Retiring Shared Demo Tenant: Workday's still correctable blunder

PARIS 

As my blog followers have known for quite some time, I am a great admirer of Workday: the company, its people, its products, its culture, its customer service. Many of my posts are testimony to this admiration, as is my decision to spend most of my working time implementing the product for my clients. This being said, my blog followers also know that I am no blind vendor cheerleader: When deemed necessary, I would not shy away from criticizing Workday as I did in my Open Letter to Dave Duffield and Aneel Bhusri about their approach to Europe. 

Now has come the time to point the finger at Workday again. In exactly one month, as per the below notice, Workday will retire its Shared Demonstration Tenants, usually known in the Workday family of users as GMS, and offer a paid version. This is a Very Bad Idea and before I expostulate on it, let me first explain to the layman what GMS is and why it is so important. 

GMS - A unique demo environment
GMS was one of the great innovations that Workday brought. For someone like me whose experience of an HR vendor's demo environment was limited to the dreadful ADS by Oracle, this felt like heaven when I first sampled it. At long last here was a system which you could go to 24x7 to check, demo with minimal preparation, learn any feature you were interested in. And it rarely let you down as it was bug-free. Actually, for one my first global Workday implementations, then a wall-to-wall 20-year SAP shop with more 140,000 employees, I was tasked with traveling the length and breadth of planet Earth to visit the major subsidiaries to convince them to give Workday a try.

Without GMS, I doubt I would have been able to pull it off. I wanted to demo what Workday could provide but since our tenant had not yet been fed with setup and worker data, I couldn't rely on it. So, I decided to enlist the help of GMS, hiring employees in Spain, Romania, Brazil, Korea, Morocco, Argentina - etc. in a way that made sense to those companies. I made it obvious to my stakeholders that this was a shared environment, that it didn't include all their specific data and processes but it could give them a sense of what was possible with Workday. 

LOGAN FOR PRESIDENT!

And it worked! All the subsidiaries agreed to greenlight the project and we started on implementation. The rest, as they say, is history.

Critical for SMEs

If my example is a good one to show how useful GMS is for a large, global multinational able to throw millions at its Workday implementation, think then how vital it is for an SME company struggling with limited resources and a shoestring budget. These companies cannot afford the multiplicity of tenants that Workday would readily charge them for. And I'm not speaking here of the complexity to manage several tenants, which in and of itself is not an issue except when you don't have the resources to do that. In addition, without GMS the learning curve for talent becomes steeper. 

More than a marketing blunder, this is a sales disaster-in-waiting. After targeting the mid-market for a while, it is counter-intuitive for Workday to remove one of its major selling points to this very market segment. I don't know what Carl Eschenbach is up to, but I can't see Dave Duffield, Aneel Bhusri or Chano Fernandez signing off on this. 

Rationale for the paywall
Although some detractors are lambasting Workday for this grab for customer dollars, there are some good reasons for it which have to do with Workday's amazing success. Quarter after quarter the customer base grows, which means that what used to be a few hundred concurrent users of GMS has now evolved into thousands and thousands of users from customers and partners. This in turn has made accessing GMS ever more difficult with the below message one of the greatest sources of frustration of customer administrators and project consultants. 

 Hence Workday's offer to its customers: "Rather than have a free demo tenant which you can rarely use, why not have a paid one which will always be at your disposal?"

Unacceptable policy change
Well, as we all know, there's no such thing as a free lunch - and certainly not a free tenant. The current shared GMS is included in customers' subscription. It is therefore disingenuous, not to say dishonest, from Workday to claim that they're just putting an end to a free goodie. We all know that Workday comes with a premium price tag, which is justified by the second-to-none quality of its products, consultants and resources. So, this "free" GMS is actually NOT free. Customers are paying for it, and expensively so.

If Workday feels that time has come to charge those who want to use GMS, then it should be consistent and reduce the subscription rate by as much. Those who feel they cannot do with GMS will then pay the new tenant price which means that at the end of the day they will be paying basically the same they were paying before for exactly the same service. And those who didn't use GMS (not many companies but they exist) and who resented having to pay for a service they weren't using will actually enjoy the new policy because they'll be paying less for a similar service level. Win-win for all.

Of course, I can hear you say, "Not so fast. Those who pay separately but at the same rate as before are getting a better service because the tenant is theirs and it'll be working without the access issues we've been experiencing of late." Well, that argument is a poor one because Workday always boasted of how scalable its system is. So, why is GMS now having concurrent access issues? And what guarantees do we have that even with a private GMS if our user base grows we won't suddenly be faced with this infamous "maximum number of users reached" message? 

What's next? Charging for the use of EIB? Of Customer Central? 

What Workday should do
Based on the previous, there are only two acceptable options for Workday:

(a) Reconsider its position, admitting it has erred and just scrap this new policy (Workday has backtracked in the past on some controversial decisions as soon as enough noise comes from their customer base);

(b) Stick with it but then revisit its pricing policy along the lines of what I described in the previous paragraphs.

