With the recession eroding travel budgets, the traditional trade show is in trouble. The trend started five years ago, as the expense of events caused cost-conscious managers to eliminate attendees from their companies who didn’t have a well-defined reason for attending shows. In the last two years, even tighter purse-strings have tamped down attendance even further — and as the events’ attendees dwindle, the number of exhibitors also begins to fall, precipitating a vicious death spiral that has already claimed a number of big-name events.
Of course, the need to meet, learn and engage with others in the same industry still exists. Stepping in to fill that void are companies like Unisfair that provide services to create and host virtual events. Arslaner understands the various aspects of trade events, from the information gathering at booths to the lead-hunting by sales reps; he was vice president of product strategy at Kana Software and held a management role at PeopleSoft before coming to Jamcracker as vice president of marketing. Now, in a similar role at Unisfair, a full-service provider of virtual events, he’s working to show that a virtual show has the same virtues for everyone involved — including sales staff — as a real-world event.
Arslaner talked to Inside CRM about virtual events’ adoption, what they mean for sales reps, and how far a sale can progress in virtual space.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Siemens Announces OpenScape Voice V4
Siemens Enterprise Communications Announces OpenScape Voice V4 with OpenScape Branch for Seamless Voice Across Branch Offices -- Latest version of standards-based voice offering also includes OpenScape Concierge, the industry's first UC-enabled attendant console application
Boca Raton, Fla., February 3, 2010 -- Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group), a premier provider of enterprise Relevant Products/Services communications Relevant Products/Services solutions, today announced the availability of OpenScape Voice V4, the next release of SEN Group's award-winning software-based voice solution. The new version features OpenScape Branch and OpenScape Concierge, two capabilities designed to provide new flexible deployment Relevant Products/Services options and improve the customer Relevant Products/Services experience. The complete unified voice solution is designed to lower the total cost of ownership and increase efficiencies across the enterprise by leveraging its data Relevant Products/Services center approach to ease administration and increase scalability.
OpenScape Branch helps deliver scalable, feature-rich communications for cost-conscious customers with multiple branch offices. It allows customers to streamline business communications by extending seamless voice services across all company offices with a SIP Proxy for survivability and a Session Border Controller (SBC) for local SIP trunking connections. It provides for management integration Relevant Products/Services on a common portal for faster and easier installation and integration, and can help reduce audio conferencing costs, call charges and power Relevant Products/Services consumption.
OpenScape Concierge is the industry's first true unified communications (UC) Attendant Console application Relevant Products/Services. OpenScape Concierge extends the benefits of UC beyond desktop users to also support telephone attendants, such as switchboard operators, with real-time UC-based presence status information for contacts across both OpenScape Voice and HiPath 4000 systems. It also supports call queue and corporate directory integration, allowing telephone attendants to more easily direct incoming calls to anyone in the organization.
"Customers such as those in the financial and retail verticals, with multiple branch offices, are looking for ways to upgrade legacy systems to enterprise class, open, IP-based software solutions to improve business processes and stay competitive in the marketplace," said Eve Aretakis, executive vice president of voice and application platforms. "And as enterprises also work within limited budgets, a data center approach like the one offered with OpenScape makes perfect sense. As an open, pure IP solution, it protects the customer's existing investments by overlaying onto existing architecture. It not only takes advantage of industry standards such as SIP and SOA to provide the most innovative voice solutions in the market today, but with almost one million users world-wide, it has been field proven in real customer deployments."
Boca Raton, Fla., February 3, 2010 -- Siemens Enterprise Communications Group (SEN Group), a premier provider of enterprise Relevant Products/Services communications Relevant Products/Services solutions, today announced the availability of OpenScape Voice V4, the next release of SEN Group's award-winning software-based voice solution. The new version features OpenScape Branch and OpenScape Concierge, two capabilities designed to provide new flexible deployment Relevant Products/Services options and improve the customer Relevant Products/Services experience. The complete unified voice solution is designed to lower the total cost of ownership and increase efficiencies across the enterprise by leveraging its data Relevant Products/Services center approach to ease administration and increase scalability.
OpenScape Branch helps deliver scalable, feature-rich communications for cost-conscious customers with multiple branch offices. It allows customers to streamline business communications by extending seamless voice services across all company offices with a SIP Proxy for survivability and a Session Border Controller (SBC) for local SIP trunking connections. It provides for management integration Relevant Products/Services on a common portal for faster and easier installation and integration, and can help reduce audio conferencing costs, call charges and power Relevant Products/Services consumption.
OpenScape Concierge is the industry's first true unified communications (UC) Attendant Console application Relevant Products/Services. OpenScape Concierge extends the benefits of UC beyond desktop users to also support telephone attendants, such as switchboard operators, with real-time UC-based presence status information for contacts across both OpenScape Voice and HiPath 4000 systems. It also supports call queue and corporate directory integration, allowing telephone attendants to more easily direct incoming calls to anyone in the organization.
"Customers such as those in the financial and retail verticals, with multiple branch offices, are looking for ways to upgrade legacy systems to enterprise class, open, IP-based software solutions to improve business processes and stay competitive in the marketplace," said Eve Aretakis, executive vice president of voice and application platforms. "And as enterprises also work within limited budgets, a data center approach like the one offered with OpenScape makes perfect sense. As an open, pure IP solution, it protects the customer's existing investments by overlaying onto existing architecture. It not only takes advantage of industry standards such as SIP and SOA to provide the most innovative voice solutions in the market today, but with almost one million users world-wide, it has been field proven in real customer deployments."
Noble Systems Shows Expanded Market Position
Noble Systems on Track to Double Revenue in Five-Year Span -- Contact center solution provider's growth driven by innovation, acquisitions
Atlanta, GA, February 4, 2010 -- Noble Systems Corporation, a global leader in innovative contact center technology solutions, today announced a projected 2010 revenue total marking a 100 percent increase over 2006 levels. The landmark five-year period points to the company's continued financial stability and expanding market position.
"Our success in recent years has paced the industry and positioned Noble as a true market leader," says Chris Hodges, Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at Noble Systems. "Noble's focus on customer Relevant Products/Services-specific solutions has earned long-term relationships with SMB Relevant Products/Services and enterprise Relevant Products/Services customers. At the same time, our investment in technological innovation such as SIPhony, Noble's newest generation SIP platform, has acted as a catalyst for growth."
The announcement comes at a time when analysts and experts look to the contact center industry as a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economic landscape. Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan says United States contact center revenue could exceed $29 billion by 2014 while the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts the customer service Relevant Products/Services representative sector will account for the third-highest number of jobs in the country by 2018.
While the revenue statistic reflects Noble's robust financial growth, the company has also recorded significant gains in market share through organic expansion and the recent acquisition of assets and intellectual property from former competitors Touchstar and TDI/Teledirect.
About Noble Systems
Noble Systems Corporation (NSC) is a global leader in contact center technology solutions, providing innovative products since 1989. Every day, millions of customer contacts are made by agents at 4,000+ client installations worldwide using the award-winning Noble platform for inbound/outbound/blended communications Relevant Products/Services. The scalable, integrated Noble Solution includes advanced ACD and predictive dialing; unified contact processing; and integrated IVR, recording, messaging, quality/monitoring systems, scripting, and real-time reporting and management tools. Based in Atlanta, GA, Noble Systems was the first vendor to offer an open, scalable, fully-distributed platform.
Atlanta, GA, February 4, 2010 -- Noble Systems Corporation, a global leader in innovative contact center technology solutions, today announced a projected 2010 revenue total marking a 100 percent increase over 2006 levels. The landmark five-year period points to the company's continued financial stability and expanding market position.
