Consider IVR/Voice Portals for Emergency Employee Notification

Constellation Orbits
Constellation Research, Inc.

Elizabeth is a well-recognized industry-leading analyst. She was previously Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.  Prior to Constellation, Elizabeth spent eleven years at Forrester Research as vice president and principal analyst.  She has managed large consulting projects for business and government organizations and provides technical insight and guidance to business and government organizations on their communication issues. Prior to her role as an industry analyst with Communication Initiatives and Forrester Research, Elizabeth held senior management positions with IBM, ROLM and Siemens ICN where she was a senior manager for strategic planning and alliances. Expertise Elizabeth’s expertise includes in-depth knowledge of unified communications,…...

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Recent weather events, such as earthquakes, floods, and fires remind organizations that they need an effective way of reaching employees with status updates and instructions on what actions to take during an emergency. This requires that every organization include in its disaster recovery plan an automated way to reach out to its employees. Organizations can deploy automated outreach through hosted providers, such as MIR3, SoundBite and Varolii and several other providers. Recent improvements in IVRs or Voice Portals (VP) now provide organizations an effective in-house solution to send automated notifications across multiple channels. Since some communication channels may fail during emergency situations, it is best to send notifications to more than one address or number including the telephone, email, mobile device and social network sites to ensure receipt. Leading premise solutions for outbound VP multichannel notification applications include Avaya, ALU Genesys and Voxeo.

There are several best practices to follow when developing an outbound emergency notification process. These include the following;
• Customize messages based on different classes of employees. For example managers may require more detailed messages and a request for a call back when messages are sent.
• Reach out to multiple devices simultaneously. Allow the system to send outbound messages to all appropriate channels based on an employee’s profile.
• Enable speech response rather than DTMF commands. This makes it easier for a recipient to interact with the system and acknowledge the message was received.
• Continuously update employee’s contact data. This should include current contact information, such as mobile number, home phone number, email address, Twitter name, etc.
• Ensure messages can be modified remotely. With this capability an administrator can update messages easily from any location.
• Pretest system prior to an emergency launch. This is essential to determine success rate for outbound message receipt.

The technology exists to make employee emergency notifications simple and secure. Regardless if organizations want a hosted solution or develop a voice portal solution in-house, procedures need to be in place to support customized, relevant and instructive messages for all employees during an emergency situation.

HR Mobility Round-up

As predicted, HR technology providers are releasing mobile applications in droves.  Within the last few months Lawson/Infor, Lumesse, Peoplefluent, SuccessFactors, and Workday have all had major announcements, with more to come. Some interesting trends:

What about HTML5?

Bullish statements from Salesforce.com, Google, and Facebook, along with an enthusiastic technical community would suggest that native application builds are no longer necessary and HTML5 is the way to go.  And yet, no HR technology vendors are using HTML5.  They are all building native. Why is this?   The reality is that while HTML5 has closed some gaps with regards to local data storage and speedier caching, the user experience is still insufficient to get new users addicted to new applications.  And this is what HR technology providers need to do right now.  Until HTML5 can completely close the gap or employees/executives are so used to using mobile devices to access and leverage people information, native development (on potentially multiple operating systems and design palettes) will be the norm.

What’s the approach to native development?

There are three major camps with regards to native development strategy, ranging from generalized to specialized (see figure below).

1. Standard native applications for iOS (Apple), Android, and Blackberry (RIM).  With this approach, vendors are building applications for all major devices.  The application interface is tweaked slightly to fit into the design experience of the device, but a good portion of the development work can be re-used from device to device.  The advantage of this approach is more rapid cross-device development and the ability to reach more users with simple, straightforward tasks.

2. iOS (Apple) specific applications. With this approach, vendors are optimizing the mobile experience for the iPhone, in particular.  Plans to build out on other devices take a back burner. The advantage of this approach is a richer experience for a popular device and a quicker time-to-market with new applications.

3. iPad specific design. With this approach, vendors are optimizing design for users of a rich and roomy touch interface. Other tablet devices are not a concern yet, because no one is buying them. However, executives and senior managers are buying iPad’s by the dozen.  For HR, this is a target constituent for rolling out people planning and insight.  The advantage of this approach is an extremely rich and hopefully addictive interface for a strategic population.

