The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Kasthuri Gopalan Rangan - Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division - Analyst
: Aneel, a question for you. What are the tactics that you're pursuing to weather through this potential, people call it downturn, maybe you call it
something different, whether it's GTM, product investments, hiring? How are the tactics changing?
And I guess, a question for Chano on the deal front. What are you hearing from customers as to what they're looking for now in order to get clarity
so they could go forward and close these deals?
Aneel Bhusri - Workday, Inc. - Co-Founder, Co-CEO & Chairman of the Board
In terms of tactics, the plan is (inaudible) continuing. We're being smart about the way we hire and probably helping customers with ways to
continue their -- think through value proposition maybe in a way that we hadn't had to do. Every downturn, you got to think through the value
proposition in terms of payback, and it's probably more important now. And so we're just dusting off that playbook. Chano, anything you want to
add there?
Question: Matthew Charles Pfau - William Blair & Company L.L.C., Research Division - Analyst
: To follow up on that commentary around the start-ups and the funding environment drying up, how are you feeling about potentially making
some acquisitions with valuations coming in? There's specifically been a lot of funding over the past 2 years in the HR software space. Anything
that's interesting out there for you to plug into your platform?
Aneel Bhusri - Workday, Inc. - Co-Founder, Co-CEO & Chairman of the Board
There are a lot of things that are interesting, but I can't really talk about our M&A strategy in detail other than to say that we're always going to be
looking for companies that have a great product, a great team, cutting-edge technology. But we're not looking for those massive transformational
acquisitions that bet the ranch. That's not who we are.
So when we look at the last couple of years, whether it's VNDLY or a Peakon or Adaptive, to the extent we can find those kinds of situations, or
Scout, we will continue to pursue those. And maybe in this environment, they're more cost-effective acquisitions. But we're not looking at some
of the bigger ones that have really dropped in price.
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