Blog One in a Two-Part Series

So you’re preparing to implement SAP SuccessFactors software – congratulations! You are just a few weeks or months away from realizing the benefits of true digital transformation across your HR department that will make your organization more efficient, effective, and attractive to top talent than ever before.

Digital transformation does require a commitment to doing things differently, and not falling back into old habits (hence the word “transformation”). So, it should come as no surprise that you’ll likely need to approach this implementation differently compared to past deployments of traditional on-premise software. Whereas before, you needed to spend countless hours in meetings defining requirements and customizing software at great expense to align the software with how your business works, now you can simplify this process by adopting leading HR practices.

Using leading practices built into SAP SuccessFactors solutions not only helps ensure that your implementation is fast, successful, and low risk, but also gives you the opportunity to consider and try industry-proven HR processes. These processes can mature your organization and make it more mobile and employee-centric – qualities that millennials look for when evaluating companies looking to hire them. Equally important, by standardizing on a leading practices template, you can swiftly and cost-effectively harmonize processes globally while ensuring local compliance.

So what ARE leading practices? And how are they different from best practices? Let’s take a closer look.

Leading practices versus best practices

Best practices can be defined as the most efficient (i.e., require the least amount of effort) and effective (i.e., deliver the best results) way of accomplishing a task. They are based on repeatable procedures that have proven to be highly effective over time for large numbers of organizations. Ideally, they also provide standard ways of doing things that help organizations stay compliant and add value to the business.

But customers who have successfully adopted SAP SuccessFactors solutions tell us the same thing: Tailor to your business. You don’t have to utilize best practices verbatim. You can and should adjust them to best fit your business. Make sure to account for your internal best practices as well. This is key because sometimes a best practice is not applicable or is inappropriate for a particular organization. Your goal is to balance the unique qualities of your organization with the best practices it has in common with other similar organizations.

The concept of leading practices better fits the reality of SAP SuccessFactors solutions transformation projects because it implies that the company culture, local legal requirements, and the current state of the technology are considered constraints for the organization implementing a leading practice. Leading practices are also considered “leading” only at a particular point in time; they are acknowledged to be continuously developing, and thus so are SAP SuccessFactors solutions.

The benefits of considering leading practices

I know what you’re thinking – My organization is so unique that no standard best practices will work for us. We need to customize everything. Right?

Think again.

In our work with thousands of customers, not only do we have the visibility into what actually works in the real world, but along with our customers, we are defining real-world leading practices that are driving real business results. By considering leading practices with SAP SuccessFactors solutions, you are getting access to tangible, useful, and proven guidance that has been collected over years of helping over two million people become successful.

So considering them is a good idea!

In addition, leading practices are the springboard for your solution design and provide a framework for a cloud-based HR transformation. They allow you to benefit from the countless “lessons learned” by other companies like yours – without the risk, learning curve, and wasted time – and is by far the least expensive way to implement SAP SuccessFactors solutions. We’ve documented a good portion of this knowledge and experience in the Process Library for SAP SuccessFactors solutions and built it into our software as standardized processes that can be configured, if needed, to meet your unique requirements.

Leading practices provide other benefits as well. For example:

• Leading practices accelerate implementations, lower their cost, and reduce risk while making your solution more future proof.
• Rather than wasting time and resources reinventing the wheel, you can simply use one that someone else has already constructed – and with the input of many companies to refine and optimize it far more than your organization could do on its own.
• Even if your SAP SuccessFactors solution does need to be tailored to your needs, you still benefit from learning about the leading practices built into the software so that you understand what standard SAP SuccessFactors solutions can offer you. Reading about leading practices helps you understand why processes were designed as they are – and why you may want to adopt standard SAP SuccessFactors solution processes end-to-end as they are, or with minimal changes. Doing so also helps you see how to use SAP SuccessFactors solutions in a more integrated way to unleash its full potential.
• The more standardized your processes, the more stable your project will be. By definition, these practices are proven and continuously being improved.
• Utilizing leading practices as much as possible frees your organization to dedicate resources to those areas of the process that require more extensive configuration.

Learn more

SAP has always tried to share leading practices to make its customers successful – both through SAP consultants and partners and resources such as the following:

• SAP Best Practices (rapid deployment solutions from SAP), also for SAP SuccessFactors solutions
• The SAP SuccessFactors community
• The SAP Model Company for Human Resources
• The SAP SuccessFactors process library
• Architectural Leading Practices and Implementation Design Principles (here)

The process library for SAP SuccessFactors solutions will be particularly valuable for you as you plan your implementation because it provides an end-to-end, in-depth business view of all processes supported and explains why they were designed as they are and how they can help you transform HR.

I encourage you to explore these valuable resources!

Learn more about leading practices and SAP Model Company for HR in this white paper, “Turning People Strategies into a Catalyst for Change: A Prescriptive, Preconfigured, and Leading-Practice Approach to HR Digitalization.”