"Our success in recent years has paced the industry and positioned Noble as a true market leader," says Chris Hodges, Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at Noble Systems. "Noble's focus on customer Relevant Products/Services-specific solutions has earned long-term relationships with SMB Relevant Products/Services and enterprise Relevant Products/Services customers. At the same time, our investment in technological innovation such as SIPhony, Noble's newest generation SIP platform, has acted as a catalyst for growth."
The announcement comes at a time when analysts and experts look to the contact center industry as a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economic landscape. Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan says United States contact center revenue could exceed $29 billion by 2014 while the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts the customer service Relevant Products/Services representative sector will account for the third-highest number of jobs in the country by 2018.
While the revenue statistic reflects Noble's robust financial growth, the company has also recorded significant gains in market share through organic expansion and the recent acquisition of assets and intellectual property from former competitors Touchstar and TDI/Teledirect.
About Noble Systems
Noble Systems Corporation (NSC) is a global leader in contact center technology solutions, providing innovative products since 1989. Every day, millions of customer contacts are made by agents at 4,000+ client installations worldwide using the award-winning Noble platform for inbound/outbound/blended communications Relevant Products/Services. The scalable, integrated Noble Solution includes advanced ACD and predictive dialing; unified contact processing; and integrated IVR, recording, messaging, quality/monitoring systems, scripting, and real-time reporting and management tools. Based in Atlanta, GA, Noble Systems was the first vendor to offer an open, scalable, fully-distributed platform.
What is CRM (customer relationship management)?
CRM (customer relationship management) is an information industry term for methodologies, software, and usually Internet capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized way. For example, an enterprise might build a database about its customers that described relationships in sufficient detail so that management, salespeople, people providing service, and perhaps the customer directly could access information, match customer needs with product plans and offerings, remind customers of service requirements, know what other products a customer had purchased, and so forth.
According to one industry view, CRM consists of:
* Helping an enterprise to enable its marketing departments to identify and target their best customers, manage marketing campaigns and generate quality leads for the sales team.
* Assisting the organization to improve telesales, account, and sales management by optimizing information shared by multiple employees, and streamlining existing processes (for example, taking orders using mobile devices)
* Allowing the formation of individualized relationships with customers, with the aim of improving customer satisfaction and maximizing profits; identifying the most profitable customers and providing them the highest level of service.
* Providing employees with the information and processes necessary to know their customers, understand and identify customer needs and effectively build relationships between the company, its customer base, and distribution partners.
Many organizations turn to CRM software to help them manage their customer relationships. CRM technology is offered on-premise, on-demand or through Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM, depending on the vendor. Recently, mobile CRM and the open source CRM software model have also become more popular.
According to one industry view, CRM consists of:
* Helping an enterprise to enable its marketing departments to identify and target their best customers, manage marketing campaigns and generate quality leads for the sales team.
* Assisting the organization to improve telesales, account, and sales management by optimizing information shared by multiple employees, and streamlining existing processes (for example, taking orders using mobile devices)
* Allowing the formation of individualized relationships with customers, with the aim of improving customer satisfaction and maximizing profits; identifying the most profitable customers and providing them the highest level of service.
* Providing employees with the information and processes necessary to know their customers, understand and identify customer needs and effectively build relationships between the company, its customer base, and distribution partners.
Many organizations turn to CRM software to help them manage their customer relationships. CRM technology is offered on-premise, on-demand or through Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM, depending on the vendor. Recently, mobile CRM and the open source CRM software model have also become more popular.
The supplier of chain of Morphs
The supplier of chain of Morphs provisioning in SCEM with the vision of management of answer
The market of applications of the planning of chain of provisioning (SCP) clearly cooled its nail of activity towards end of the year 90. While the suppliers of software of SCP like technologies i2, Manugistics, Adexa, Synquest (maintaining part of Viewlocity), and Logility launched the advantages of the integrated continuations of product, only one minority of the line one, the companies of leading edge bought in the concept and the found successful results. Integrated SCP treats tests to match supply and demand through operations of a company of 'manufacture and of distribution of S. In an environment of make-with-actions, assemble-with-order, and manufacture of configure-with-order, a supplier of application 'the module of planning of S is typically accustomed to support the integrated planning of chain of provisioning, usually of a centralized fashion. In other environments of manufacture, like the make-with-order and the scenarios of build-with-order, integrated SCP is supported by modules of planning of a supplier 'of manufacture of S and establishment of the program of production.
The suppliers of SCP have tried to develop applications to envisage each functional field, and to synchronize planning, so that multiple plans through the company could be simultaneously developed. At the same time, integration with the legacy and the compromise systems of the planning of entrepreneurial resource (ERP) proved to be an advantage with the suppliers of ERP like SAP and Oracle which built their continuations of SCP outside. In spite of the appetite limited for applications of SCP, the suppliers of ERP always find the market to attract because of the differentiation of integration with the execution of chain of provisioning (SCE), the purchase, and the functions of logistics through an architecture of platform established around the compromise treatment.
However, even in today 'world of businesses of S the majority of planning is made independently by each functional organization, having for result of the separate and often contradictory plans for manufacture, the purchase, and the distribution. For an integrated SCP, via an approach of centralized planning, to be most effective, a company needs plans on the level of the company; however, the suppliers of SCP noted that the centralized services of planning are rare, and the majority of the companies miss existing processes or of capacity to adapt new processes of planning to fully benefit from planning integrated from chain from provisioning.
A better approach with centralized and integrated planning is an intermediate way where planning is carried out by entities having of the operations inter-- and will intra particular of company. However, a process of collaboration and a plan of collaboration are established when each organization shares its constraints of resource and suitable information of planning with others. In order to support this type of planning of collaboration, suppliers of SCP openning to the top of their applications to a series of users via the Intranets, Extranet, and the Web. The information flow in an environment of collaboration and division of information SCP is more in conformity with users 'the structures of organization wants and company of real-world.
Now, the suppliers of SCP moved beyond the planning of company to surround the chain of provisioning of totality including/understanding the external business partners. The suppliers of application of SCP developed the functionality to prolong applications beyond the company while allowing business partners to share information and to collaborate. Examples of these possibilities were seen in the developed products of SCP like I2 produced of planner, Logility ' 's Voyager of collaboration of RATE/RHYTHM of S, management of paragon 'continuation of iCollaborate of S, and produced of eSupply-Chain of WebPlan 'of S.
These products were designed to make it possible companies to synchronize their chains of provisioning among business partners of collaboration, rather than by a central model of planning.
Management at present defines final success
Refroidissement of the market of SCP during these last years is seen like identification of imbalance between the investment of company in long-term technologies for the strategic planning of company, the forecasts of product, the approvisonnement strategic one, and the planning of chain of provisioning, against and the execution of go concern. In the future, the companies will depend on Excel, always send, telephone by fax, and metric ad hoc of execution to lead operations of day in day. In a world where the businesses races like the wheel of clock with little volatility above intermediary at the temporal horizons in the long run, integrated SCP can be effective.
Many would discuss, however, that we put 't of phase in a world of businesses which functions like the wheel of clock, and the majority of the companies quickly lack a strategic solution to the answer to volatilities of real-world. Supply and demand of management must be looked with the reality of the inevitable and unforeseeable volatility of chain of provisioning. The ruptures of provisioning and the delays, the changes of order, the changes of forecast, the constraints of new capacity, the dynamic changes of the prices, and much of other variables of real-world can have like consequence the erosion of customer, the preparings of inventory or depreciations, and even the erosion of margin if the operations cannot answer the immediate stimuli of point-of-action of real-world. Unfortunately, these events cannot be established in no outline programme, nor to be addressed by no integrated and centralized solution SCP.
