systematicHR

I did a thing back in August about SAP versus PeopleSoft.  (Parts 1 and 2)  I really should have done an SAP versus Oracle.  To be honest, I have no intention of doing in depth comparisons of technology or functionality here, just some rather surprising revelations:

SAP and Oracle have both been on my list of “ERP vendors marketing really bad HRMS systems” for a very long time.  Let’s face it, Oracle was the worst of the 3 (if you include PeopleSoft pre-acquisition) and SAP was never serious about HR until they realized there was a major market in the U.S. for it.  That being said, any of these 3 systems were generally better than the smaller, mid-market systems you could but, but certainly much worse than any of the point solutions available.

For example, even if you purchased the best of the ERP’s for HR (PeopleSoft of yesteryear) you’d really only want to use it for HRMS, payroll and benefits.  There might be a compelling reason for you to use the learning, performance, or compensation, but these compelling reasons were usually limited to (1) you had lots of money to spend on internal development, or (2) your CEO got with your CIO and they forced you to do it.  Chances are if it was up to you, you would have gone out and bough a Kronos for timekeeping and a Taleo for recruiting (those vendors were just examples…).

So here’s the update:

• Both SAP and Oracle have increased their core functionality that they have now surpassed core PeopleSoft in capability.
• Oracle continues to neglect PeopleSoft (forget what they say about supporting it for the rest of eternity) and is pouring development dollars into Oracle HRMS.  Oracle core HRMS still isn’t quite there yet though, but vastly improved.
• Ancillary modules (like performance and compensation) are vastly improved and it shows that the vendors are working hard to not give too much money away.  While technology keeps moving towards SOA, the ERP’s want to give companies a good reason to keep all the data on their systems rather than a point solution.  I’d say that SAP and Oracle have some modules that are definitely competitive with the point solutions like SuccessFactors, Workstream and Authoria.