Dive Brief:

• Workday announced Thursday it is acquiring Big Data analysis startup Platfora. 
• The cloud HR software pioneer said the buy would help it bring Big Data capabilities to its offerings.
• Platfora specializes in operational analytics and "data discovery" services that can analyze data from a broad range of sources.

Dive Insight:

Mike Frandsen, Workday’s executive vice president of products, support and delivery, said in a blog post that Platfora’s software will enable companies using Workday’s application suite to generate "richer operational metrics."

"Our customers have made it clear that they want to bring more data into Workday," Frandsen said.

Workday, which makes software to manage employee performance, payroll and expense has struggled recently. Last fall, the company’s revenue missed analysts' estimates after reporting a bigger net loss for the third quarter.

Since then, the company has made a renewed effort to pitch its financial management applications, while CEO Aneel Bhusri revamped the company’s sales organization. More recently, Workday has been giving Oracle a run for its money in the software space.