The market of applications of the planning of chain of provisioning (SCP) clearly cooled its nail of activity towards end of the year 90. While the suppliers of software of SCP like technologies i2, Manugistics, Adexa, Synquest (maintaining part of Viewlocity), and Logility launched the advantages of the integrated continuations of product, only one minority of the line one, the companies of leading edge bought in the concept and the found successful results. Integrated SCP treats tests to match supply and demand through operations of a company of 'manufacture and of distribution of S. In an environment of make-with-actions, assemble-with-order, and manufacture of configure-with-order, a supplier of application 'the module of planning of S is typically accustomed to support the integrated planning of chain of provisioning, usually of a centralized fashion. In other environments of manufacture, like the make-with-order and the scenarios of build-with-order, integrated SCP is supported by modules of planning of a supplier 'of manufacture of S and establishment of the program of production.
The suppliers of SCP have tried to develop applications to envisage each functional field, and to synchronize planning, so that multiple plans through the company could be simultaneously developed. At the same time, integration with the legacy and the compromise systems of the planning of entrepreneurial resource (ERP) proved to be an advantage with the suppliers of ERP like SAP and Oracle which built their continuations of SCP outside. In spite of the appetite limited for applications of SCP, the suppliers of ERP always find the market to attract because of the differentiation of integration with the execution of chain of provisioning (SCE), the purchase, and the functions of logistics through an architecture of platform established around the compromise treatment.
However, even in today 'world of businesses of S the majority of planning is made independently by each functional organization, having for result of the separate and often contradictory plans for manufacture, the purchase, and the distribution. For an integrated SCP, via an approach of centralized planning, to be most effective, a company needs plans on the level of the company; however, the suppliers of SCP noted that the centralized services of planning are rare, and the majority of the companies miss existing processes or of capacity to adapt new processes of planning to fully benefit from planning integrated from chain from provisioning.
A better approach with centralized and integrated planning is an intermediate way where planning is carried out by entities having of the operations inter-- and will intra particular of company. However, a process of collaboration and a plan of collaboration are established when each organization shares its constraints of resource and suitable information of planning with others. In order to support this type of planning of collaboration, suppliers of SCP openning to the top of their applications to a series of users via the Intranets, Extranet, and the Web. The information flow in an environment of collaboration and division of information SCP is more in conformity with users 'the structures of organization wants and company of real-world.
Now, the suppliers of SCP moved beyond the planning of company to surround the chain of provisioning of totality including/understanding the external business partners. The suppliers of application of SCP developed the functionality to prolong applications beyond the company while allowing business partners to share information and to collaborate. Examples of these possibilities were seen in the developed products of SCP like I2 produced of planner, Logility ' 's Voyager of collaboration of RATE/RHYTHM of S, management of paragon 'continuation of iCollaborate of S, and produced of eSupply-Chain of WebPlan 'of S.
These products were designed to make it possible companies to synchronize their chains of provisioning among business partners of collaboration, rather than by a central model of planning.
Management at present defines final success
Refroidissement of the market of SCP during these last years is seen like identification of imbalance between the investment of company in long-term technologies for the strategic planning of company, the forecasts of product, the approvisonnement strategic one, and the planning of chain of provisioning, against and the execution of go concern. In the future, the companies will depend on Excel, always send, telephone by fax, and metric ad hoc of execution to lead operations of day in day. In a world where the businesses races like the wheel of clock with little volatility above intermediary at the temporal horizons in the long run, integrated SCP can be effective.
Many would discuss, however, that we put 't of phase in a world of businesses which functions like the wheel of clock, and the majority of the companies quickly lack a strategic solution to the answer to volatilities of real-world. Supply and demand of management must be looked with the reality of the inevitable and unforeseeable volatility of chain of provisioning. The ruptures of provisioning and the delays, the changes of order, the changes of forecast, the constraints of new capacity, the dynamic changes of the prices, and much of other variables of real-world can have like consequence the erosion of customer, the preparings of inventory or depreciations, and even the erosion of margin if the operations cannot answer the immediate stimuli of point-of-action of real-world. Unfortunately, these events cannot be established in no outline programme, nor to be addressed by no integrated and centralized solution SCP.
SAP for the industry of chemicals: Challenges and recommendations of user
As much front time said, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) ordered during some time in the higher line of the kingdom of chemicals, but competition in the semi-market of chemicals far from non-existent, is given the strong offers of the suppliers such as Oracle, the software of Ross Systems/CDC, Infor, 3i-Infotech, SSI-World, and total ASS. They are only the traditional suppliers of the planning of entrepreneurial resource (ERP) concentrating on the industry of chemicals. There is also a certain number of suppliers of solution of point who supply with several needs suitable for industry. For a course of instruction detailed on the industry of chemicals see thus what 's the business with chemicals?.
Part three of the SAP series for chemicals: A solution packed for companies of Semi-market.
The application software of company of offers of SAP conceived in function the industry of chemicals. For an examination of the approach of SAP to the solutions packed to see the solutions of industry of SAP for companies of Semi-market. For a discussion which is directly concerned with SAP and the industry of chemicals, to see SAP for chemicals: A solution packed for companies of Semi-market, and SAP for the functionality of chemicals.
SAP as a whole, including chemicals IBU from SAP, obviously was fight some hard-with-kill the belief about its complexity, price, rigidity, and so into before-equal with these prconfigures solutions. Recently, the supplier had lodged the following complaints, which slowly gain the credibility (although the prospect customers should continue to dispute SAP for the real validation of principle, and speak to the similar customers of reference):
* Some solutions of industry packed by SAP are children of poster for the success of semi-market: 65 percent of existing customers have less than 1.000 employees, but the belief is that it is only for really large standard.
* SAP packed up returns of high values of drive of solutions often for their customers, with the sale value-based included like critical stage in the process of sales.
* These solutions provide to the customers the expertise and the possibilities of industry (such as the support of process of businesses of industry, the practices, the width of the solutions, and so on) this often greater value of drive than of the competing offers.
But to refute the so-called myths of its cost, complexity, and inflexibility, SAP will have to continue by documenting successful case studies. Without could these well documented and justified positive returns on investment (Kings) or favorable full costs of metric of property (operating burnup), the market still be carried out to believe that this SAP tries to avoid the perception of the market while accentuating has much-speech-with the subject of complaint of an increase of 32 percent of profitability for much of customers of high profile (with the complaint which the operation of SAP was the main cause in (see what are your competitors indicating to you? A case study: SAP 'new publicity campaign of S).
To be right, it appears that in the industry of chemicals, it is probably SAP which made the best efforts not fall into the usual trap from simplification exaggerated from product from semi-market (see that gained solutions of Biscuit-cutter 't cut it with the Semi-market). SAP 'technology flexible of block constitutive of S allows companies of intermediate size to apply and to adapt their solutions and incrmentalement to exploit the potentials of the ERP of mySAP, mySAP CRM, mySAP SCM, biological war of mySAP, and mySAP SRM. The gauge currently covers fifty four constitutive blocks suitable for industry, on the blocks constitutive of many base line. Always, in spite of a choice impressing of possibilities for the industry of chemicals, needs for SAP to fill much more functional gaps, and it is where it can try to convert the independent suppliers of software (suppliers independent of software) into rather allied than leaving them like competitors.
