Photo in action during one of my self-service sessions in Nice, France during HR2014 Europe.
After my “spring conference tour” (HR2014 in Orlando, Mastering SAP & Payroll in Johannesburg, HR2014 in Nice, and SAPPHIRE/ASUG 2014), I have listed five key takeaways from my interactions with customers.
Customers are still struggling with the basics. Topics such as security/authorizations, reporting, organizational updates, portals, authentication, mobile enablement continue to plague customers. Throughout this exciting time of HR systems innovation, we often overlook that ‘business keeps happening’ (i.e., organizations are dynamic, employees need to get paid – and paid correctly). As consultants, we need to remember that we can’t mess up the basics as we are looking at the “new and shiny”.
There is significant interest from the SAP install base in HR Renewal and other ways to refresh the overall user experience for employees, managers, and HR Professionals. The update of the current portal interface using SAPUI5 (SAP’s take on HTML5) is a popular topic on the ground. Furthermore, and specific to HR Renewal (and other SAPUI5 services), knowing now that we can couple SAP Netweaver Gateway and SAP ECC provides customers with an even a lower TCO.
Hybrid (core HR on premise, full/partial talent in the cloud) will be commonplace for companies in the next 5-7 years. After talking with many organizations, the reality of integrations and their complications are here to stay. Integration strategy and middleware choice is increasingly important for customers running SAP HCM.
The “fury” over Fiori has been laid to rest. SAP Fiori is now included as part of the standard SAP maintenance fee for customers. It’s a pity that SAP customers had to fight for this like they did, but it does give some comfort in knowing that the user community is a force to be reckoned with when they believe something is unjust. The UI merging of HR Renewal, SAP Fiori, and SuccessFactors will seem to be a top priority. The vision of (since-departed) Vishal Sikka of a unified HTM5 UI may not be as farfetched as I originally thought.
HANA is still a nebulous term for customers (no pun intended), but some are starting to understand that it’s not just a database anymore. More and more professionals are starting to understand the importance of PaaS (Platform as a Service), and the capabilities of the SAP HANA Cloud Platform. As partners, many in the SAP eco-system look forward to the day when the HANA Marketplace will be as robust as AppExchange.
Feel free to comment below if you would like to add.
Yesterday, SAPInsider hosted a Q&A on SAP and SuccessFactors Compensation Management. You can view the full transcript here. It is always challenging and fun to do these live Q&A blogs because when you are in the “hot seat”, you need to think (and type!) fast. Because we only had less than two weeks of marketing for this online event, I was skeptical on the amount of attendees who would show up, but the turnout was a lot higher than I thought. I did see a ton of questions flood in but was only able to answer an hour’s worth.
Some takeaways from my chat were the following:
Customers are still confused about the longevity of SAP ECM (Enterprise Compensation Management). I had to (again) reinforce that SAP will not be stopping support of this module. In fact, there is a program called “Customer Connection” which SAP exclusively has for listening to the user community for minor enhancements to the product.
SAP is currently building an integration between SAP HCM On premise and the SuccessFactor’s Variable Pay module. One of SAP’s Product Managers for Compensation/Variable Pay, Deeksha Mittal, was nice enough to join me in on the conversation to articulate some high level timelines for this. She mentioned: “we are working towards an integration between Variable Pay and SAP HCM as well and is definitely on the roadmap for 2014. By the end of 2014 (your next planning cycles) you should be able to take advantage of the integration between Variable Pay and SAP HCM.”
Regardless of using on premise or cloud compensation, customers’ pain points are focused in similar areas, such as: data integrity, process efficiencies (workflow/approvals), and integration with payout process (payroll and/or data extract to equity 3rd party administrator). It doesn’t matter where you deliver your compensation – these themes follow us regardless of platform.
As in other modules, customers who have implemented on premise solutions are trying to understand how extensible SuccessFactors Compensation/Variable Pay is. I briefly mentioned the introduction of the MDF (Meta Data Framework) as well as SAP HANA Cloud Platform as ways that SAP/SuccessFactors are opening up the platform. Will cloud compensation ever be fully customizable? No, but these tools can be evaluated by the customer to see if their processes’ complex and/or unique logic can be incorporated into SuccessFactors’ technology.
Some mention was made with respect to future modeling capabilities coming in SuccessFactors. Deeksha Mittal mentioned: “At present, the SuccessFactors Compensation & Variable Pay modules provide flexible ways for defining budgets. We are definitely looking at more advanced modeling features that will help HR to develop more effective comp and bonus plans that are in-line with the company’s financial and HR goals.”
I think it would be beneficial to do another compensation session later in the year since there was so much interested. I will talk to SAPInsider about that.
Over the past 5 weeks, several industry colleagues and I have traveled in the US (Las Vegas and Orlando) and Europe (Copenhagen) meeting with over 50 customers from over 20 countries for a seminar on SuccessFactors’ Talent Management.
