Supernova Award Category
The Problem
Workiva was faced with finding a solution for a common business problem: data transparency and complex collaboration. As regulatory reporting requirements across the financial industry have grown, so too has the volume of documentation needed to satisfy them. Managing this process has fallen on teams that rely on traditional desktop applications, file shares, and email—which results in hours spent managing drafts and hunting for correct data. Relying on these traditional processes exposes an organization to the risk of data inconsistencies and administrative bottlenecks.
The Solution
The founders of Workiva – accountants, entrepreneurs and engineers – wanted to help businesses work smart; to create a solution that made complex collaboration easy and enabled companies to make better, data-driven decisions.
Workiva created Wdesk, a cloud-based productivity platform for enterprises to collect, link, report and analyze business data with control and accountability. Wdesk allows customers to control a company’s most sensitive data down to the cellular level, while keeping it in sync and mitigating risk. This level of granularity, as well as the high level of security we provide, gives leaders the confidence and peace of mind to trust Wdesk with their most sensitive data and processes. With implementation measured in days and weeks, not months or years, Wdesk removes the burdens of other software platforms and general purpose desktop software and enhances the quality of the data that both internal and external stakeholders are working with.
The results
As a result of this innovation, thousands of organizations use Wdesk to help save time and money, as well as to help mitigate risk.
A 2016 Total Economic Impact study by Forrester Consulting quantified a Wdesk customer’s savings. The study showed that a multinational auto-parts retailer recognized more than $411,000 in total benefits and cost savings over a three-year period. The retailer, with annual revenue of over $9 billion, used Wdesk to increase efficiency and reduce errors in creating, documenting and assessing internal controls over financial reporting as required by SOX.
In another Forrester Consulting study, a large, global manufacturer achieved a ROI of 108 percent by using Wdesk. The manufacturer recognized more than $640,000 in total benefits and cost savings over a three-year period. The customer, with annual revenue of nearly $20 billion, used Wdesk to automate financial data collection throughout its global enterprise and streamline a complicated review and reporting process.
Additionally, customers have found that using Wdesk has resulted in better business processes. Upland Software looked to Wdesk for Enterprise Risk Management alongside its internal controls and SOX processes. Wdesk increased transparency and accountability in Upland's process, which includes internal controls that have to be monitored and tested. Upland had reported that sorting spreadsheets and updating documents has gone from two to three days, to two to three hours.
Metrics
To measure the effectiveness of this technology, the key performance indicators include the number of new Wdesk customers as well as add-on seats at existing customers in the following markets: SEC, Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and internal controls, management reporting, risk processes and internal auditing. Workiva had 2,557 customers as of March 31, 2016, a net increase of 267 customers from March 31, 2015. Its customers include 65% of the Fortune 100 and more than 65% of Fortune 500 companies.
The Technology
Wdesk is a modern productivity suite that enables our customers to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in a wide range of business data processes. Wdesk can continuously adjust and be used for new use cases as the organization grows. Our innovation lab is driven by a focus on listening, building quick prototypes that allow our customers to get a sense of our direction, and then iterating on our designs until we’re able to deliver a product that our customers will love.
Disruptive Factor
Before 2010, no one had automated how public companies report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The system was broken, so Workiva set out to fix it by working directly with accountants and auditors to address their immediate needs. The cloud-based solution took the market by storm, and by fall 2013, more quarterly and annual SEC reports had been filed through Wdesk than any other third-party provider. Companies began to use Workiva across the enterprise for multiple use cases. Our customers asked us to address the issues with SOX and internal controls and in July 2014, Workiva released Wdesk for SOX and Internal Controls to ensure accuracy and confidence of a critical, yet chaotic, SOX compliance process. In just five years from the release of its first product, Workiva reported over $100 million in revenue - a rare milestone for start-ups in a similar time period.
Shining Moment
Today, over 1.5 billion data values are linked among Wdesk documents, creating a single source of truth for our customers. Workiva has garnered industry recognition including: ranked 129 on Deloitte Fast 500; Edison Award Winner; named a CIO Outlook Top 10 Risk Management Solution Providers CIO Review 20 Most Promising ERM Provider and 20 Most Promising Corporate FinTech Provider; received two Stevie Awards for Innovation; received the 2016 Prometheus Award for The Best Large Technology Company.