This could be an advantageous occasion for the two parts for the two sides: while the suppliers independent of software can work with SAP rather than being distracted by competition with the giant (where it is difficult to gain in the long run), SAP obtains an aggressive external support of its efforts to quickly fill the gaps in its charts of industry. In this way, its internal resources can be directed to orientated architecture towards the services massive (SOA) - rewriting based of the existing functionality in a nimbler platform of process of businesses. The xApps of SAP combine services and data of Web of the multiple systems, with the platform of technology of SAP NetWeaver providing interworking. They are composed of the software which combines new logical businesses (the packed part) with the functionality borrowed from the preexistent components (the made up part). In practice, a xApp of SAP is an application layer which rests on other applications, which can thus provide a cross-functional process which is of collaboration and integrator.
Since there are almost customers hundred grounds communal between SAP and Lighthammer (before acquisition), and approximately twenties divided customers with Vendavo, is obvious that the customers are favorable to a solution rather narrowly integrated of associated waiting without end the functionality with SAP. Chemicals IBU wants thus to develop and raise an ecosystem for the industry of chemicals which should provide the value to its customers, associates, and SAP. Indeed, the unit of chemicals is one of the first in SAP to control SAP program of the network of value of industry of S ('IVN).
An example of the critical needs for industry that SAP satisfied via association is management of analysis and price of benefit (significance how to control changes of the contract prices with the central order and the direction). The compression of margin and (recently) the comparative analysis of the relative profitability of customer are true exits for the industry of chemicals, and of the tools of analytics of evaluation and support can be used to control the evaluation best and to improve of the margins. For this purpose, SAP partnered with Vendavo, a supplier of the solutions of management software of the prices, to offer a xApp of SAP or a request made up packed of price of SAP of management of evaluation and management of margin called (SAP PMM) by Vendavo which runs on SAP 's NetWeaver (see the Giants applications to support their possibilities of management of evaluation). There are other suppliers with routines of optimization of evaluation, but it is not the current functionality of Vendavo. SAP strongly believes that all the producers of the products (and much of producers of speciality) should start with the management of the prices, whereas only the more complex producers of chemicals of speciality should start with optimization.
On the one hand, Technidata had helped the environmental functionality of health and safety of form (EH&S) during several years, as well as to provide the xApp of SAP for the management of emissions (xEM of SAP), a xApp concerned of SAP for the industry of chemicals. Payments such as the act of fresh air of the USA require companies to reduce emissions, and SAP now provides of this fact a tool which evolves/moves around the processes in real-time to help of the companies of chemicals with conformity. Technidata had also helped to develop a content waiter for SAP EH&S which includes data for more than 200.000 substances.
The continuation of the maintenance of factory of SAP (TOKEN ENTRY) includes modules such as the preventive maintenance, the maintenance of breakdown, and the technical systems structuring, in order to carry out and record activities envisaged and not planned maintenance, including tasks of maintenance and orders of maintenance. SAP will also work towards the true reliability-centered possibilities of maintenance (RCM), which become standard among the manufacturers capital-intensives (see the maintenance led by reliability--By closing the CMMS evaluate Gap ?). The nature connected of nimble manufacture will probably raise possibilities of management of inheritance to one moreover high level, by which the united probes monitor the equipment and to provide the data which can be employed with more exactly envisaged the operation or the ineffective failure, by reducing the possibility of the time of breakdown and the lost production. It is particularly true in the light of Infor 'of recent acquisition of S of the Datastream specialist in management in inheritance of company (EAM). Still, partnering with the tastes of Ivara could come in handy, as with AspenTech or systems of memory to direct access by window for some functional nuggets crafty ones of the chemicals SCM (see the solution packed by planning of chain of provisioning of offers of systems of memory with direct access by window for chemicals), or with a product-focused possible associate of logistics such as the logistics of odyssey.
Part three of the SAP series for chemicals: A solution packed for companies of Semi-market.
The application software of company of offers of SAP conceived in function the industry of chemicals. For an examination of the approach of SAP to the solutions packed to see the solutions of industry of SAP for companies of Semi-market. For a discussion which is directly concerned with SAP and the industry of chemicals, to see SAP for chemicals: A solution packed for companies of Semi-market, and SAP for the functionality of chemicals.
SAP as a whole, including chemicals IBU from SAP, obviously was fight some hard-with-kill the belief about its complexity, price, rigidity, and so into before-equal with these prconfigures solutions. Recently, the supplier had lodged the following complaints, which slowly gain the credibility (although the prospect customers should continue to dispute SAP for the real validation of principle, and speak to the similar customers of reference):
* Some solutions of industry packed by SAP are children of poster for the success of semi-market: 65 percent of existing customers have less than 1.000 employees, but the belief is that it is only for really large standard.
* SAP packed up returns of high values of drive of solutions often for their customers, with the sale value-based included like critical stage in the process of sales.
* These solutions provide to the customers the expertise and the possibilities of industry (such as the support of process of businesses of industry, the practices, the width of the solutions, and so on) this often greater value of drive than of the competing offers.
But to refute the so-called myths of its cost, complexity, and inflexibility, SAP will have to continue by documenting successful case studies. Without could these well documented and justified positive returns on investment (Kings) or favorable full costs of metric of property (operating burnup), the market still be carried out to believe that this SAP tries to avoid the perception of the market while accentuating has much-speech-with the subject of complaint of an increase of 32 percent of profitability for much of customers of high profile (with the complaint which the operation of SAP was the main cause in (see what are your competitors indicating to you? A case study: SAP 'new publicity campaign of S).
To be right, it appears that in the industry of chemicals, it is probably SAP which made the best efforts not fall into the usual trap from simplification exaggerated from product from semi-market (see that gained solutions of Biscuit-cutter 't cut it with the Semi-market). SAP 'technology flexible of block constitutive of S allows companies of intermediate size to apply and to adapt their solutions and incrmentalement to exploit the potentials of the ERP of mySAP, mySAP CRM, mySAP SCM, biological war of mySAP, and mySAP SRM. The gauge currently covers fifty four constitutive blocks suitable for industry, on the blocks constitutive of many base line. Always, in spite of a choice impressing of possibilities for the industry of chemicals, needs for SAP to fill much more functional gaps, and it is where it can try to convert the independent suppliers of software (suppliers independent of software) into rather allied than leaving them like competitors.
This could be an advantageous occasion for the two parts for the two sides: while the suppliers independent of software can work with SAP rather than being distracted by competition with the giant (where it is difficult to gain in the long run), SAP obtains an aggressive external support of its efforts to quickly fill the gaps in its charts of industry. In this way, its internal resources can be directed to orientated architecture towards the services massive (SOA) - rewriting based of the existing functionality in a nimbler platform of process of businesses. The xApps of SAP combine services and data of Web of the multiple systems, with the platform of technology of SAP NetWeaver providing interworking. They are composed of the software which combines new logical businesses (the packed part) with the functionality borrowed from the preexistent components (the made up part). In practice, a xApp of SAP is an application layer which rests on other applications, which can thus provide a cross-functional process which is of collaboration and integrator.
Since there are almost customers hundred grounds communal between SAP and Lighthammer (before acquisition), and approximately twenties divided customers with Vendavo, is obvious that the customers are favorable to a solution rather narrowly integrated of associated waiting without end the functionality with SAP. Chemicals IBU wants thus to develop and raise an ecosystem for the industry of chemicals which should provide the value to its customers, associates, and SAP. Indeed, the unit of chemicals is one of the first in SAP to control SAP program of the network of value of industry of S ('IVN).
An example of the critical needs for industry that SAP satisfied via association is management of analysis and price of benefit (significance how to control changes of the contract prices with the central order and the direction). The compression of margin and (recently) the comparative analysis of the relative profitability of customer are true exits for the industry of chemicals, and of the tools of analytics of evaluation and support can be used to control the evaluation best and to improve of the margins. For this purpose, SAP partnered with Vendavo, a supplier of the solutions of management software of the prices, to offer a xApp of SAP or a request made up packed of price of SAP of management of evaluation and management of margin called (SAP PMM) by Vendavo which runs on SAP 's NetWeaver (see the Giants applications to support their possibilities of management of evaluation). There are other suppliers with routines of optimization of evaluation, but it is not the current functionality of Vendavo. SAP strongly believes that all the producers of the products (and much of producers of speciality) should start with the management of the prices, whereas only the more complex producers of chemicals of speciality should start with optimization.
