Native and Only

What struck me while writing this cover story was that a cloud-native provider like Workday approaches the topic of transformation much more calmly and confidently than ERP world market leader SAP. The Walldorf-based company has been under pressure to justify its first steps into the cloud.

Based on a mature cloud-only approach, Workday wants to offer SAP's existing customers a well-thought-out evolution: naturally agile and resilient, not disruptive and frantic. SAP conjures new concepts out of the cylinder every six months, see Rise with SAP, which irritates existing customers: There is a lack of orientation in the SAP ecosystem.

This E-3 cover story, written together with Chano Fernandez and Jens Krüger from Workday, provides the necessary orientation on the way to the cloud. Oracle's Larry Ellison said earlier this year that SAP systems aren't bad, but they're not for the cloud and never will be. Workday, as a cloud-native company, is different.

"I don't know that I would agree with Larry Ellison's statement one hundred percent" Workday co-CEO Chano Fernandez said in the E-3 interview, "but I think it's definitely easier if you can go to the cloud without legacy issues". One insight from the E-3 cover story: If you program for the cloud, there is no custom code.

In my opinion, companies that include cloud in their planning from the outset are better off in terms of speed of innovation, agility and flexibility. These considerations could also apply to existing SAP customers.