As different kinds of applications emerge, vendors are sure to mix and match these approaches.

What applications are being delivered?

Employee “directories” are the most common mobile application with offerings from Lawson (Mobile Employee), Peoplefluent (Explorer), SuccessFactors (Org Chart), Ultimate (Employee Directory), Workday (Organization Swirl). In addition to look-ups, some of these applications such as Peoplefluent, SuccessFactors and Workday offer rich visualizations of organizational relationships.

Another very popular application being delivered via mobile is recruiting, with a particular emphasis on manager visibility into the recruiting process.  Lawson, Lumesse, Peoplefluent, and Successfactors all have takes on this.

Kronos covers workforce management. Saba and SumTotal cover learning. And, ADP introduced a mobile payroll RUN last year.

*See below for some public screenshots.

Your POV:

What applications and devices are most needed in your organization?  Is your vendor hitting the mark?  What are they missing?

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Workday Organization Swirl

Peoplefluent Explorer

Peoplefluent Recruiting

ADP RUN

Ultimate Employee Directory

Why Business Leaders should conduct Talent Reviews

The plan will fail without the right resource allocation

In order to be successful in today’s business climate, leaders need to not only develop a strategy, but execute on that strategy.  There is too much fast-moving competition for an important initiative to fail due to lack of progress.  How one manages people, and work, and the complex relationship between people and work is what sets one business leader apart from her peers.

In her eBook and accompanying video, Patty Azzarello, veteran business leader and former GM of Hewlett Packard, lays out five key things that block action from actually occurring.  One of those things is getting resource allocations to stick. Here is what she has to say:

“If you want to do new things, you have to move resources. Moving resources is really hard and it’s one of the biggest things people disagree about. Your strategy is where you put your resources. You need to ensure you put the right resources on the new things you need to get done.  Never ever expect your staff to do this offline and cooperate behind the scenes to move resources around. It will never happen. You need to drive the resource decisions – top down, in the light of day with the whole staff and make those assignment decisions really clear up front.  Or else, those resource shifts are never going to happen.”

Getting staff together to decide resource allocations in the context of new and changing initiatives is the essence of a talent review.  It is easy enough to assign theoretical headcount numbers to new product investments, new territories, or new business development initiatives.  It is a whole different matter to figure out who the right people are to lead and support these initiatives, how this is going to affect existing teams, and to get the management team on board with the changes.

In a talent review, the leadership team first discusses the business initiatives critical to success in the coming year(s).  Important leadership roles and vulnerable staffing areas are highlighted.  Next, the discussion moves to individuals.  Each individual within the scope of the review (managers and above, critical experts, etc.) is examined.  What is the individual’s strengths?  What is their interest? Are they a fit for a new initiative or are they better suited to remain where they are?  Should they be groomed for the next opportunity?  Over the course of the conversation, the leaders get on the same page with what matters to the business and what’s needed by the business. Disagreements are plentiful – especially when it comes to losing staff or not getting the choice assignment proposed for a mentee.  The conversation, results, and action plan are transparent, though, and the business leader can be confident in the execution of the plan.

HR business partners can bring quite a lot of value to a talent review.  In addition to facilitating the conversation and keeping the objectives and action plan on track, the HR partner will likely have access to data analysis, including cross-organizational comparisons and historical trends.  In addition, the HR partner can help with the follow-through on the action plan itself by incorporating the team’s needs into programs such as recruiting, development, and learning as well as providing coaching to the managers with changed responsibilities.

In the best case scenario, the HR business partner has already recommended this approach and the business leaders are on board and seeing strong results.  This is the case in a good portion of Fortune 500 companies – at least at certain levels and in certain functions. For those business leaders that lack this benefit, don’t wait for HR. Talent reviews are a business-led activity.  Initiate the need with HR and make the sessions happen.  Your strategy will be thankful.

Your POV: Are you a business leader?  Do you conduct talent reviews? (or do you call them something else?) Is HR involved?  Shoot me a note.  I’d love to hear your story.

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For more on talent reviews, please see:

What talent reviews are:

Behind Closed Doors – The Talent Review Meeting

What’s The difference between talent reviews and succession planning?

Tools for talent reviews:

Talent Review vs. Calibration Tools – What’s the Difference?