On the one hand, Technidata had helped the environmental functionality of health and safety of form (EH&S) during several years, as well as to provide the xApp of SAP for the management of emissions (xEM of SAP), a xApp concerned of SAP for the industry of chemicals. Payments such as the act of fresh air of the USA require companies to reduce emissions, and SAP now provides of this fact a tool which evolves/moves around the processes in real-time to help of the companies of chemicals with conformity. Technidata had also helped to develop a content waiter for SAP EH&S which includes data for more than 200.000 substances.
The continuation of the maintenance of factory of SAP (TOKEN ENTRY) includes modules such as the preventive maintenance, the maintenance of breakdown, and the technical systems structuring, in order to carry out and record activities envisaged and not planned maintenance, including tasks of maintenance and orders of maintenance. SAP will also work towards the true reliability-centered possibilities of maintenance (RCM), which become standard among the manufacturers capital-intensives (see the maintenance led by reliability--By closing the CMMS evaluate Gap ?). The nature connected of nimble manufacture will probably raise possibilities of management of inheritance to one moreover high level, by which the united probes monitor the equipment and to provide the data which can be employed with more exactly envisaged the operation or the ineffective failure, by reducing the possibility of the time of breakdown and the lost production. It is particularly true in the light of Infor 'of recent acquisition of S of the Datastream specialist in management in inheritance of company (EAM). Still, partnering with the tastes of Ivara could come in handy, as with AspenTech or systems of memory to direct access by window for some functional nuggets crafty ones of the chemicals SCM (see the solution packed by planning of chain of provisioning of offers of systems of memory with direct access by window for chemicals), or with a product-focused possible associate of logistics such as the logistics of odyssey.
Technology's Role in Strategic Human Resources
Most chief executive officers (CEOs) are challenging their human resources (HR) departments to make more strategic contributions to the organization. With HR traditionally viewed as a cost center, it is often difficult to know precisely what that means. CEOs, who are focused on growth, earnings, and shareholder returns, want HR to support corporate business objectives and to have the necessary data to support business decisions. These roles are necessarily integrated with HR's responsibility to ensure that there are qualified and satisfied workers when and where they are needed. The way to fulfill these roles is through process excellence, integrated HR systems, and accurate and actionable data from all HR departments. When these elements come together, HR can have a tremendous and meaningful impact on the bottom line.
It sounds like a lot to ask, but these demands are achievable today. And the HR department doesn't have to go it alone. There are technologies and service providers that can help move HR from the administrative rut, free up manpower for strategic tasks, and employ business intelligence capability to align HR with desired business outcomes.
The Role of Outsourcing
Human resources outsourcers play a critical role. Companies often choose to work with outsourcers to gain access to the latest technologies without having to make the associated capital investment. At most enterprises where HR functions have been outsourced, the initial tier of value is well-established. Processes are standardized and employee interactions are professionalized. Transactions are faster, more user-friendly, and less costly. As employee programs continually become more complex and difficult to administer, outsourcing consistently delivers high levels of service.
But it's that next critical tier where advanced HR outsourcing technologies are delivering strategic leverage by gathering and combining fragmented data from discrete vertical HR systems. When data from various departments is integrated into a reliable, consistent source of centralized information, HR can make better-informed and more strategic business decisions daily. The impacts of HR programs and practices can be assessed, and critical insights into the workforce revealed.
Sophisticated analytics can measure how HR systems and programs affect employee behavior and influence customer behavior (for example), ultimately impacting financial results and corporate growth. Companies are beginning to see that reducing HR administrative costs is only the tip of the iceberg. A new priority is to employ the technologies that provide data and analysis, in order to realize the savings that lie in HR.
For example, your time and attendance program tracks worker hours and absences, and is the entry process for generating payroll. A separate program handles short-term and long-term disability payments. Both of these systems are important. But viewed separately, they reinforce HR's traditional administrative role. An outsourcing solution that combines information from both systems and employs business intelligence functionality delivers a human asset management program that tracks absenteeism, peak work periods, and turnover. Now your data shows impacts on labor costs, overtime, and the amount of money spent on temps and employee replacement. This business intelligence can be used to closely align the workforce with long-term labor needs, manage absence and labor utilization, and thereby reduce operating costs.
Training, staffing, and recruiting programs can be linked in beneficial ways, too. There are lots of technology tools that enable prospective employees to submit resums online. But does your HR department use that information beyond the recruiting process? By integrating prospective employee data and skill sets against the company's development plan and training programs, qualified individuals can be "pipelined" into the organization over time, and existing staff can be educated. This ensures more strategic hiring decisions from the outside, and better use of existing personnel.
Succession planning is another key area where HR outsourcing can provide strategic value. For example, if a company has a 10 percent turnover rate, and it typically takes 30 days to fill a job, what does that mean for its staffing at any given point in time? It means the company is nearly one percent understaffed at all times. In an organization of 50,000 employees, that's 400 workers not meeting deadlines or producing, which negatively impacts customer satisfaction.
In that same scenario, add in the ramp-up time required for new hires to fill the open slots, and the "downtime" could be as much as sixty days per opening. Factor in absenteeism, short- and long-term disability, sabbaticals, maternity and paternity leave, job sharing, and other benefits, and the staffing levels are likely to be much lower than imagined. Using business intelligence technologies and analytics allows HR departments to better see and manage what is really happening with staffing levels, and predictive measurements can help plan more accurately for the normal ebbs and flows of business.
Selecting the Right Outsourcing Provider
As important as deciding to outsource HR functions, however, is selecting the right partner. Partnering with an HR provider is a critical business decision, and should be considered with the same due diligence as a merger or joint venture. Companies should be culturally compatible and share a common vision.
An outsourcing partner's service framework and delivery model should be engineered to meet your requirements, and there should be a clear definition of the scope of services and defined service levels. The objectives of outsourcing should be translated into service-level agreements so performance can be measured against stated expectations. Most large enterprises will want a full-service provider rather than one that handles just one element (such as payroll). References should be checked, and the provider should demonstrate capabilities in full-spectrum HR outsourcing (and have the financial backing to be around for the long term).
Remember, working with an outsourcer is not about giving up control. Rather, it is about finding the best ways to deliver quality service, impact organization economics, and provide the data that aligns the HR department with business outcomes.
It sounds like a lot to ask, but these demands are achievable today. And the HR department doesn't have to go it alone. There are technologies and service providers that can help move HR from the administrative rut, free up manpower for strategic tasks, and employ business intelligence capability to align HR with desired business outcomes.
The Role of Outsourcing
Human resources outsourcers play a critical role. Companies often choose to work with outsourcers to gain access to the latest technologies without having to make the associated capital investment. At most enterprises where HR functions have been outsourced, the initial tier of value is well-established. Processes are standardized and employee interactions are professionalized. Transactions are faster, more user-friendly, and less costly. As employee programs continually become more complex and difficult to administer, outsourcing consistently delivers high levels of service.
But it's that next critical tier where advanced HR outsourcing technologies are delivering strategic leverage by gathering and combining fragmented data from discrete vertical HR systems. When data from various departments is integrated into a reliable, consistent source of centralized information, HR can make better-informed and more strategic business decisions daily. The impacts of HR programs and practices can be assessed, and critical insights into the workforce revealed.
