HR 2013 Singapore: Key Takeways

It was my first attendance to the prestigious conference conducted by SAP Insider and SAP. I was thoroughly excited to not only attend and learn the various solutions, ideas, trends, strategies of SAP and SuccessFactors but also had an opportunity to speak on my thought paper “Your next global HR project just got easier: Guidelines and considerations for leveraging a global SAP ERP HCM template”.

I had a very fruitful experience and there were many takeaways for me. I would like to highlight some of the key takeaways for the benefit of all who could not attend the conference.

1. SAP plans to keep investing in SAP ERP HCM core on-premise through HR Renewal. The main focus is on providing a consumer-grade user experience e.g. Navigation, look and feel, social concept integration, etc. HR Renewal has been delivered in four main shipments till date and the journey will continue.
2. In the Talent space, SAP is promoting the SuccessFactors talent solutions and has a “Cloud First” strategy. Successfactors has a comprehensive portfolio of best of breed solutions as part of their BizX suite.
3. The focus area from last 1 year has been on integrating the SAP and SuccessFactors solutions. Data integrations are already delivered and they are concentrating on the end to end process integrations and seamless user experience. Process integrations for Recruitment, Compensation, etc. are already delivered and many more e.g.  Learning, etc. are in the pipeline.
4. The hybrid model with SAP On premise as core and SuccessFactors as Talent solutions leverages customers’ SAP HCM existing investments by profiting from SuccessFactors’ market-leading talent management solutions.

With Successfactors in its fold, SAP has now the capability to offer multiple scenarios to its customers who are planning to transition to the cloud world. SAP and SuccessFactors are thus enabling the journey to the cloud based on the customer current investments and requirements and at their own pace.