Innovation has been at the heart of On’s story since its inception in the Swiss Alps in 2010. Its initial mission was to reimagine the sensation of running with its breakthrough CloudTech cushioning technology. Having diversified into apparel and accessories, today On is growing globally and scaling its team.
As Julie Muggli, head of Talent Operations, Technology, and Analytics, comments, “For us the challenge now is to ensure we have a scalable system, based on technology that grows with us.”
Investing in the Workday “powerhouse” to maximize growth.
This growth priority is at the heart of the company’s technology strategy, which Muggli defines as “ensuring we offer support across the talent journey. We want to ensure that it’s a holistic experience that’s really thoughtful about the user—not approaching it via a tool lens, but rather based on what the stakeholders really want and need.”
On’s growth has been based on Workday from the time the company had fewer than 800 employees. As Muggli explains, “We wanted to invest in the ‘Ferrari’ early on, as we knew we would soon need that powerhouse behind us. We were able to lean on this strong foundation early on and could be quite agile in considering how we design processes within Workday.”
You can trust the data behind Workday and imagine the system to meet stakeholder needs—a perfect balance between structure and innovation.
Julie Muggli, Head of Talent Operations, Technology, and Analytics
The single tool for everything to do with data.
On’s Head of HR Technology Andreas Hoeber emphasizes that the core Workday system has long delivered a source of truth for everybody connected with the business. “Importantly, we’ve been able to connect Workday to any single tool within the organization for a seamless dataflow,” Hoeber says. “Workday also helped us create a very robust data framework in the back of the system, ensuring that data quality is high, making Workday the single tool that we rely on for anything around data.”
Hoeber believes that On’s early investment in Workday is the reason that it’s the main system the company uses today. “It meant we didn’t have any legacy systems or processes that we had to move into Workday, apart from shifting the compensation cycle away from an old-fashioned, spreadsheet-based approach,” Hoeber says. “We could really design everything we had around Workday and make sure everything was seamless. It’s worked really well.”
Hoeber has been most impressed by the modular approach Workday takes in helping On build its system. “You start small, maybe when you first launch Workday, and then you can really build your roadmap,” Hoeber says. “It’s helped us scale very, very fast, providing a great base for the future with more automation and integration, and a great reduction in manual efforts around the organization.”
Demonstrating the power of data-driven decisions.
Following the initial launch and early scaling up of Workday, On has recently added other modules—starting with Workday Prism Analytics for the secure and intentional distribution of key data-driven business insights to anybody within the organization.
As Muggli explains, “With Workday Prism Analytics we can now show the power of how a data-informed decision can be made. For example, we have designed some organizational principles around how we want to grow as a company.
“To do that, we first identified some metrics that we would want to share with leaders,” Muggli continues. “And, thanks to our investment in Workday Prism Analytics, within a week we could turn around something that managers could really relate to. It meant they really had data at their fingertips when needing to make key decisions around how to design their teams.”
We could really design everything around Workday and ensure that it works seamlessly, both within the system and with other systems.
Andreas Hoeber, Head of HR Technology
Creating custom apps to simplify processes.
On next deployed Workday Extend so the company could easily develop its own custom apps that use the same core interface, components, and security module.
According to Hoeber, “We initially had a very clear idea in mind for Workday Extend—to create an app that makes it far easier for managers to onboard contingent workers. Since then we’ve focused on different use cases, with particular attention on the user experience.
“As a result, with its customization features, Workday Extend has really helped us to simplify a couple of processes that took too long or were heavy on the number of clicks involved,” Hoeber continues. “We’ve had really good feedback from team members who we have helped by simplifying and supporting their work.”
Muggli, too, has had a good experience with Workday Extend. “I love how it allows a bit more creativity to design certain aspects of the system to be even more visible from an On perspective,” Muggli says. “Workday really speaks for itself. It’s this perfect balance between structure and innovation, supporting our stakeholders and how we do things at On.”