Sophisticated analytics can measure how HR systems and programs affect employee behavior and influence customer behavior (for example), ultimately impacting financial results and corporate growth. Companies are beginning to see that reducing HR administrative costs is only the tip of the iceberg. A new priority is to employ the technologies that provide data and analysis, in order to realize the savings that lie in HR.
For example, your time and attendance program tracks worker hours and absences, and is the entry process for generating payroll. A separate program handles short-term and long-term disability payments. Both of these systems are important. But viewed separately, they reinforce HR's traditional administrative role. An outsourcing solution that combines information from both systems and employs business intelligence functionality delivers a human asset management program that tracks absenteeism, peak work periods, and turnover. Now your data shows impacts on labor costs, overtime, and the amount of money spent on temps and employee replacement. This business intelligence can be used to closely align the workforce with long-term labor needs, manage absence and labor utilization, and thereby reduce operating costs.
Training, staffing, and recruiting programs can be linked in beneficial ways, too. There are lots of technology tools that enable prospective employees to submit resums online. But does your HR department use that information beyond the recruiting process? By integrating prospective employee data and skill sets against the company's development plan and training programs, qualified individuals can be "pipelined" into the organization over time, and existing staff can be educated. This ensures more strategic hiring decisions from the outside, and better use of existing personnel.
Succession planning is another key area where HR outsourcing can provide strategic value. For example, if a company has a 10 percent turnover rate, and it typically takes 30 days to fill a job, what does that mean for its staffing at any given point in time? It means the company is nearly one percent understaffed at all times. In an organization of 50,000 employees, that's 400 workers not meeting deadlines or producing, which negatively impacts customer satisfaction.
In that same scenario, add in the ramp-up time required for new hires to fill the open slots, and the "downtime" could be as much as sixty days per opening. Factor in absenteeism, short- and long-term disability, sabbaticals, maternity and paternity leave, job sharing, and other benefits, and the staffing levels are likely to be much lower than imagined. Using business intelligence technologies and analytics allows HR departments to better see and manage what is really happening with staffing levels, and predictive measurements can help plan more accurately for the normal ebbs and flows of business.
Selecting the Right Outsourcing Provider
As important as deciding to outsource HR functions, however, is selecting the right partner. Partnering with an HR provider is a critical business decision, and should be considered with the same due diligence as a merger or joint venture. Companies should be culturally compatible and share a common vision.
An outsourcing partner's service framework and delivery model should be engineered to meet your requirements, and there should be a clear definition of the scope of services and defined service levels. The objectives of outsourcing should be translated into service-level agreements so performance can be measured against stated expectations. Most large enterprises will want a full-service provider rather than one that handles just one element (such as payroll). References should be checked, and the provider should demonstrate capabilities in full-spectrum HR outsourcing (and have the financial backing to be around for the long term).
Remember, working with an outsourcer is not about giving up control. Rather, it is about finding the best ways to deliver quality service, impact organization economics, and provide the data that aligns the HR department with business outcomes.
ERP: When Transparency Becomes Tunnel Vision
The idea behind an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is to give organizations the transparency and visibility they need to have into their business activities. But what if the ERP system in fact creates a "blind spot" for the business? How could this happen, you might ask? Well, before we answer this question, a little history is needed.
In developed nations, many manufacturing activities have moved offshore. Manufacturers have done this because the cost of labor is cheaper in developing nations. But offshore manufacturing has led to some key concerns:
How do you measure quality assurance?
Is it really cheaper to outsource production, given rising energy prices?
From an economic and an IT perspective, several negative factors about moving manufacturing offshore have become apparent:
Negative economic factors:
The manufacturer is subject to the stability of the local economy where their facilities are located, meaning that labor may be tougher to acquire.
The speed at which components and parts are acquired is subject to global—and potentially faulty—supply chains.
Offshore currency instability may make components more expensive to acquire or sell.
Tracking the cost of resources and reverse logistics can prove to be difficult.
Negative IT factors:
Access to critical, real-time data may be impeded by disparate enterprise applications in different regions.
Tracking components may be more difficult due to a low-quality IT infrastructure or minimal IT resources. Or perhaps the ERP software is too inflexible to service the entire organization.
Financial tracking can be difficult to maintain, due to the factors listed above.
Traditionally, ERP systems come with financials and human resources modules to track all costs throughout the organization. The system controls these processes through a manufacturing management module. The manufacturing management module of a typical ERP solution includes multi-level bills of materials (BOMs), advanced plant scheduling, shop floor control, field service and repair, production planning, project management, product data management, inventory management, purchasing management, quality management, and sales management.
This range of traditional functionality can be sufficient for most manufacturers, giving them the ability to manage their operations very well within the four walls of the manufacturing plant. However, if a manufacturer's business is carried out in multiple locations across continents, and if its supply chain involves complex activities, then a more robust ERP system is needed. This is because such a manufacturer is faced with changing economic, quality, and logistical problems, and its traditional ERP system can actually impede its growth and flexibility by not delivering what this manufacturer needs most: transparency and visibility into all manufacturing and supply chain activities. The manufacturer can develop a sort of "tunnel vision" with respect to their operations if nothing is done.
So what can a manufacturer do if the ERP system provides faulty vision? Can an ERP system really adapt to a fluctuating manufacturing environment?
In developed nations, many manufacturing activities have moved offshore. Manufacturers have done this because the cost of labor is cheaper in developing nations. But offshore manufacturing has led to some key concerns:
How do you measure quality assurance?
Is it really cheaper to outsource production, given rising energy prices?
From an economic and an IT perspective, several negative factors about moving manufacturing offshore have become apparent:
Negative economic factors:
The manufacturer is subject to the stability of the local economy where their facilities are located, meaning that labor may be tougher to acquire.
The speed at which components and parts are acquired is subject to global—and potentially faulty—supply chains.
Offshore currency instability may make components more expensive to acquire or sell.
Tracking the cost of resources and reverse logistics can prove to be difficult.
Negative IT factors:
Access to critical, real-time data may be impeded by disparate enterprise applications in different regions.
Tracking components may be more difficult due to a low-quality IT infrastructure or minimal IT resources. Or perhaps the ERP software is too inflexible to service the entire organization.
Financial tracking can be difficult to maintain, due to the factors listed above.
Traditionally, ERP systems come with financials and human resources modules to track all costs throughout the organization. The system controls these processes through a manufacturing management module. The manufacturing management module of a typical ERP solution includes multi-level bills of materials (BOMs), advanced plant scheduling, shop floor control, field service and repair, production planning, project management, product data management, inventory management, purchasing management, quality management, and sales management.
This range of traditional functionality can be sufficient for most manufacturers, giving them the ability to manage their operations very well within the four walls of the manufacturing plant. However, if a manufacturer's business is carried out in multiple locations across continents, and if its supply chain involves complex activities, then a more robust ERP system is needed. This is because such a manufacturer is faced with changing economic, quality, and logistical problems, and its traditional ERP system can actually impede its growth and flexibility by not delivering what this manufacturer needs most: transparency and visibility into all manufacturing and supply chain activities. The manufacturer can develop a sort of "tunnel vision" with respect to their operations if nothing is done.
So what can a manufacturer do if the ERP system provides faulty vision? Can an ERP system really adapt to a fluctuating manufacturing environment?
Workforce Analytics – A Blend of Business Intelligence and Human Resources
In a previous blog post, I described how artificial intelligence (AI) can help human resources (HR) in the recruiting process. It is interesting to note that almost half of the people who took our poll would use AI—but not extensively.
