systematicHR

The intersection between HR strategy and HR technology

HRO

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    HRaaS

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    Every now and then I think I have a thought that is pure genius. This is not one of them. Instead, every now and then I have a thought that simply entertains me for longer than it should. This is definitely one of those. I have not yet figured out the appropriate pronunciation for this.…

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    Merge, Outsource, Re-merge

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    Imagine this. You’re fixing your house, and you take down a few walls to reconfigure how the place looks – it’s a bit more open, you can see more, put more people in it when you entertain. While you’re at it, you decide to put new walls up – perhaps a new powder room where…

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    Lack of Use

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    It’s been a while since I was on a bike.  All for good reasons, I haven’t actually been home in about 3 weeks.  I mean, you do need to have a bike available to you and decent roads to go for a ride.  I’m not sure that 3 weeks in NYC qualify.  First, I’m afraid…

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    HRO is not Dead

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    HRO has seemed dead for at least a couple of years now.  A couple years ago it was almost all I was writing about, and there were mega deals to be had every other month.  All consultants were talking about to their clients was deciding if they should outsource or not.  At the time, HRO…

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    What HP’s Acquisition of EDS HRO Means

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    I haven’t written about HRO for a very long time.  Part of it could be just my simple disillusionment of the space.  The outsourcing of payroll and benefit transactions make total sense to me as they are complete commodities.  If we talk about F&A (finance) the transactional side of procurement, AP and AR at the…

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    Middle Market HRO Convergence

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    We’ve long talked about the large HRO organizations trying to go after the middle market.  After all, how many companies out there can afford a 10 year contract valued at $500M?  With large HRO contracts closing in on 200 contracts, there isn’t nearly as much high end opportunity left out there, but there’s no question…

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    Redefining HRO

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    Jason Corsello recently posted a great analysis of the state of HRO.  His take is that the industry is on it’s 3rd generation of development, and the description of these 3 generations is so priceless that I thought I’d repost it word for word: I think we have officially entered our 3rd wave of HRO. …

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    Longer Term HRO Viability as Change Management

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    I’ve always been fascinated by HRO and it’s been a constant topic here on systematicHR since the beginning.  While it certainly would seem to make sense that sharing resources across a variety of organizations would save some money, there’s always been a lingering question in the back of my head as to whether it made…

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    Some HR BPO Conventional Wisdom

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    With the next generation of HR BPO taking shape, companies are learning from past mistakes and employing new conventional wisdom around the process of migrating to an HR BPO solution. ((Christie, Mike and Wright, Mike. “Lessons Uncovered: The New Conventional Wisdom Around the Second Generation of HR BPO.” Hewitt Associates. Retrieved from www.hewitt.com on December…

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    More Changes at Hewitt

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    In case you missed it, HRO Today recently reported the following: “A former president of national accounts at competitor ADP, Jay C. Rising, 50, has been named president of Hewitt’s HRO business. Additionally, former acting president Julie Gordon has been named president of client and market leadership, a newly created position.” The announcement isn’t surprising…

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    Top HRO Deals

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    Who’s paying attention?  Did the value of HRO deals go down in 2006?  Sure, there were much fewer $1B deals, but what was the cause of that?  Were there overall fewer deals as well? I’m thinking that deals are starting to move into the mid market and we’re seeing less of the multi-line multi-process deals…

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    Where are the HRO Successes?

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    Because much of my practice focuses on helping companies and HRO providers improve the outsourcing relationship for cost, quality and service levels, in my job I see many broken HRO relationships.  It’s the nature of the business.  So it comes as no surprise to see the article published online at Workforce.com yesterday: ACS, Delta Change…

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    HRO: Profits, or Business Model?

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    Jason asks if we can just get past the HRO profit (loss) thing.   I think he’s right.  What’s important in the equation is not if the HRO’s are making money or not (and chances are that none of them are), but how the financials are affecting the shaping of their businesses.  Instead of focusing on…

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    How Did They Get Here – ExcellerateHRO

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    In March of 2006, a study by Forrester Research was released which ranked ExcellerateHRO as a “Leader” among HR BPO providers.  Excuse me?  I mean who were these guys?  Anyone not paying close attention might have missed that ExcellerateHRO had only been in business for 1 year at that point.  If you were busy with…

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    How did they get here – ADP

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    Next in our “How did they get here” series, I take a look at ADP, perhaps the most acquisitive organization in the payroll / HR / benefits space.  As such, I certainly cannot begin to recount all of the activity that got ADP where it is in this space.  I will however try to hit…

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    HRO – Success and Partnership

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    The success rate of HRO contracts is bad to dismal. That isn’t to say that companies are not saving money, or that vendors are providing bad service levels. But often, companies are dissatisfied with their overall relationships. The key indicator for satisfaction is not service delivery or cost savings (although those are drivers). The key…

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    HRO Market Leaders

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    It’s interesting that only several vendors hold a large majority of the market share in the HRO world – almost an 80/20 rule.  If you look at the top 3 (Hewitt, Accenture and ADP) you are probably getting close to 70% of the total HRO market share depending on how you measure it.  This piece…

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    HRO – Innovation or Best Practices?

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    There is a lot of debate when companies enter into HRO contracts about how much best practice a HRO vendor can bring to the table. There is also much conversation around how much innovation and thought leadership the same HRO vendor can bring to innovating complex processes to bring savings to the customer. These two…

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    How Did They Get Here – Hewitt Associates

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    The other day I was trying to remember what happened to a company in the benefits administration space I used to deal with quite regularly.  Of course, as been happening with increasing regularity, it had been acquired some years ago by another provider and has been all but lost except in the memories of those…

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    HRO – Defined

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    I’ve debated HRO definitions here before.  Is HRO any type of human resources outsourcing even if it’s just payroll to ADP?  Or does HRO mean full BPO for HR functions (HR BPO)? It’s quite arguable that you should define HRO as any type of outsourcing for any HR function.  If you took this definition, there…