Using Performance and Potential Matrix

What to expect in the meeting:

10 Dysfunctional Characters at a Talent Review Meeting

The risk of (good) innovation

The risk of deploying an innovative product is that your users might just fall in love with it. And, they will be devastated when you have to pull the plug.

The mark of good user satisfaction is no longer a score in the “I don’t hate it” realm or even a measure of system usage.  With the consumerization of workplace applications and the growth of freemium, user-selected applications, the new bar for user acceptance is “I can’t live without this application.”

This is how many users of Cohuman* feel.  But, unfortunately, according to an announcement to customers last night, Cohuman is shutting down it’s services in 34 days. Here are some reactions from customers on the blog announcing the shut down and the mysterious acquisition as well as the Facebook page enabling users to share their reactions and go-forward plans with each other:

“I’m very disappointed and very sorry to hear that cohuman is shutting down. Since I’ve discovered and shared it, I’ve gotten several clients used to it when NOTHING ELSE BEFORE HAS WORKED.”

“This makes me so sad. Along with other comments we would be more than happy to pay for the free service.”

“Since I discovered this software, me and my team has discovered really how to work in collaborative way. This news is very sad too us, we was justing starting to use it, and the results was very good. And everybody was excited with the solution.”

“I have used a lot of productivity tools and I’m very surprised to see Cohuman leave the scene. What is it that good products never stay very long even though they seem to be loved by many?”

The public outcry – including anger over the sudden shutdown, support for charging a fee (even for free stuff) just to keep it going, and praise for giving them a product that makes work better – is startling.  It makes one wonder why a) necessary funding never kicked in and b) the acquiring company is shutting this gem down.

It is a sad, but poignant example of the industry’s growing pains.  There is a lack of a standard measurement for true user success for workplace applications – one that can be used in determining appropriate funding and investment.  Neither current measurements for workplace usage (based on top-down enterprise buys) nor pure consumer applications (based on wide-spread open usage) apply to these new applications that make work better. That needs to change.

In addition, there is a big unknown with regards to the balance between freemium, viral user adoption and charging a fee for value.  What is the right turning point?  What are the right tiers?  These questions are being played out as we speak and there will be many more examples like Cohuman before we get answers.

If you are contemplating deploying an innovative technology at a broader enterprise level, Cohuman’s blog post and Facebook page will provide a good anecdotal understanding of what to prepare for – both the positives and the negatives.  It is a good reminder to have a back-up plan, get a contract that incorporates potential acquisition, and closely follow the viability of the company.

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*Cohuman is a social-oriented task management application that allows employees and external collaborators to track and prioritize to-do lists and projects.  The work “goals” and completion are transparent and can automatically change in priority based on the needs of others on the team.  I highlighted it in my Enterprise 2.0 presentation as an example of connecting goals to work.

Why I’ll enjoy the HR Technology Conference this year

I’ve always looked forward to the HR Technology Conference – that is, up until a few weeks before the show.  I looked forward to seeing the latest and greatest from the competition. I couldn’t wait to see my long-time connections and meet new, interesting people.  I eagerly speculated about the song Naomi might incorporate into a keynote.  I looked forward to hearing about the pains and achievements of HR leaders getting technology to do what they needed.

But all that would change a few weeks before the show.  I would suddenly realize that my experience at the HR Technology Conference would consist of long days at the Sears Tower or long nights in my hotel room preparing a big demo or a big presentation or both.  Actually, it was great – and my boss, Gretchen Alarcon, always shined.  But I missed all the fun.  And, this year – as an independent analyst – I plan to have some fun.  I am looking forward to watching those big demos and big presentations.  In particular, I am on the hunt for innovative approaches to business-centric HR technology.

I hope you will join me in the hunt – whether it is for shiny and useful technology or for connections to people who can spark your plans and ideas.  If you haven’t already purchased a pass, please feel free to use the Promotion Code WILSON11 (all caps) when you go to register online and get $500 off the rack rate of $1,795. (expires September 19)

Bill Kutik tells me that registration is off the charts and rooms are filling up fast, so here’s one procrastinator telling another to get your plans in place.  And, let me know what they are!  I’ve got the Awesome New Technologies for HR session on my agenda, but I am looking for a clone to cover all of the simultaneous sessions.  Looking forward to seeing you there!

