This article appears in the Winter 2019 issue of Silicon Slopes Magazine.
By Alex Shootman, CEO, Workfront.
Workfront proudly calls Silicon Slopes home. From our vantage point at Thanksgiving Park, it seems like every month there’s a new building under construction. Business is booming. It’s an exciting time to be building a company.
Of course, as anyone who’s made the crowded commute from Thanksgiving Park knows, with new growth comes new pressures.
These pressures are nowhere more apparent than in companies undergoing digital transformation. We’re all wrestling with global competition, near infinite product and service choices, speed as the new competitive currency, and an unprecedented rate of technological change that includes an overwhelming array of vendors, platforms, and solutions. As I work with executives from around the world, these challenges come up again and again. Companies are facing a digital work crisis, and those that master modern work will be poised to lead and thrive.
Workfront’s mission is to help people do their best work so companies can thrive in a digital world. 2018 has been another record year for us, as we’ve grown to support nearly 4,000 companies around the world as they lead the digital revolution. Workfront’s modern work management platform helps people, teams, and companies orchestrate and accelerate all their work, making them not only more efficient, but more effective.
And the Workfront team is constantly innovating ways to make people and companies work better. This year, we’ve released a new product called Workfront Fusion, which seamlessly connects more than 150 applications — such as Salesforce, SAP, Jira, Slack, and Workday — to the Workfront platform, so companies can make work the center of their enterprise. With Fusion everything is in sync, enabling executives to instantly see how work is progressing in each department across the enterprise and across all their unique applications. The best part is that these integrations are code-free, which helps teams move quickly to solve business problems without the need for big software development projects. The response from our client base has been amazing and Fusion is just the beginning — we have several new products slated for 2019.
We’ve also just published a book, Done Right, sharing the work management knowledge we’ve gained helping thousands of companies address digital work challenges head-on. In addition, we’re working with the University of Utah to create a business leadership course based on Done Right. The course and the book outline clear, actionable steps leaders can take to not only navigate the digital work crisis but to help their companies thrive. Those who take the course and read the book will walk away with the know-how and confidence they need to provide exceptional value wherever they work and to build a leadership-oriented career for themselves.
What’s most exciting for our team is seeing our customers leverage Workfront as the backbone of their work companywide. In the same way companies think of Salesforce as their system of record for customers, Workday as a human capital system of record, or SAP as a financial system of record, Workfront is now becoming the operational system of record for work. With the Workfront work management platform enterprises automate their workflows, integrate their tech stack, and facilitate digital collaboration — all in a single, scalable system.
Even with our growth, Workfront remains a company built on values. In 2018, our team doubled down on the qualities that make this a great place to work. For example, we partnered with the Utah Youth Village to raise money and awareness for foster kids in our community. We joined with One Refugee to give career counseling and advice to refugees in Utah. We were also featured in USA Today as one of the nation’s top workplaces for women, a cause that is particularly important to me.
As we wrap up 2018, things are looking bright. We continue to grow and thrive here on Silicon Slopes, with nearly 1,000 members of our global team serving nearly 4,000 customers around the world. And we have big goals for 2019 as we continue our mission to help people do their best work. Here’s to a fantastic new year for every member of Silicon Slopes.
