Yesterday, I heard from a colleague that a partner wants to create multiple instances of SuccessFactors solutions for a customer who has groups that follow different versions of the same process in their organization. I recommend against that in general. One of the advantages of cloud solutions is that they nudge groups inside organizations to combine and simplify their processes. It is not easy to change people's behavior. But it is worth trying. Moving existing processes to the cloud, without examining why they exist is not a good idea. Creating multiple instances of the cloud software to accommodate stubborn internal groups who won't change their processes may be worse.
I used to work in the business process outsourcing industry a decade ago. The BPO industry did what was called a 'lift and shift' of processes, including the bad ones, without questioning them or attempting to simplifying them. This approach did not save any money for customers or make any money for the BPO providers. Many HR BPO providers went out of business.
SuccessFactors and many other human capital management advisory firms provide business execution workshop services to customers who need to examine their human resources processes and simplify them. Please use them and simplify your business processes first and go with a single instance of the cloud software for your business.
