Workday is actively seeking potential acquisitions to fuel growth

Working days (NASDAQ:WDAY) CEO Carl Eschenbach said the company is actively looking for potential assets to fuel its growth.

Eschenbach spoke at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology conference on Wednesday and answered questions about the company’s growth plans. Among other things, artificial intelligence.

“We have a strong balance sheet. We have $7 billion in cash… our ability to pursue acquisitions that are tied to our platform… is something we’re very interested in,” Eschenbach said. He added that “we’re actively pursuing the market because there are a lot of assets right now, both from the venture capital community and the private equity community, in our markets that have assets that are coming in, and we’re going to look at anything to drive growth without being too dilutive to the bottom line.”

Speaking about the company’s future, Eschenbach reiterated that the company plans to grow by 15% by fiscal year 2027 and increase its operating margin by 30% over the next few years. “We will see a 1,000-point increase in operating margin over the next four to four and a half years.”

The Workday CEO noted that the company sells to a wide range of industries and is focused on international expansion. “We have a significant opportunity to expand more internationally. Only 25% of our business comes from outside the U.S., yet that’s more than 50% of our TAM (total addressable market),” Eschenbach said.

Separately, Eschenbach said that when the company talks to customers and the topic of AI comes up, he believes that “an investment in Workday is an investment in AI.” He reasoned that the company has one of the most curated datasets in the industry to train on, noting that it’s not about the size of the dataset, but the “highly curated dataset” and the context behind it.

“I think we, with AI, can lead the enterprise through both HR and finance, showing real business value and real business impact,” Eschenbach added.