Here is a two part video discussion with Tom Fisher, VP of Cloud Computing and David Karel, VP of Product Marketing at SuccessFactors I recorded at their SuccessConnect Conference.
Successfactors, as I wrote earlier this week, provide an Integrated talent performance management software as a service offering that aims to optimize workforces of all sizes and bridge the gap between strategy and execution.
According to SuccessFactors:
• 95% of employees don’t understand the strategy of the organization for which they work
• 50% of the average employee’s time is spent in non productive work
• 70% of your operating expenses are your workforce
• 84% of companies say they are not using their workforce to its full potential
• 86% of the workforce is disengaged
• 71% of employees say that when they do a good job their performance is not rewarded
Their solution, as illustrated in this graphic, is a complete human capital management package that gives companies much greater depth into their most underrated and expensive asset: their people.
I’m particularly interested in SuccessFactors as I believe senior management can gain much clearer views into grass roots adoption of collaboration and enterprise 2.0 initiatives with SuccessFactors dashboard approach.
Tom Fisher is a recent hire and as former EBay CTO knows a few things about cloud scale and integration - it was Tom who rebuilt EBay’s entire back end after the dot com bust and set up a third party developer community which now boasts over twenty five thousand participants.
SuccessFactors, built from day one as a cloud solution, can pull data from disparate legacy applications api’s, run it through their powerful business analytics and aggregate it in an attractive contextual user interface. Obviously data can be entered directly into SuccessFactors modules, or ingested from systems to be discontinued.
Their interfaces are admirably attractive, consistent user experiences and feature many ajaxy sliders and tactile devices - they even have a merit badge system employees can award each other.
RESTful api’s are coming soon and will enable a broader mashup around their core human resources centered data, SOAP is the current web services protocol. IBM are a key partner currently with bridges into their collaboration offerings.
We discuss the above, the Siemens global deal, won after rigorous processes and scrutiny, and their new employee central system of record module aimed at small and medium sized business.
One of the boat anchors that prevent process change in companies are archaic legacy HR systems - there are huge economies of scale and flexibility enabled by the SuccessFactors cloud approach. Coupled with effective collaboration strategy and tactics there are clear signs huge competitive advantage can be gained through lessening the percentage values in the bullet pointed list above.
