Out comes a new release of SuccessFactors popular talent management system.\u00a0 My general opinion is that the leading talent management systems are all playing on a fairly level playing field.\u00a0 They are all pretty well integrated, they all have good functionality, and most are operating on a SaaS model.\u00a0 When you\u2019re looking at feature-functionality, everybody is pretty much within 5% of everyone else.\u00a0 It is basically where we were with HRMS systems years ago.\u00a0 After all, how much more job data can one get in the HR system?\u00a0 It is the same with core performance systems and such.\u00a0 The old (current) way of doing performance is pretty well standardized across the board.\u00a0 You give a performance review every so often, and you rate people on their relative attainment of goals before you move onto creating your next set of goals for the future.<\/p>\n
There are some areas where one talent vendor can get an advantage over the others though.\u00a0 These are in the codebase that they are using, the design of the user experience, and the new areas of functionality they are developing into.<\/p>\n
SuccessFactors interestingly named a release.\u00a0 This is quite interesting for a company among companies that don\u2019t actually have formal releases.\u00a0 However, ULTRA is supposed to be a major departure from prior versions and the user experience now makes SuccessFactors a major contender in any system selection.\u00a0 They have elected not to use a standardized codebase such as Adobe FLEX or AJAX.\u00a0 Instead, they have adopted the philosophy that the appropriate code will be used for the appropriate end user experience and functionality.\u00a0 I\u2019ve not fully developed my opinion on this, and while SF seems to think that this makes them more agile, I tend to feel that as they develop the product, have more code bases to maintain, and delve into yet more functional areas, operating on several platforms will become cumbersome.\u00a0 The verdict is still out.\u00a0 Whatever I think, SF has deployed a user interface that is admirable and looks as sleek as anything else out there.\u00a0 I\u2019d give them a really high rating here as their look and feel might come out at the top of the stack.\u00a0 I\u2019d really have to give all the major vendors high marks in focusing on the user experience and SF is now the latest vendor to deliver effectively.\u00a0 I won\u2019t tiptoe around on this one:\u00a0 The UI is beautiful.<\/p>\n
SF is also touting that they have delivered a uniquely innovating set of new functionality.\u00a0 While I again give them high marks for innovating at all, I\u2019m not sure they are innovating in the right places.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a couple examples.\u00a0 First of all, Facebook integration just feels like it has not quite arrived yet.\u00a0 While SF is among the top organizations to delivering client requested product modifications, this is one of those areas I have a hard time with as one of those cases of, \u201cthey requested it, but will they really use it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Client: We\u2019d really like to see what our employees are doing with Facebook.\u00a0 We\u2019d also like to play with using it more as part of our internet strategy
\nSF:\u00a0 (integrates Facebook)
\nClient:\u00a0 Great.\u00a0 Now that we have this, what do we do with it?\u00a0 How do we roll this out to our employees?\u00a0 And we have not thought about any sort of governance structure around it.\u00a0 This could be problematic.<\/p>\n
The second example I have is the floor-plan and seating chart functionality.\u00a0 I\u2019ll also say that this one is really quite cool.\u00a0 You can go in, employees can self identify to the application where they sit, and then everyone has an easy time finding you when they visit your office.\u00a0 Is this a cool enhancement?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Will it help in a variety of scenarios?\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Does this move forward the talent management function?\u00a0 I really don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 Nice stuff is nice stuff, but that does not mean that I would have wanted SF or any other vendor spending time thinking about this as opposed to something that really impacts the talent functionality.\u00a0 At the end of the day, innovating in the product is great.\u00a0 But innovating their point of view on talent is more important.\u00a0 Eventually, brining their point of view on what the future of talent is going to look like has got to be their focus.<\/p>\n
Is my readers know, I\u2019ll editorialize pretty much everything.\u00a0 That does not discount the fact that SuccessFactors is one of the most popular talent management systems on the market for good reason.\u00a0 They have solid functionality, good integration, and now an excellent user interface to go along with it.\u00a0 This is a great release for an already solid product.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Out comes a new release of SuccessFactors popular talent management system.\u00a0 My general opinion is that the leading talent management systems are all playing on a fairly level playing field.\u00a0 They are all pretty well integrated, they all have good…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,22,41,20,3,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hr-technology","category-industry-news","category-point-solutions","category-talent-management","category-vendors","category-web-20"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}