Besides being used for recruiting purposes, AI is used more and more in workforce management. By combining business intelligence (BI) with HR processes, business performance management (BPM) for HR is created. Vendors call it workforce analytics—and Infohrm, Aruspex, and Vemo are among the three that specialize and offer really interesting products and services in this combined area of BI and HR.
Of course, there are HR vendors (Kronos, Mercer, etc.) that offer workforce analytics, and BI vendors (IBM, Oracle, etc.) that created modules or versions of their products for this niche. No matter which vendor is offering workforce analytics, it is still used in midsized companies or large corporations.
What Can Workforce Analytics Bring to Your Company?
If you are a HR manager in a company that employs thousands of people, one of your main concerns should be reporting and analytics. Workforce analytics can help your organization determine how efficient its recruiting processes are. It can also help during the hiring process—recruiting the right people at the right costs.
Workforce analytics can give your company a general overview of the activity of the HR department. Depending on the product being used, you can drill down to the next level of detail, build interactive graphs, and export the data to different file formats.
By understanding the demand and supply in HR—as well as the gaps between the two—HR professionals can create and implement better internal procedures for talent management, retention, succession, etc.
This is done by gathering information on your workforce and putting it into a single repository. This information comes from your HR system, enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, or other business software (e.g. time and attendance, project management, accounting software, etc.).
By using this data, your company can create forecasts and what-if scenarios in order to understand how a change in the activity of the company can impact its HR department and vice-versa. For instance, if you decide to launch a new product line, you can estimate how many people you’ll need and how much it will cost you.
Most of the vendors in this area (HR, BI, or workforce analytics) offer pre-defined key performance indicators (KPIs) that your company can use to measure the efficiency of its workforce, but they can also help build new ones and even implement best practices to improve the way people work.
Finally, these vendors offer consulting services that can be used to define the way you gather and interpret the data, create and use KPIs, define and manage internal work procedures, and review strategies for recruitment, talent management, compensation, or training.
Besides being used for recruiting purposes, AI is used more and more in workforce management. By combining business intelligence (BI) with HR processes, business performance management (BPM) for HR is created. Vendors call it workforce analytics—and Infohrm, Aruspex, and Vemo are among the three that specialize and offer really interesting products and services in this combined area of BI and HR.
Of course, there are HR vendors (Kronos, Mercer, etc.) that offer workforce analytics, and BI vendors (IBM, Oracle, etc.) that created modules or versions of their products for this niche. No matter which vendor is offering workforce analytics, it is still used in midsized companies or large corporations.
What Can Workforce Analytics Bring to Your Company?
If you are a HR manager in a company that employs thousands of people, one of your main concerns should be reporting and analytics. Workforce analytics can help your organization determine how efficient its recruiting processes are. It can also help during the hiring process—recruiting the right people at the right costs.
Workforce analytics can give your company a general overview of the activity of the HR department. Depending on the product being used, you can drill down to the next level of detail, build interactive graphs, and export the data to different file formats.
By understanding the demand and supply in HR—as well as the gaps between the two—HR professionals can create and implement better internal procedures for talent management, retention, succession, etc.
This is done by gathering information on your workforce and putting it into a single repository. This information comes from your HR system, enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, or other business software (e.g. time and attendance, project management, accounting software, etc.).
By using this data, your company can create forecasts and what-if scenarios in order to understand how a change in the activity of the company can impact its HR department and vice-versa. For instance, if you decide to launch a new product line, you can estimate how many people you’ll need and how much it will cost you.
Most of the vendors in this area (HR, BI, or workforce analytics) offer pre-defined key performance indicators (KPIs) that your company can use to measure the efficiency of its workforce, but they can also help build new ones and even implement best practices to improve the way people work.
Finally, these vendors offer consulting services that can be used to define the way you gather and interpret the data, create and use KPIs, define and manage internal work procedures, and review strategies for recruitment, talent management, compensation, or training.
Tactical Human Resources Evolves into Strategic Human Capital Management
Given the examples of the changes in human resource (HR) management discussed in Thou Shalt Manage Human Capital Better, and the mushrooming number of point solution providers, many enterprises have realized the significant shortcomings of traditional HR (in terms of technology, beliefs, processes, and practices) that require a strategic-level mind-set change. This is particularly relevant during times of economic sluggishness and low investment capacity (which typically translates into layoffs or hire freezes, cost containment, and stalled innovation), when most enterprises and their employees are left wondering if they can (or should) rely on each other for their future.
Part two of the series Thou Shalt Manage Human Capital Better.
In the early 2000s, with the economy in a downturn, HR administration delivered some organizational value by outsourcing an increasing number of HR business processes, either wholly or in part. In many cases, outsourcing to some trusted technology vendors that have already demonstrated their HR domain expertise may help companies achieve additional efficiencies and functionality, reduce head count, and cut costs.
Of the many solutions in the HR realm, the most predominantly outsourced have been payroll processing, employee assistance programs, payroll tax filing, and background screening. The most appealing and achievable benefits of outsourcing are streamlined operations, access to better HR capabilities and industry expertise (when it is not a core competency of the user enterprise), freeing up of internal staff, reduced labor costs, and accurate and predictable monthly costs.
However, the returns from layoffs (often undertaken without much thought to who should really go, potentially resulting in the hasty release of the lynchpins of the enterprise's ongoing performance) and relentless cost-cutting have proved to have only a limited (if not negative) effect. While some organizations have tried to cut labor costs to be competitive in their markets, the most progressive companies have embraced their labor forces and used them as a strategic differentiator.
As products and technologies become commoditized in this information-based economy, companies are beginning to realize that the best way to differentiate themselves and create long-term strategic advantages over their competitors might be through their people. It is no longer what one owns that counts, but rather what one knows, which is particularly critical in information technology (IT) and similar professional services organizations (PSOs), because it is the technical expertise and experience of knowledgeable staff that means the difference between success and failure.
In fact, according to Forrester Research, more than 85 percent of the market value of a typical Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 company today is the result of intangible assets. For many companies, the bulk of these intangible assets is their people (or human capital), and such companies spend as much as two-thirds of their overall costs on labor. Thus, they should focus on business processes, using technology to more effectively manage employees and improve their productivity. Combining training, incentive management, and compensation management tools delivered through a role-based dashboard, emerging people-centric software category aims to transform each individual in the workforce into an enterprise asset.
Part two of the series Thou Shalt Manage Human Capital Better.
In the early 2000s, with the economy in a downturn, HR administration delivered some organizational value by outsourcing an increasing number of HR business processes, either wholly or in part. In many cases, outsourcing to some trusted technology vendors that have already demonstrated their HR domain expertise may help companies achieve additional efficiencies and functionality, reduce head count, and cut costs.
Of the many solutions in the HR realm, the most predominantly outsourced have been payroll processing, employee assistance programs, payroll tax filing, and background screening. The most appealing and achievable benefits of outsourcing are streamlined operations, access to better HR capabilities and industry expertise (when it is not a core competency of the user enterprise), freeing up of internal staff, reduced labor costs, and accurate and predictable monthly costs.
However, the returns from layoffs (often undertaken without much thought to who should really go, potentially resulting in the hasty release of the lynchpins of the enterprise's ongoing performance) and relentless cost-cutting have proved to have only a limited (if not negative) effect. While some organizations have tried to cut labor costs to be competitive in their markets, the most progressive companies have embraced their labor forces and used them as a strategic differentiator.
As products and technologies become commoditized in this information-based economy, companies are beginning to realize that the best way to differentiate themselves and create long-term strategic advantages over their competitors might be through their people. It is no longer what one owns that counts, but rather what one knows, which is particularly critical in information technology (IT) and similar professional services organizations (PSOs), because it is the technical expertise and experience of knowledgeable staff that means the difference between success and failure.
