The future of work is no longer a distant concept but a reality unfolding today. This was the key message at Workday Horizon South Africa, where business leaders, technology experts and industry professionals gathered to explore how artificial intelligence, data and human potential can be combined to create more agile, productive and resilient organisations.
Held in Johannesburg, Workday Horizon brought together customers, partners and business leaders to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence and enterprise technology.
Opening the event, Kiv Moodley, country managing director of Workday South Africa, reflected on the company's growth journey and its expanding presence across Africa.
“Eight years of building new skills, new careers and giving our customers a powerful platform for growth,” he said.
Kiv announced that Workday’s success in emerging markets had resulted in the creation of a new regional cluster covering the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.
Looking ahead, he emphasised the importance of embedding AI into everyday business operations rather than treating it as an add-on technology.
“The theme of Horizon is really about a new Workday. A new Workday for us is AI-driven, AI embedded seamlessly into the flow of work, how we make decisions, how we lead our people and how we run our businesses every single day.”
Kiv noted that many organisations continue to struggle with poor data quality and inefficient processes, limiting their ability to realise value from AI investments.
“Most organisations today still have bad data and bad processes, and we take AI on top of it, hoping for the magic,” he said.
He highlighted what Workday describes as the “copy-and-paste economy”, where employees spend significant amounts of time moving information between multiple systems. According to research shared at the event, one in five employees loses up to seven hours a week due to inefficient workflows.
Kiv also pointed to research conducted by Henley Business School, which found that many organisations are using AI to optimise existing processes rather than fundamentally rethinking how they create value.
“AI alone won’t fix South Africa’s productivity problem, but leadership can,” he said.
Adaptability in an era of disruption
Renowned speaker and author Mushambi Mutuma then challenged attendees to rethink their relationship with change, arguing that adaptability has become a critical leadership skill.
“Human brains are designed for predictability and recurrence. Your brain does not want change because it’s essentially an active defiance against your operating system,” he said.
Using examples from everyday life, Mushambi explained how people naturally gravitate towards familiar routines, even when better alternatives exist.
“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less,” he said, quoting retired US Army General Eric Shinseki.
Drawing lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, Mushambi encouraged delegates to continuously reinvent themselves and their organisations.
“I want you to recode your own DNA. It’s one thing to come to a conference like this, but it’s a waste of time if you go home exactly the same person you’ve always been.”
He urged attendees to adopt what he called a “micro CEO DNA”, a mindset centred on ownership, accountability and leadership regardless of job title.
“Even if you’re not the CEO, how do you think and behave with a CEO mindset?” he asked.
Bringing intelligence into enterprise operations
The event continued with a keynote presentation by Jens Lohmar, chief technology officer for Europe Product and Technology at Workday, who explored how AI is transforming enterprise software.
“The current time is really a special one. Previously, when we came from on-premise to the cloud, there was already a big shift. But now, getting to the AI era is really something fundamental,” he said.
Jens argued that while large language models have demonstrated remarkable capabilities, meaningful enterprise AI requires much more than simply connecting AI tools to company data.
“We need to know how your organisation works,” he said and then explained that Workday’s approach combines AI with an organisation’s existing business processes, governance frameworks and security controls to ensure AI-driven decisions remain compliant and trustworthy.
“If you just put agents on top of data or your enterprise, most probably there’s going to be a lot of chaos,” he said.
Jens illustrated this with examples showing how AI-driven hiring decisions could overlook critical requirements such as background checks, approval processes and local labour regulations if not guided by established organisational policies.
Instead, he said Workday’s vision is centred on what the company calls “super intelligence for work”.
“It treats work as a connected system of people, information, tools and processes rather than a set of isolated tasks.”
He also highlighted Workday’s AI assistant, Sana, which is designed to connect information across multiple applications and help employees find information, automate tasks and support decision-making from a single interface.
Demonstrations during the event showcased how AI could simplify employee onboarding, automate approvals, recommend equipment and coordinate meetings while remaining aligned with organisational policies and governance requirements.
Jens noted that Workday continues to expand its ecosystem and platform capabilities to help organisations build custom applications, integrations and AI-powered solutions.
“The combination of trusted data, governance and AI is what allows organisations to create meaningful value and operate with confidence,” he said.