Multigenerational Workforce Requires IT Rethink Communication Strategy

Constellation Orbits
Constellation Research, Inc.

Elizabeth is a well-recognized industry-leading analyst. She was previously Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.  Prior to Constellation, Elizabeth spent eleven years at Forrester Research as vice president and principal analyst.  She has managed large consulting projects for business and government organizations and provides technical insight and guidance to business and government organizations on their communication issues. Prior to her role as an industry analyst with Communication Initiatives and Forrester Research, Elizabeth held senior management positions with IBM, ROLM and Siemens ICN where she was a senior manager for strategic planning and alliances. Expertise Elizabeth’s expertise includes in-depth knowledge of unified communications,…...

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Today’s business communication strategy requires IT decision makers to reconsider how they anticipate workers’ communications requirements. It is no longer adequate to plan for a standard desktop and mobile device solely on job descriptions or work functions. New communication plans must take into account the diverse requirements of a multigenerational workforce that spans from aging baby boomers to the millennial generation born after 1980.

Younger workers drive change in the workforce and expect their work communication tools replicate what they have in their homes. This generation grew up using the PC, Internet, smart phones, and iphones. Today’s younger workers prefer to communicate by texting and tweeting and find these methods much more effective than voice messaging and email.

End users now exert a strong influence over communication purchases and IT managers need to support social network connectivity, diverse smart devices and tablets, as well maintain as an infrastructure for more traditional forms of communications. The growth in telecommuters also influences the type of communication devices that should be accommodated. Many businesses realize major savings, as more workers spend one or more days working from their home office and this trend will continue to grow.

Rather than assign a worker who is in the office only a few days a week a cubicle with a fixed landline phone, consider providing an environment where the employee has a shared workspace that recognizes the employee and dynamically updates the desktop telephone with the user’s profile and assigns preconfigured features, such as presence, conferencing and messaging to the desktop device. When planning for a communication upgrade look at the entire environment and ensure workers have full access to needed features across any device in a secure setting.

This does not mean that there is loss of control over the environment, only that the communication management policies take into consideration the needs of all workers and expand sensibly to accommodate the multigenerational workforce. Additionally, upgrade decisions need to consider future integration with key business applications and ensure they are simple to use. Now is time to change the conversation from how much does it cost per user to how can we make the user more productive and interactive from any place on the globe.

Related articles

• Is Gen Y changing the workplace? (business.financialpost.com)
• The Massive Workforce Shift: Bridging the Gap Between Millennials and Boomers (blogs.cisco.com)
• Generational Turf War (crossroadsconsultingllc.wordpress.com)

Research Summary: People Management Technology – A New Framework for Delivering Business Results

Forward

This report lays out a new framework for evaluating people technology decisions in an age of increased demands on business results.  The document delivers comprehensive insight into emerging trends and actionable advice for technology and HR leaders as they make next-generation investment choices in the next three years.

A. Introduction

With mounting pressures on business leaders to get the most from their people to hit targets, technologies that manage and optimize people are increasingly at the forefront of strategic investments.  As a result, technology leaders will face significant HR technology decisions in the next three years.  However, legacy frameworks and decision criteria focus on HR itself – separate from business (see Figure 1).  The time has come to fully connect HR technology to the business.  What’s more, “HR” technology provides too limited a view of what needs to be achieved.  The technology picture needs to focus on infusing people decisions and business decisions together – focusing on solving business problems, not further enhancing HR capabilities.

Figure 1. What HR-Centric Technology Looks Like

B. New Framework Focuses on Impacting the Bottom Line

The shift from HR efficiency and effectiveness to business performance means it is no longer sufficient to bolt-on business users and solutions as an afterthought to HR technology.  Such a strategy is incomplete, relying on outdated frameworks to inform what is important to HR, but not to business success.  Instead, a more valuable framework for next-generation investment value will (see Figure 2.  A comprehensive framework and component details available in the official report):

• Focus on business value first. Instead of aspiring to optimal HR service delivery, a next-generation technology framework aims to equip the business with first-rate people management tools in the context of overall business management.

• Recognize business-oriented people applications as the drivers of business value. Instead of lumping high value business touch-points into a general talent management category, a next-generation framework differentiates tools for business users and optimizes how they interact with business technology.

