This week, the Hilton hotel on Diagonal Mar has become the Barcelona office of Workday, a large Silicon Valley technology company specialized in business software. The company, co-directed by Carl Eschenbach, has chosen the Catalan capital for the second time to hold its annual meeting with its European clientele. “In total, we will meet with 4,000 companies, among which are Barcelona companies such as Mango, Ametller, Applus or Aire,” comments the executive.
Despite holding the annual meeting in Barcelona, ??the company chose Madrid to locate its offices on the Iberian Peninsula. He landed in the Spanish capital in 2016 and, since then, has built a team that exceeds a hundred people. “In the future we do not rule out opening a branch in Barcelona if activity continues to grow,” comments the executive, who assumed the position of co-CEO a year ago.
Workday sells software that allows companies to digitize their financial management and human resources management. Its clients are large multinationals – in Spain, a third of the Ibex 35 groups – and also medium-sized companies, a segment in which it is strong in Catalonia.
Being a company listed on the Nasdaq, Workday cannot reveal the investment data it has made in the Catalan market or in the Spanish market as a whole. Nor can it share the turnover it registers in the Peninsula, which it claims is growing above the global average.
Despite the global situation, marked by geopolitical tensions and rising interest rates, Eschenbach assures that the business is going from strength to strength. “We are not worried about events because our product is still very valuable to companies. With our technology, clients can improve the efficiency of their operations,” says Eschenbach, who shares the direction of the business with Aneel Bhusri, the co-founder.
In the last fiscal year, closed in February 2023, the company had a turnover of 6.22 billion dollars, close to 5.7 billion euros, which represented an increase of 21% annually. 75% of the business takes place within the United States and 25% in the rest of the world.
Regarding the workforce, Workday employs 17,000 people, a figure that at the beginning of the year was cut by 3% – within an optimization program – but which in the following months was recovered with new additions.
Looking to the future, the Californian group is banking on its growth outside the United States and especially on generative artificial intelligence, a technology that it already offers to its clients.