What should customers do
Two situations here:
1. Net new customer considering Workday:  Do NOT sign the purchase order. Put the decision on hold while waiting for Workday's final decision.

2. Current Workday customer considering a scope extension: Do NOT license any new product until Workday does either of the two options I mentioned earlier (and make them know in no uncertain terms what you think that option should be - after all, Workday always claimed it listens to the "Voice of the Customer"), so let them know that without GMS you cannot prove the ROI for a new product. Also, check whether one of your current modules or one you're considering (such as Extend) doesn't come with GMS.

Workday, like all software vendors, will take into account customer demands when they hit the bottom line. When Workday sees that its next quarter isn't as good as what it expected, then it will have second thoughts and will become amenable to its customers' views. But customers should not accept that Workday just turn into another Oracle or SAP fleecing its customers whenever it feels it has an opportunity. 

Workday already took a leaf out of its competitors' book when it started growing its product line via acquisitions and not organically, even though it always said it abhorred such an approach. It is high time the similarities stopped. 

(This is the latest in a Workday series of posts by the blogger. The most popular ones can be found on the right-hand panel. For a full list, scroll down to the list of all posts by year)  

Spain's Pedro Sánchez: Europe's most despicable leader

BARCELONA

Soap opera Spanish-style

 

 

  

For someone like me who has known Spain intimately for a couple of decades (read my blog on my 20-year love affair with Spain - my 5th most popular blogpost) and has followed its evolution and politics since the 1990s, it is disheartening to see how low its politics has stooped - and all due to one man, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who now wins hands down the award for worst political leader in Europe - and probably in Spain's history, tied with Ferdinand VII, known as the Felon King. 

And yet, it was not meant to be like that. Sánchez started out as a star. Well, a falling star when barely two years as Socialist party leader he had to resign in 2016 after two inconclusive elections. Any other politician would have thrown in the towel. Not him. He traveled the length and breadth of the country, bringing his message, if not to the masses, at least to the party militants, who several months later, and against party leaders, voted him back into office. Pedro's first gamble had paid off.

His second stroke of luck was just around the corner: A no-confidence vote was called in 2018 against Conservative Prime Minister  Mariano Rajoy, following a court ruling in which it was mentioned that he must have know about some of the corruption in his party. This was later rescinded but the harm was already done, the no-confidence vote was passed against him and Sánchez managed this incredible feat: The first time since democracy was reestablished in Spain that a government came to power, not through an election, but through a no-confidence motion. 

In the following elections eyebrows were raised when, Sánchez, unable to win an outright majority, increasingly had to rely on far-left and Basque and Catalan separatist parties to come to, and stay in, power. Under him Spain experienced its first coalition government, with far-left Podemos. Further eyebrows were raised when, in the run-up to the 2019 election, Pedro Sánchez,who had always promised that fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont would face Spanish justice sooner or later and serve his sentence for his illegal attempt to make Catalonia break away from Spain, also promised that no pardon would be forthcoming for jailed separatists.

Well, that noble principle went out the door as soon as election returns showed Sanchez had no majority. The only way he could stay in power was to get the votes of Catalan separatists and the price was: Pardon for their leaders. And a reform of the criminal code to make those crimes disappear. A shocked nation saw Sánchez make an about-face and accept these demands. Nothing new about a politician promising one thing during an election campaign and, once elected, do something different, but here the stakes were quite high and the meaning of what Sanchez was doing unheard of: In the political Gospel according to Sánchez, if you commit a crime, you go to jail - unless you're a friend of Sanchez's: In which case we remove the crime as a punishable offense so that you can't be prosecuted, and for those who have already been condemned and are serving their sentence, I'll pardon you.

From then on, things took a turn for the worse and started going horribly wrong. In 2023, after regional elections dealt a devastating blow to the Socialists, Sánchez made one of his trademark bold moves, calling a snap election which he lost again, and not only did he not get an outright majority but the Conservative PP party came in first (also without a majority.) During the campaign, Sánchez was asked whether he would go further in acceding to Catalan separatists and grant them an amnesty: he consistently said that, unless a pardon, an amnesty was impossible because unconstitutional and therefore he's never do it. There are red lines that can't be crossed, he added.

At this stage, the reasonable thing would have been for the two parties to come to a gentlemen's agreement: To avoid becoming captive to smaller parties (the PP also had two center- and far-right parties yapping at its heels): Whoever comes up first gets to govern (with the other party abstaining during the vote in Parliament.) But that would have meant for Sanchez handing power over, albeit temporarily, to someone else, and by then it was becoming clear to most of us that Sanchez was enjoying the high life, the palaces and Falcon jet and being fêted and toasted as Spain's head of government. Like a Latin American left-wing leader, Sánchez is becoming ensconced on his throne - and enjoying it.