• View foundational elements – including data, transactions, and programs – in support of business focus. Foundational components continue to play an important role in next-generation investments, but differentiating characteristics, such as flexibility and integration, shift to support the ultimate goal of delivering business value.

What Business-Centric People Technology Looks like

C. Technology Leaders Can Expect Vendors to Respond

The race is on to build out proper platforms, innovate at the business effectiveness layer, and fill in the remaining layers organically or through acquisition and partnership.  There are 4 foundational elements for success:

1. Business user design thinking orientation.
2. Tighter integration with business systems.
3. Pluggable integration with different components in the stack.
4. Solid foundation.

D. Actionable Advice For HR Technology Leaders

As organizations look to take advantage of the latest developments in business-centric, people impact technology, they have the choice of two approaches.

1. Update to an agile platform with a mind to innovate at the business effectiveness layer.
2. Add value with planning & operations applications first, building a case for platform investment.

E. Report Links

Get the full framework with component details on what’s different and where the business benefits lay. Find out how vendors will need to respond – and what you should expect from them.

Buy the full research report on the Constellation Research website.

Contact the Sales team to purchase this report on an a la carte basis or join the Constellation Customer Experience!

Cisco Announces Plans for Greater Simplification at Annual Event

Constellation Orbits
Constellation Research, Inc.

Elizabeth is a well-recognized industry-leading analyst. She was previously Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research.  Prior to Constellation, Elizabeth spent eleven years at Forrester Research as vice president and principal analyst.  She has managed large consulting projects for business and government organizations and provides technical insight and guidance to business and government organizations on their communication issues. Prior to her role as an industry analyst with Communication Initiatives and Forrester Research, Elizabeth held senior management positions with IBM, ROLM and Siemens ICN where she was a senior manager for strategic planning and alliances. Expertise Elizabeth’s expertise includes in-depth knowledge of unified communications,…...

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John Chambers, Cisco CEO, kicked off Cisco Live 2011, the company’s annual IT conference and discussed the priorities for the coming year. Key focus areas include continuing leadership in routing and switching, driving business productivity with its collaboration products, supporting virtualization and cloud for data centers, improving core architecture and security features and expanding video throughout the enterprise. Chambers described video as becoming the primary form of IT with pervasive video dominating how companies will communicate with employees and partners. To achieve these goals, Chambers announced plan to grow through faster innovation and simplification of its business processes. The overall takeaway is Cisco is becoming leaner and more focused to manage the rapid change taking place in today’s workforce and to drive business productivity through its primary technology areas.

Collaboration is a major direction for Cisco and speakers identified four areas of importance- virtual, visual, mobile and social- to enable collaboration from any workspace with premise and cloud solutions. Its collaboration suite encompasses multiple products in customer care, conferencing, social software, messaging, IP communications and mobile applications. Cisco’s new Cius tablet in early pilots has received positive reviews from users who deployed the virtual desktop device. Cisco also announced several improvements for mobile users with multi-platform capability.

Throughout the conference, Cisco stressed their commitment to listening to its customers and delivering innovative solutions to meet future workplace requirements. They have delivered on the product roadmap commitments made last year, which indicate tangible results of R&D efforts across multiple product categories. As a $40 billion company, Cisco has established strong business partners, such as British Telecom, Dimension Data, IBM Business Services and Orange to deploy its solutions globally. Importantly, they recognize the need to transform their business model with innovation and execution to continue to achieve its business goals and provide a collaborative customer experience in the post PC world.

IHRIM Article: Disruptive Technologies Move to the Core with Next-Generation Platforms

The latest half-yearly edition of IHRIM’s Workforce Solutions Review delves into the technology challenges and opportunities facing HR, IT, and business leaders today.  Suzanne Rumsey and Brett Addis of Knowledge Infusion reveal the five key “change drivers” in successful technology deployments, culminating in an adaptation of routine behaviors.  Naomi Bloom and Jim Holincheck hit point and counterpoint on the definition of SaaS.   Michael Krupa, technical director at Charles Schwab, advises his peers to put customizations to rest and turn to next generation HR systems instead.  And, I describe the success elements in getting the agility and innovation value promised from those next generation systems.  It’s a good read and just a small fee if you’re not already an IHRIM member.

