Is your company too big or too small for SuccessFactors?
A funny thing happened when I was hosting an HR event a couple of weeks ago. A man came to our booth asking for more information about our services. I told him about our business and explained the benefits and added value of SuccessFactors. SuccessFactors had absolutely no chance within his company, he told me, because they are too big. His organization had defined its own processes which definitely would not comply with a SaaS solution. After lunch, another person joined our booth. This lady was convinced that SuccessFactors was not a valid solution, because her organization was too small. The cost would be too high and she would never have her bosses convinced of the business case.
The challenging checklist for HR professionals
Studies show that HR departments will face many challenges in the coming years. Here is your (not exhaustive!) checklist to get you started.
- Attract and retain employees who contribute to your company’s objectives
- Be a guide in teaching employees how to learn, not just what to learn
- Identify leadership and possible successors based on skills and potential, not only on performance
- Take into account the new way of working of the evolving workforce
- Deal with simplification of work
An application can help you to prepare for these challenges. An IT solution like SuccessFactors can optimize and support your core and talent HR processes, engage your workforce and provide in-depth analytics that serve your HR department, the managers, and the decision makers within your organization.
Now, what about our initial question? Big or small? Let’s focus on the question of cost and flexibility.
Get your money’s worth
It’s true … having a substantial workforce might help you to gain a faster ROI. A SuccessFactors implementation remains an implementation with all the relevant project steps like analysis, built, training, testing, go live, hypercare, project and change management. Although you might be a true believer in HR automation and be convinced that the solution will help you to face the challenges mentioned above, having a wrong balance in cost per employee might not justify an implementation within your organization. But, you should keep in mind that SuccessFactors implementations can benefit from a wide range of best practices, templates, predefined deliverables, end-user documentation, etc., which will hugely influence the overall project cost. A different approach based on proven methodology can also impact the price tag of the entire implementation.Yes to flexibility
It is not correct to say that solutions like SuccessFactors are too rigid and don’t offer any flexibility to large companies that have their own identified processes. Yes, SuccessFactors is highly based on best practices, but this doesn’t mean there is no leeway during the implementation. The current data model allows you to extend and to fully meet your company’s requirements.Take it one step at a time
So in conclusion, there is no yes or no answer, but I am convinced that SuccessFactors can meet the requirements and standards within every organization, taking into account possible budget restrictions. But keep in mind that if every SuccessFactors project has an impact on the entire organization as HR, managers and employees are all users of the new solution. Like the saying goes, take it one step at a time. So if you are an HR believer and you want a state-of-the-art solution, SuccessFactors will definitely help you to achieve your goals.
Inspired for more? Drop me an email, and let’s have a chat!
Author: Johan De Laet. You can connect with Johan on LinkedIn.