The below list is in no particular order but reflects some important themes, questions, and comments:
Integration is still a main concern. Integration has always been central to SAP’s value proposition. The recent focus on cloud cannot derail this. I was fortunate to spend these sessions with fellow speakers from SAP. From the messaging and interactions with them, I can confirm that SAP / SuccessFactors is committed to continued investment in integration (they term them “iFlows”). This is a very good thing for customers, to ease the transition for using cloud technologies where practical. Prashanth Padmanabhan, SAP’s Senior Director, has written a recent blog on the topics for talent hybrid and full cloud integrations. Revisiting my list of concerns from nearly two years ago,many of these items are being addressed. (That blog post alone has gathered over 3,000 unique page views since June 2012).
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) will be the differentiator. Like other functional areas, the HANA Cloud Platform will be a critical piece for HCM to make the suite competitive in a very competitive cloud space (Workday, Oracle Fusion, Infor). The HANA Cloud Development environment is key to SAP’s eco-system. Worklogix is actively developing applications and excited about the opportunities here with the future HANA marketplace (think Apple’s App Store but for SAP).
In my opnion, HANA (as a database) is a distraction to HCM customers. Yes, SuccessFactors would like to dump its Oracle databases (and soon will), but we need to focus on the platform HANA so that customers and partners can develop apps on. This has been articulated by Vishal and Hasso as well, but hasn’t reached most customers yet. My hope is that this eco-system ramps up like salesforce.com has done.
Speaker Team in Las Vegas and Orlando
Can we crack the User Experience nut? Most hybrid customers have two (if not three or four) portals by the time they implement SuccessFactors. How will we truly make the user experience seamless? This is an area I have a lot passion in, as I have worked with employee, manager and HR self service since 1998 when I was a wee lad at Price Waterhouse. We cannot be in the business of building and supporting “Frankenstein” portals (my term). However, the reality is that we need to support customers with their own internal realities. (For example, many customers will have to make sense of how their intranet, SharePoint, NetWeaver, and SuccessFactors sites/portals all come together). This isn’t new but is becoming a pervasive issue as we venture into hybrid customers adding SuccessFactors into the mix. Putting simple (and single) sign on aside, we still need to team together to figure out how this all will be transparent to the end user.
Access control (security authorizations) is a major pain point for hybrid customers. Since authorizations won’t (and can’t) magically port over from SAP to SuccessFactors (or vice versa), we need to put this at the top of our list during design sessions. Especially with customers using complex structural authorizations (including context-sensitive structural authorizations). This will be – GULP – a big area for SIs and customers to work out together.
Mobility, mobility, mobility! Should I say it again: mobility! I don’t need to mention how important this area is for SAP HCM / SuccessFactors in order to keep up with customer demand as well as the competition’s offerings. How to offer one customer-facing (i.e., employee-facing) mobile app (or apps?) will be a challenge, and will be huge over the next 5 years. If/when SuccessFactors will go device-agnostic (e.g., HTML5) is to be determined. (Secondary question: how does SAP Fiori come into play here – if it even does?). Mobility is another passion of mine, and one that I will speak on during next year’s HR2014 conference. Here are the session details.
Speaker Team in Copenhagen
Proxy functionality needs to be killer. In fact, I will call proxy (or delegation) management the third (or fourth?) killer app (this is self-proclaimed, but where can I copyright this???). SuccessFactors has done a nice job with proxy management. You can both manage proxy assignments, as well as use the proxy functionality easily within the tool. Compared to SAP HCM functionality, customers will be enthused. On premise SAP HCM has always struggled with transactional and approval authorization (in part why Worklogix built the Proxy Manager product).
Social collaboration is great, but its benefits are not yet well understood. SAP Jam is a great tool (we use it internally, during our SuccessFactors trainings, as well as to share knowledge within the SAP/ SuccessFactors eco-system), but many customers don’t understand its context in the (corporate) world. They ask: “Why do I need a LinkedIn / Facebook for the enterprise if I have access to LinkedIn and Facebook?” We need to evangelize on the importance and power of team collaboration, especially with video at our disposal. (Can you imagine what the internet would be without YouTube, Vimeo, SlideShare, MOOCs, Khan Academy?). SAP has a huge asset with Sameer Patel who I think is doing a great job in this area. You should follow him on Twitter you are not already: @SameerPatel
Being clear with messaging around on premise and cloud innovation will be important for SAP/SuccessFactors. We need to be clear with customers that there is HCM innovation happening in both SAP’s on premise (e.g., SAP Fiori and HR Renewal) and cloud offerings (SuccessFactors, HCP, Jam). This is a good thing for customers, as they move to cloud at their own pace but are still looking for continuous improvement with their current HRIS investment. We know where massive innovation is happening, but we do need to remember that some customers will either never have an option to go to the cloud, or won’t have the opportunity to get there sooner than they wish.
I want to thank SAPInsider for supporting my idea back in February 2013 for this SuccessFactors seminar. It was a huge success and, as always, the events in all three cities were interactive, engaging, and educational for all involved.