In the meantime, here are some highlights from my article:

Disruptive Technologies Move to the Core with Next-Generation Platforms

Agility and innovation on the agenda for IT’s next big shift

Introduction

Today’s IT leaders are under pressure to deliver value quickly while keeping costs to a minimum. But, most IT leaders cannot meet the demands because legacy platforms are holding them back. Next-generation platforms beckon and promise to deliver extraordinary results. With these platforms, IT leaders can turn their attention to business value and innovation rather than customization and maintenance.  Meanwhile, consumer-oriented technology advancements have leaked into enterprises as a result of department- or employee-driven value-seeking. Though these technologies are considered disruptive in today’s ecosystem, they will soon become standard in core platforms. As IT leaders look to deliver sustained innovation and business value with a next-generation platform change, they should focus on the nuances of these four technology enablers:

• Cloud
• Mobile
• Embedded Analytics
• Social

Cloud

Cloud encompasses 3 major components: SaaS, DaaS, and PaaS.

• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms provide a baseline set of components along with highly tuned configuration options. By staying in the delivered “box,” IT organizations can uptake new features immediately without costly maintenance cycles.
• Development-as-a-Service (DaaS) is the delivery of development tools for making application extensions, as well as UI mashups that go beyond delivered configuration capabilities. Such tools enable IT organizations to go “outside the box,” but in an agile, upgrade-safe way.
• Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is the delivery of platform integration and orchestration tools, easing the way in which new integrations are brought in and folded into key business processes.

Cloud Computing includes SaaS, DaaS, and PaaS

With their next generation platform choice, IT leaders should ensure that it provides the highest level of agility and a level of discipline that matches their own strategy.  Information technology leaders are best positioned to drive sustained innovation with a SaaS platform that does not allow for code customization. Such platforms are often referred to as “true SaaS,” in which all customers are on the same code line.  Still, pressures from the business to deliver just the right functionality can be hard to fend off.  PaaS and DaaS will provide the ultimate answer for those IT organizations that feel constrained by SaaS yet seek the benefits of rapid updates and deployment.

Embedded Analytics

Legacy systems delivered business intelligence (BI) separate from applications.  Such a separation meant a disconnect between decisions and actions – rendering both tools less useful and powerful than they could be.

With next-generation platforms, IT leaders should look to bring value to business users by tying decisions and actions together within applications. Embedding analytics in applications can come in the form of role-based dashboards, formal and informal process insight and/or transaction support.

• In the case of role-based dashboards, the individual can see the big picture, but also has direct access to the underlying data and can initiate changes or change requests.
• Within processes, comparative insight can lead an individual to a clear decision point or down a better path.
• While completing a transaction, individuals can see the impact of their changes and fine-tune their entry.

Next-generation Analytics Enable Control and Embedded Delivery

With embedded analytics, decision support must be thought about up-front in the implementation cycle. At the same time, it’s important to recognize the changing requirements and new information that will be gained as these tools are put into practice. The IT leader should make sure that the analytics platform is easy to configure, change, and roll out across the various application touch points.

Mobile

With more than 74 percent of the world owning mobile phones plus smartphones changing expectations of what can be accomplished with such devices, IT leaders will need a sound and easily adaptable mobile delivery strategy.

Part of this strategy includes how to convert or build applications for mobile devices.  A key decision point is whether to build native applications or Web-based applications.

• Native applications are optimized for a particular device environment – including user interface, speed of use, and interoperability with other native applications. Native applications are ideal if you can narrow down the mobile OS platforms to one or two.
• Web-based applications can scale to all operating systems with one development effort. This is often a more practical path given there are currently more than five active operating systems and the market is changing rapidly.

Both Native and Web-based Mobile Delivery Have Benefits

Though application providers are busy building out mobile applications, it’s not likely
they can keep up with IT’s array of mobile demands in the coming decade.  It will be important for IT leaders to understand the vendor’s own mobile development platform and how this can be leveraged by the IT organization. Is the mobile development platform part of the Platform-as-a-Service capability?  Will it be?  In the meantime, IT will need to make sure to deliver mobile applications that address the most critical and appropriate business needs – and to waitlist the rest.

Social

Enterprises have seen the proliferation of social network tools in pockets of the business; Microsoft Sharepoint, alone, can be found in 78 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Unlike consumer tools such as Facebook, Yelp, and Foursquare, these tools are secured and focused on the sharing of work materials, updates and decisions. However, the stand-alone enterprise social network has its limitations – limitations that can be overcome by incorporating this new way of working into next-generation platforms.