In fact, according to Forrester Research, more than 85 percent of the market value of a typical Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 company today is the result of intangible assets. For many companies, the bulk of these intangible assets is their people (or human capital), and such companies spend as much as two-thirds of their overall costs on labor. Thus, they should focus on business processes, using technology to more effectively manage employees and improve their productivity. Combining training, incentive management, and compensation management tools delivered through a role-based dashboard, emerging people-centric software category aims to transform each individual in the workforce into an enterprise asset.
Best-of-breed HR Technologies
The most progressive of companies have been using best-of-breed HR technologies for attracting, hiring, training, motivating, and managing their people. Software applications are becoming more and more sophisticated to help companies with these tasks, and as these solutions continue to evolve and communicate with one another, user companies will have a more seamless access to methods and data for managing their employees throughout the employee life cycle.
On the other hand, the laggard companies that do not embrace these technologies will likely fall behind in their quest for market dominance. For instance, by implementing a holistic employee performance management process across the enterprise, corporate strategy can be aligned (and properly communicated) with individual goals and objectives, whereby actual performance against those goals can have ramifications for individual compensation and rewards. This should drive behavior and attitude toward executing on the corporate strategy, with improved employee satisfaction and loyalty as a result.
This certainly comes in handy when the economic downturn ends, when employees begin to feel that they have more employment choices. Enterprises will again need clear, credible, and reliable strategic sourcing strategies and management in order to plan for and engage the competencies (people and companies) needed to accomplish their business strategy (by building the required effectiveness and increasing efficiency). For instance, with the economy improving and IT budgets rising, competition for IT talent—especially in key skill areas—is bound to intensify. At the same time, an improved hiring picture in IT will most likely mean higher turnover, as many unhappy IT staffers who saw workloads increase while compensation and benefits stagnated (during the economic downturn of the early 2000s) will put even more pressure on IT management.
Hence, there is a true need for much tighter integration between performance management and compensation (regardless of the economic milieu), so that exemplary employees can be rewarded more often (and feel truly special to the enterprise), as opposed to the outmoded, blanket-regulated, across-the-board annual basis (which typically produces mediocrity).
Analyzing the workforce and strategically managing the company's human capital has become the focus of human resource management systems (HRMS), as a way to transform these from dull functions to those that greatly affect corporate performance. Integrated business information warehouses, to that end, enable multidimensional analysis on information aggregated from internal and external resources (salary survey, for example), performance indicators (as in turnover), and views on strategic HR information with powerful drill-down features. Some surveys indicate that almost a third of businesses are already using data warehouses, a quarter of them are using workforce performance management or analytics, and one-eighth of them are using workforce planning.
Workforce analytics have become a core of talent management systems. This is because they focus not just on "time" (or who has clocked in and who has not), but also on such strategic business issues as overtime and turnover trends that impact a business's bottom line profit, equal employment opportunity (EEO) or ethnicity-based hiring trends, compensation patterns, relative recruitment effectiveness and sourcing costs, cost per hire, etc..
On the other hand, the laggard companies that do not embrace these technologies will likely fall behind in their quest for market dominance. For instance, by implementing a holistic employee performance management process across the enterprise, corporate strategy can be aligned (and properly communicated) with individual goals and objectives, whereby actual performance against those goals can have ramifications for individual compensation and rewards. This should drive behavior and attitude toward executing on the corporate strategy, with improved employee satisfaction and loyalty as a result.
This certainly comes in handy when the economic downturn ends, when employees begin to feel that they have more employment choices. Enterprises will again need clear, credible, and reliable strategic sourcing strategies and management in order to plan for and engage the competencies (people and companies) needed to accomplish their business strategy (by building the required effectiveness and increasing efficiency). For instance, with the economy improving and IT budgets rising, competition for IT talent—especially in key skill areas—is bound to intensify. At the same time, an improved hiring picture in IT will most likely mean higher turnover, as many unhappy IT staffers who saw workloads increase while compensation and benefits stagnated (during the economic downturn of the early 2000s) will put even more pressure on IT management.
Hence, there is a true need for much tighter integration between performance management and compensation (regardless of the economic milieu), so that exemplary employees can be rewarded more often (and feel truly special to the enterprise), as opposed to the outmoded, blanket-regulated, across-the-board annual basis (which typically produces mediocrity).
Analyzing the workforce and strategically managing the company's human capital has become the focus of human resource management systems (HRMS), as a way to transform these from dull functions to those that greatly affect corporate performance. Integrated business information warehouses, to that end, enable multidimensional analysis on information aggregated from internal and external resources (salary survey, for example), performance indicators (as in turnover), and views on strategic HR information with powerful drill-down features. Some surveys indicate that almost a third of businesses are already using data warehouses, a quarter of them are using workforce performance management or analytics, and one-eighth of them are using workforce planning.
Workforce analytics have become a core of talent management systems. This is because they focus not just on "time" (or who has clocked in and who has not), but also on such strategic business issues as overtime and turnover trends that impact a business's bottom line profit, equal employment opportunity (EEO) or ethnicity-based hiring trends, compensation patterns, relative recruitment effectiveness and sourcing costs, cost per hire, etc..
Tactical Human Resources Evolves into Strategic Human Capital Management
HCM should be about value and not cost, since people should be regarded as value-adders, and not overheads and liability. It should measure organizational outputs (such as profit, revenue, and service levels) related to better management of people rather than focusing on input measures (such as recruitment costs) and the HR “best practices” of earlier days.
According to studies by the Brookings Institute, in the early 1980s, tangible assets amounted to over 60 percent of firms' total assets. This ratio has now been reversed, with over 80 percent of assets being intangible, most of which is represented by human capital. Yet, while decades have been spent investing in automation technologies for better use of tangible assets, only recently have enterprises begun to invest in optimizing human capital.
Moreover, many non-HR business processes can benefit from leveraging HCM strategies, such as project portfolio management (PPM) processes (see Project Portfolio Management for Service Organizations: Bridging the Gap between Project Management and Operations), which can be improved via incorporating competency and skills data and by leveraging the team management capabilities of HCM applications. Similar examples of business processes that should benefit from “picking the HCM brains” include production planning, job costing, scheduling, training, compliance, budgeting, and field service. In fact, any people-centric business process should benefit from integration to HCM, whereas traditional administrative HR applications and processes will hardly support this integration at all.
This leads us to a broader notion of employee relationship management (ERM), business-to-employee (B2E) management, or whatever the three-letter acronym (TLA) du jour might be (see BLM—Buzzword Lifecycle Management). In any case, these acronyms try to depict a business discipline that focuses on optimizing the employee's total employment experience—including both the human and technology aspects of that experience.
ERM espouses a comprehensive and unified view of the processes and technologies that support the workforce and their workplace, including manager-employee interactions, the formal business tasks required to manage employee relationships, and the technology used to manage the employee experience. To that end, ERM encompasses the full suite of B2E services needed by employees, managers, and others, including knowledge management, e-learning, self-services, community and collaboration support, travel and expense (T&E) management, indirect procurement, and so on. Thus, ERM is most closely aligned with the HCM focus area of workforce management.
While traditional HR and payroll management may not seem to provide a significant competitive advantage in the same respect that the aforementioned emerging technologies do, some ERM systems, like Extensity or Apptricity, help reduce cost, simplify administration, and promote a more connected company-employee relationship. What customer relationship management (CRM) solutions do for customer intimacy, today's ERM packages (replete with employee self-service and manager self-service functions) do for employee intimacy—provide all concerned parties (executives, managers, employees, government, and so forth) with immediate access to a wide array of vital information.
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