HCM Developments Likely to Affect You in 2012

 

 Recent events give you a clue to what to expect in the coming months when  it comes to human resource management systems of all kinds. But maybe you can already anticipate how the changes will affect you as a PM for HR tech projects, or how changes will affect how you manage talent and training in your projects.

See if you can choose the most accurate description of the near future:

A.  Large companies will spend more time building out their specialized human capital management software to differentiate themselves with detailed functionality that HR managers are craving and then provide this functionality as software-as-a-service
B.  Industry consolidation will continue so that human capital management companies can more quickly provide broad functionality, if not deep, across a  wide range of HR functions, which is the preference of more of their customers. They will provide these services in a SaaS business model.
C.  Human capital management companies (HCM) will maintain status quo until the market picks up for training, talent management and other HCM services.
D.  It will be like the movie BladeRunner.

If you guessed "C", you may have been following the rule that "the answer is always C", but you would be wrong. Nor are large companies  building out more functionality to differentiate their products as in answer "A".

Recent events, such as the SAP purchase of SuccessFactors which is a cloud-based solution provider, are a clear signal to other HCM software providers must quickly move to the cloud.  Learning and development service providers have been in constant consolidation for a while now. SumTotal Systems (a talent management service provider) recently bought GeoLearning Services, Inc. (e-learning content provider). Look for more merger and acquisition activity as companies try to build a complete suite of HCM services.

In addition, at least one survey tells us that HR managers want a simpler HCM system but with broader capabilities - and they are willing to give up some functionality to get that. And now we know that firms are spending more on learning and development. Bersin and Associates says that training budgets were up 9% in 2011. If you read the Eye often, you will understand the improvements to employee engagement associated with increases in training.

 HR managers would love to have a single SaaS-model super service that covers candidate application to learning to career management. For you as a PM, be ready for the following:

• Projects that involve replacing the services of one of your HR vendors with the same service now provided by another of your vendors as one vendor attempts to grow to take over all the HR services.
• Projects that change HCM functions to a SaaS model and contract, perhaps with a whole new vendor.
• Projects that simply add new HCM services that are now provided by your vendor.
• New ways to manage your project resources, including training, using new capabilities of current HCM vendors.