• Stand-alone networks are disconnected from people systems. Though people-centric, the standalone tool misses out on key data housed in HR records –such as work history and organizational connections. Likewise, the people (HR) system misses out on rich information shared about expertise and work completion.
• Stand-alone networks are disconnected from business systems. Though the stand-alone system supports informal decision-making, the formal decisions, transactions and process updates are missing – causing a disconnect in the way people can perform their work. Likewise, the business system lacks the important insights gained from the network when individuals initiate transactions or complete processes.

Next-Generation Platforms incorporate and interoperate with Social Tools

As IT leaders evaluate next-generation platforms, they will want to make sure social tools are embedded in the business and people systems for maximum value. At the same time, new consumer and stand-alone social tools will continue to emerge and provide new value to the workplace. To get the most from emerging technology, IT leaders will need to make sure that the social network tools baked into the application platform will also provide interoperability with “the next big thing.”

Summary

Next-generation platform shifts will provide an exciting opportunity for IT to deliver value to the business rapidly, but with significantly lower costs.  IT leaders should position themselves to get the most from disruptive technology advancements built into the platform by:

• Running a pilot in a specific department or for a specific problem. Choose a group that champions technology adoption, but is able to adapt if the technology is not selected.
• Getting comfortable with the level of control over the technology.  Simulate change requirements – new business rules, bringing on a new organization or region – within the pilot phase.  Measure the flexibility and costs; determine if the platform requires improvement or if expectations need to be lowered.
• Experimenting with innovative ideas. Where are social, mobile, and analytics most impactful? Get early feedback on usefulness from pilot groups. Adjust, eliminate or strengthen.
• Leveraging small wins to get early buy-in and executive support. Use information learned early and apply that knowledge to more areas, building up more support as you go.

Your POV: Are you currently evaluating a next-generation platform?  What are your drivers?  Your key criteria?  What do you need help with?

The Race to Platform Continues: SumTotal Buys Accero & CyberShift

The People Impact Technology Race is On!

The HR vendor landscape is changing rapidly as we have seen with recent consolidations by Infor (Lawson), Peoplefluent (Aquire), and SuccessFactors (Plateau) as well as SumTotal’s announcement today to buy Accero and CyberShift.  One way to look at this consolidation is that there are too many vendors and not enough differentiation for them all to survive.  Though this is true, I believe there is a larger force at play here -  now, more than ever before, businesses need to get business results from their people-based systems.

In my soon-to-be-released report, “People Impact Technology Framework,” I describe the forces at play in moving from HR-centric technology to Business-centric technology.  New applications that are designed specifically for business users, with the goal of improving their work and planning capabilities, are emerging and getting the attention of executives. However, this new category of applications – those that deliver direct value to business – put even more pressure on underlying foundational architectures.  These “platforms” must be agile, complete, and inter-operable within the stack.  Only with integrated data and transactions can business leaders gain proper insight for planning decisions.  Meanwhile, the results from those decisions are only as nimble as the foundation allows for new data collection, changed processes, updated organization models, and follow through of strategic talent programs.

In the new vendor landscape, there will be just two types of providers: platform vendors and innovation vendors.  Platform vendors will have invested in the agile supporting architecture, unified the framework layers and created strong integration plug-ins for add-on capabilities.  Innovation vendors will have invested in the “business”  layer along with the ability to plug their solution into strong platforms.

So, it is not surprising that SumTotal – up until yesterday, a Talent Management Suite provider – has made a move to become a platform vendor by adding core HR, Benefits and Payroll via Accero and Time & Attendance, Labor Costing, and Workforce Management via CyberShift.  This is a strong move in the right direction, but as with many of the other vendors making this play, there is much work to bring the pieces together and build out an agile, unified foundation to support the goal of delivering value to the business.

Bottom line: To meet the future demands of business, the stakes are rising for HR vendors.  An integrated talent suite will not be sufficient, on its own, to deliver the business results expected from people technology.  SumTotal has made a strong play in the right direction.

Your POV: What is your experience with these vendors? Do you see an advantage by bringing these pieces together in your business?  What are your concerns?