ITWire: Workday's Rob Enslin says SailPoint is C1's real rival
Workday President and Chief Commercial Officer Rob Enslin said C1's real rival is SailPoint, ITWire reported from an APJ roundtable. Customers everywhere ask how to stop experimenting with AI, Enslin said, and his own answer starts with agents that already ship.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
Per Workday's analysis, four in five APJ employees struggle with a copy-paste economy. Singapore's government is weighing Sana Self-Service skills. In Australia, a couple of large companies work on Sana Enterprise, a CIO discussion. In Japan, IT and HR split the decision.
- Who's exposed exposure APJ employees Four out of five struggle with a copy-paste economy of unintegrated systems, per Workday's own analysis, claim 15
- Who has to decide decision Singapore government Working out which skills to switch on in the Sana Self-Service Agent; Enslin calls it very advanced, claim 8
- What it limits constraint A couple of large companies In Australia, working with Workday on Sana Enterprise; Enslin calls it more of a CIO discussion, claim 9
- What it limits constraint Japanese companies Less likely to have a dedicated CIO; the decision splits roughly evenly between IT and HR, per Furuichi, claim 11
| Who | How | Kind | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| APJ employees | Four out of five struggle with a copy-paste economy of unintegrated systems, per Workday's own analysis | exposure | 15 |
| Singapore government | Working out which skills to switch on in the Sana Self-Service Agent; Enslin calls it very advanced | decision | 8 |
| A couple of large companies | In Australia, working with Workday on Sana Enterprise; Enslin calls it more of a CIO discussion | constraint | 9 |
| Japanese companies | Less likely to have a dedicated CIO; the decision splits roughly evenly between IT and HR, per Furuichi | constraint | 11 |
What happened
- Enslin runs Workday's sales and decides how new products, including the planned C1.ai acquisition, are taken to market.
- Asked which announcement would deliver the most value, Enslin named three agents: Sana Self-Service, Developer and Deployment.
- Workday's own analysis found four in five APJ employees struggling with a "copy-paste economy" of unintegrated systems, Lombard said.
- A Japanese customer in Workday's early Sana program received a year of free use in return for working closely on use cases.
Why it matters
- What doesn't add up contradiction The competitive pitch concerns a planned acquisition, while the customer question is how to leave pilots. The tools Enslin cited as provable are ones customers can deploy today.
- Who has to decide decision Sales leadership must decide whether one SailPoint framing can travel across markets where the budget holder is a CIO in one place and an IT-HR split in another.
- What it costs cost Process-redesign skills, from Workday and its partners, are a prerequisite to production value, so redesign work is a cost customers carry alongside any licence.
The SailPoint comparison rests on one line: ITWire's headline has Enslin saying that C1's real rival is SailPoint [16]. The report's text does not include his explanation, so we do not know yet whether he meant overlapping products or overlapping buyers. Until Workday spells it out, the comparison is a sales position from the executive who owns go-to-market, and it has not been tested against how customers buy.
The customer question recorded from the same roundtable at Workday Rising 2026 is more immediate [1]. Enslin said customers everywhere are asking the same thing: "How do I stop experimenting?" [5]. ITWire noted that his list of the most valuable agents skips the week's headline launches, Work Intelligence and the autopilot agents, and picks tools that are generally available today and easiest to prove [14]. That is the trade-off in his answer: tools that can show results now, chosen over the launches that got the attention. A planned acquisition is a further step from anything a customer can deploy this quarter, and we would expect the production question to be settled on shipped products first.
John Lombard, Workday's president for Asia Pacific, described what customers want from agents. The customers he has met in his first three months want "really clear use cases and solutions and the ability to deploy these agents within their workplace" [7]. His caution echoed the keynote. "One of the things that's really important is the strong message that you need to redesign your business process," he said [6].
Progress is uneven across the region. Enslin said the Singapore government is "very advanced in their thinking" and is now working out which skills to switch on in the Sana Self-Service Agent [8]. Of the region overall, he said APAC is making progress on AI for HR and finance, but "it is lagging a little bit," and "that's true for Japan as well" [10].
The buying group also changes by market. In Australia, Workday is working with "a couple of large companies" on Sana Enterprise, and Enslin called that "more of a CIO discussion" that often depends on how a company runs its AI across Claude, Copilot and other environments [9]. In Japan, Workday President Chikara Furuichi said companies are less likely to have a dedicated CIO, and the decision on Workday tends to split roughly evenly between IT and HR leaders [11]. Whatever the C1 pitch turns out to be, we would expect Enslin's team to carry it into rooms where the budget holder is a CIO in one country and a split between IT and HR in another.
What to watch
- Whether Workday publishes its reasoning for the SailPoint comparison, and whether product material for C1.ai repeats it.
- What Enslin hears in Tokyo in two weeks from the Japanese customer in the early Sana program.
- Whether Singapore agencies move the Sana Self-Service Agent skills they are choosing into production.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence35
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives70
- Confidence45
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
The Asia Pacific and Japan media roundtable took place at Workday Rising 2026.
- [2]
Rob Enslin is Workday President and Chief Commercial Officer; he joined in December 2024 after stints as CEO of UiPath, president of cloud sales at Google Cloud and about 27 years at SAP.
- [3]
Enslin runs Workday's sales and decides how its new products, including the planned C1.ai acquisition, are taken to market.
- [4]
For immediate value from agents, Enslin named three, in order: the Sana Self-Service Agent, the Developer Agent and the Deployment Agent.
- [5]
Enslin said customers everywhere are asking the same question: "How do I stop experimenting?"
- [6]
Lombard said: "One of the things that's really important is the strong message that you need to redesign your business process."
- [7]
Lombard, Workday President for Asia Pacific, said the customers he has met in his first three months want "really clear use cases and solutions and the ability to deploy these agents within their workplace."
- [8]
Enslin said the Singapore government is "very advanced in their thinking" and is now working out which skills to switch on in the Sana Self-Service Agent.
- [9]
In Australia, Workday is working with "a couple of large companies" on Sana Enterprise, which connects Sana to other business systems; Enslin called that "more of a CIO discussion" that often depends on how a company runs its AI across Claude, Copilot and other environments.
- [10]
Enslin said APAC is making progress on AI for HR and finance, but "it is lagging a little bit," and "that's true for Japan as well."
- [11]
Workday President, Japan, Chikara Furuichi said Japanese companies are less likely than large companies elsewhere to have a dedicated CIO, and the decision on Workday tends to be split roughly evenly between IT and HR leaders.
- [12]
Enslin pointed to a Japanese customer in Workday's early program for Sana, which was given a year of free use in return for working closely with Workday on use cases; he will be in Tokyo in two weeks.
- [13]
Customers need process-redesign skills, both inside Workday and across its partners, to avoid simply adding an agent to an old process.
- [14]
ITWire observed that Enslin's list skips the week's headline launches such as Work Intelligence and the autopilot agents and picks the tools that are generally available today and easiest to prove.
- [15]
Workday's own analysis of employees across the APJ region found that four out of five are struggling with what Lombard called the "copy-paste economy", copying information from one system to another because their systems are not integrated.
- [16]
ITWire's headline reports that Workday's Rob Enslin says C1's real rival is SailPoint.
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