5 things I want to know about SuccessFactors and Talent Management at HR2012
I’ll get right to it: there are five things that I want to know about SuccessFactors and Talent Management and I’m hoping to get some answers at HR2012.
- SuccessFactors is not configurable (other than fonts and colours), so what plans do SAP and SuccessFactors have to enhance the solution to meet the demands of customer’s Talent Management needs?
- SuccessFactors claim to have an SAP integration package – does this mean that SuccessFactors and SAP will be integrated soon, or is there still a lot of work?
- Since there is little to no consultancy required for a SuccessFactors implementation, how do SAP plan to provide an “incentive” for consultancies to recommend implementing SuccessFactors to clients?
- If a majority of clients stay with on-premise in the long-term, will SAP still only produce “selected innovations” or would they be willing to change their strategy?
- Will SuccessFactors be license-free for existing SAP HCM customers, or will they have to pay a license fee to use it?
Let’s see how many answers I get this week 🙂
Good luck as something tells me you are not going to get deep insights at the HR2012 conference as it is still to early and SAP is gearing up all their messaging for Sapphire in May. That said let me take a first stab at answering.
1. My guess is you will find SuccessFactors in certain modules of their BizX suite is more "configurable" than you have described but it is not possible to do "development". What is configurable vs development is a key distinction especially given all the options that the SAP OnPremise software offers.
2. In a briefing call I had on Friday SAP said that integration is their #1 priority and expect to hear a lot more information by Sapphire. My guess is two way API's will be delivered and it would surprise me if RDS was in the mix as well.
3. SAP sells software and SAP sales sells software so while in a perfect world they would like to make everyone happy the SI's are well down the list. This is shown by the push towards RDS as well as the SI should realize the opportunity for consulting on cloud project is not the "gravy train" big onPremise projects have been 🙂
4. Yes as not enough new customers will chose onPremise for SAP to change their strategy plus "selected innovations" is pretty vague/broad anyways. Expect very little
5. Off Course as they have a 3.5B bill to pay.
Let hope this comment saves on the new SCN 🙂
Hi Jarret,
Thanks for the answers. So far this doesn't bode so well and SAP could make a mistake by "turning their back" on on-premise, as somebody said to me recently. I hope to be surprised, but I can't help but thinking that once the hype has passed that SuccessFactors won't be the "game changer" that people say it is. Of course, I can and probably will be wrong, but time will tell 🙂
Best regards,
Luke
Nothing surprises me with what SAP does, after their decision to dump WDJ & migrate ESS/MSS over to WDA. No Complaints on that though,as I prefer WDA.
Good Luck,
~Suresh