implementation and annual maintenance fees.

    The larger companies are doing their best to catch up, which includes heavy acquisitions. Last December, SAP announced it would spend $3.4 billion on the human capital management software company SuccessFactors. Meanwhile, Oracle bought Taleo, which develops employee recruitment software, for $1.9 billion. Both were bought with the intent of filling in service areas, covered in part by Workday, that were previously lacking. Analysts Fortune spoke to view such moves as defensive maneuvers. That validates Bhusri and Duffield's model. "They'll play a good game, they know what it takes now, and they've certainly been there and done that," says Steve Tennant, an ex-PeopleSoft executive. "So I wouldn't bet against them."