Human capital management software company Workday (WDAY 0.52%) reported another solid quarter late last month. Total revenue in its second quarter of fiscal 2020 increased 32.2% year over year, and non-GAAP earnings per share jumped from $0.31 in the year-ago period to $0.44. In addition, operating cash flow soared from $57.7 million to $100.3 million.
"It was a strong quarter, with continued global customer momentum across the Fortune 500 and Global 2,000, as more organizations look to Workday for the ability to plan, execute, and analyze in one system powered by machine learning," said Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri in the company's second-quarter earnings release.
For investors looking for even better insight into the tech company's performance, here are some key quotes from the earnings call that followed Workday's quarterly report.
Image source: Workday.
Strong momentum in Workday's financial management offering
While Workday's core offering is its cloud-based human capital management software, the company has been seeing strong traction with its financial management offering as well -- so much so that Workday is starting to see a trend of a growing number of new customers coming to the company through its financial management software.
Momentum in financial management continued in Q2.
"We had another strong quarter [for financial management] with approximately 50% revenue growth," explained Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri. "In Q2, we added a Fortune 100 insurance company which was another in a growing trend of financials first customers." Of course, there were more wins beyond this notable new client. Workday's total base of financial management customers is now greater than 725.
Adaptive Insights: helping Workday "get in the door"
After closing its acquisition of business planning cloud platform leader Adaptive Insights on Aug. 1 of last year, the company has had more than a year to integrate the business and observe its impact on the rest of Workday's operation. Fortunately, Adaptive is playing a key role in helping Workday land new customers and upsell them to other products, particularly the company's financial management offering.
When asked whether Adaptive customers are signing up for the company's financial management cloud, Bhusri responded:
There is no question. It's helped on the pipeline for financials. And I mean, the key is, if you were to look at the CFO priorities, planning is way at the top of the list and Adaptive has a best-in-class planning product, both for finance and increasingly for workforce planning. And so it's a great entry point and broadens the conversation.
Bhusri added that its data and analytics cloud, Prism Analytics, leads to a similar cadence of broadening the appeal of Workday's other solutions.
Tough comps ahead
Workday's guidance for fiscal third-quarter subscription revenue between $783 million and $785 million -- representing 26% year-over-year growth at the high end of this range -- might have sounded conservative to some investors. After all, subscription revenue increased $33.9% year over year in the company's fiscal second quarter.
But investors should keep in mind the tough comparisons Workday is facing.
"So when we bought [Adaptive Insights] in Q3, we disclosed that we had inherited $140 million of Adaptive backlog," explained Workday CFO Robynne Sisco. "And so we got that benefit Q3 of last year, which obviously impacted the bookings number as well. So it's a very tough comp for us starting in Q3 and into Q4."
For the full year, Workday guided for fiscal 2020 subscription revenue between $3.06 billion and $3.07 billion, representing 29% year-over-year growth at the high end of this range.
