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Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

SuccessFactors latest release bets on analytics, social, mobile

By | March 16, 2011, 9:00am PDT

Summary: SuccessFactors’ March release integrates recently acquired technologies, aims to bring analytics to the average employee and weave in social and mobile capabilities.

SuccessFactors’ March release integrates recently acquired technologies, aims to bring analytics to the average employee and weave in social and mobile capabilities.

The on-demand software provider, which specializes in human capital management and business execution, weaves in the acquisition of YouCalc for analytics. The latest SuccessFactors release puts analytics in a separate tab.

“We want to bring tools to regular end users,” said Brad Mattick, senior director of product marketing at SuccessFactors. “The promise is that you can provide insight and metrics directly in the application.”

The most obvious example of the YouCalc technology is SuccessFactors compensation workbench. When manager wrap up performance reviews, merit raises typically go out. SuccessFactors now provides analytics to give managers some idea of what raises should be in the context of the company’s curve.

Other items for SuccessFactors includes smart groups and other social networking features. I noted that most SaaS offerings now have some social component. Mattick said that SuccessFactors is hoping that integrated groups and auto-populated profiles—the company’s software is connected to the HR hierarchy inside companies—will set it apart. “We think there will be multiple social tools that will be interoperable,” said Mattick.

He added that SuccessFactors plugs into SharePoint and email systems and that’s where most enterprise collaboration content resides today.

On the mobile front, SuccessFactors is integrating corporate directories, conversations and push notifications with smartphones.

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Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

Disclosure

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

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