So, the red lines mysteriously disappeared. Amnesty was no longer unconstitutional: "After all," would Sánchez glibly say, "only the Constitutional Court (Spain's equivalent to the US Supreme Court) can decide what is constitutional and what is not. The man of no convictions showed that he had turned into a fully hypocritical and cynical politician negotiating with "Putsch-Demon", the man he had vowed would face Spanish justice. Catalan separatists, with a tiny number of deputies, became kingmakers because Sanchez needed each one of their votes since a couple of votes would make him lose power. Spain started looking like a banana republic where laws are made no for the benefit of the many, but for the benefit of the few - and especially the one: Sánchez, to ensure his stay in power.

"And I will call you Pedro Sánchez..."

 Whatever absurd demand Catalan separatists would make, Sánchez would accede to them, such as the renewed demand to make regional languages as official languages at the Spanish Parliament. The demand had been rejected, and rightly so, by Sánchez himself just one year early as absurd since it would involve additional costs and was superfluous since every single deputy, even Catalans and Basques, spoke Spanish, anyway. Now that he needed their votes, this demand made more sense. Separatists' glee was on obvious display when they added a further demand: We also want our languages (accounting for something like 0.01% of Europe's population) to also become official languages at ...the European Parliament!. No issue, this is a very reasonable demand, Sánchez agreed, and instructed his Foreign Minister to make this happen. (So far other European countries are refusing seeing this as a domestic ploy that should remain circumscribed to Spain.)

Famous American comedian Groucho Marx once said, "These are my principles. If you don't like them, well, I have others." Sanchez is taking this principle, or lack thereof, to new heights - or, rather, new lows.

The latest sad episode in what is increasingly becoming a bad chapter in Spain's history came this week. Actually, it started last week when a judge accepted to investigated Sánchez's wife for corruption, after a denunciation by a civil organization. Sánchez went up in arms that this denunciation was unacceptable, that it was a ploy by the Conservative camp to hurt him. Somebody explain to me why the Prime Minister's wife can't be investigated? After all, a member of the Spanish Royal Family was investigated, prosecuted, sentenced to jail and served a couple of years in jail. If a royal can be sent to jail, why can't be the Prime Minister's wife be merely investigated? (At this stage she's not even being prosecuted?) Is she a goddess? Is he a god? Well, his behavior shows that he believes this to be so. And what about the judge who launched this investigation? A puppet of the right-wing and far-right folks, claims Sánchez. OK, so when judges send other people to jail, they are doing a great job, they are unbiased. But as soon as they do the same for left-wing politicians or their friends, they become corrupt and biased? This sounds more and more redolent of a banana republic.

Sánchez then made yet another of his bold moves: Announcing that he was taking five days off to consider whether he was going to resign to protect his family, he claimed. (As if a judge would rescind his wife's investigation because he has resigned!) Most observers, including I, knew there was no way a man so addicted to power as he was would resign on such a flimsy pretext. It was clearly a ploy to drum up more support for him in the run-up to the Catalan elections (2 weeks from now) and to the European elections (next month.) And on Monday, as expected, the circus came to an end when Prime Minister Sánchez went to meet the Spanish King to announce his "decision" which was  a non-decision since he wasn't resigning. Seeing the thousands who had been bused in to acclaim their Dear Leader "Pedro, Pedro, please stay" sent shivers down my spine, reminding me of the adulation of the North Korean leader or former Soviet/Easter European Communist leaders.  Sánchez announced that he was staying and would take measures against the press and judges who damage democracy.

Reminiscent of Chávez and Maduro in Venezuela? Remember that the Socialist Old Guard, especially the historic leader Felipe González, have denounced Sánchez's policies, especially regarding the concessions to regional separatists - except for one: Zapatero, who is a stalwart supporter of the Venezuela strongman. Are we surprised?

How many Spaniards see Socialist leader Sánchez's policies

It is too early to say that under Sánchez Spain is moving inevitably towards a Bolivarian model. But everything I have described so far, along with some of his policies, however, point towards it. What was the point in removing Franco from his Valle de los Caidos  graveyard when nobody cared a fig about a long-dead dictator?  - If not to mobilize the far-left masses and divide the country further. 

Only twice have I been very worried about Spain: When the 2008 financial crisis hit and 40% of young people found themselves out of a job. And now that the political crisis has reached unprecedented level of polarization under the stewardship of Sánchez.

And yet, as I said at the beginning, it was not supposed to be like that. When "Pedro" became Prime Minster he was this rare find: Handsome, smart, bold, amazingly lucky, English-speaking. He was  a model leader. How sad that he has degenerated into this obsessively ambitious, power-hungry, unscrupulous, lying, cynical, mafia-like don whose future actions are becoming increasingly worrisome. Small wonder many Spaniards have taken to referring to him now as "Perro" Sanchez.*

*Perro means "dog" in Spanish.

 (DISCLOSURE: The blogger is not affiliated with any political party, whether left- or right-wing or in between or beyond. Actually I NEVER cast a vote. But as a citizen I carefully watch how we are misgoverned in order to be able to should out loud: "Not In My Name." I described my model political system a couple of years ago in this post on DirDem or Direct Democracy.)