Seven Ways to Compare the Enterprise HCM Suite 'Big Three'

Most human capital management suite evaluations for larger enterprises involve Oracle HCM Cloud and SAP SuccessFactors and Workday HCM. No single solution will be a best fit for all enterprises, so IT and HR managers need to develop specific questions to ask each vendor during the selection process.

Overview

Key Findings

Many larger enterprises suffer from aging core HR software platforms and disparate talent management solutions, and are showing a keen interest in cloud-deployed human capital management solutions that combine core HR and talent management functionalities.

Although Oracle HCM Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors and Workday HCM are all marketed as cloud or SaaS offerings, the three solutions evolved differently; thus, they vary substantially.

Geographic issues (including headquarters location and distribution of the workforce), as well as the client's incumbent provider, significantly affect the functional fit and market adoption of these solutions, as well as the vendor's approach to pricing and contract negotiation.

Recommendations

Establish a priority order for HCM functionality and critical solution attributes to drive the proper evaluation of potential solution providers.

Ask deeper and more-detailed questions (some of which may vary) during the RFP, demo and contracting phases to find the best-fit solution — all vendor approaches are not created equal.

Perform structured reference checks with similar customers — they are key to understanding what it's really like to work with the application and the vendor.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction Analysis

o Functional Coverage Oracle HCM Cloud

Core HRMS Service Delivery Talent Management Workforce Management

SAP SuccessFactors Core HRMS Service Delivery Talent Management Workforce Management

Workday HCM Core HRMS Service Delivery Talent Management Workforce Management

o Overall Customer Adoption Oracle HCM Cloud SAP SuccessFactors Workday HCM

o Geographic Presence Oracle HCM Cloud SAP SuccessFactors Workday HCM

o Architectural Approach Oracle HCM Cloud SAP SuccessFactors Workday HCM

o Extensibility Oracle HCM Cloud SAP SuccessFactors Workday HCM

o Reporting and Analytics Oracle HCM Cloud SAP SuccessFactors Workday HCM

o Customer Satisfaction: Product and Vendor-Customer Relationship o Summary: Strengths, Trade-Offs and Implications

Oracle HCM Cloud SAP SuccessFactors Workday HCM

Recommendations

Introduction

All upper midmarket (more than 2,500 employees) and large global enterprises (more than 10,000 employees in multiple regions) need to manage their human capital management (HCM) application portfolio strategically (see "Craft Your Postmodern HCM Technology Strategy to Support the Digital Workplace and Beyond"). However, technology evaluations executing the developed strategy conducted by organizations in this size range will almost always include at least an initial assessment of the HCM cloud solutions offered by Oracle, SAP and Workday. As the selection process continues, Gartner client inquiry reveals that it is also likely that one or two of the three will be identified as finalist vendors.

Because these applications vary substantially across multiple dimensions of capability, and no single solution is a best fit for all Gartner clients, this analysis will explore seven major categories of differentiation to help HR and IT project teams determine specific questions (based on their unique organizational contexts) to ask each vendor during the selection process:

Functional coverage Overall customer adoption Geographic presence Architectural approach Extensibility Reporting and analytics Customer satisfaction (product and vendor-customer relationship)

Two major selection criteria (pricing and implementation cost/time) will receive limited treatment in this research, because both vary dramatically by customer context variables (e.g., combinations of geography, size, industry, and functionality scope and incumbent vendor) and must be determined later in the selection project.

Analysis

Functional Coverage

Functional coverage refers to the core business processes and features offered by the vendor for the defined market. This includes a high-level description of current product capabilities, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements and partnerships.

Clients can take the desired functional scope defined in their HCM technology strategy and compare it with each vendor's solution set to identify the high-level gaps that may need to be filled with other solutions (see "Use These Best Practices to Develop a Pace-Layered Application Strategy for Financial Management"), as well as the functions that need to be explored in a more-detailed fashion via RFP and scripted demonstration. Clients should be aware that each vendor's approach to initial pricing and discounting is often influenced by the maturity of the module or bundle, especially compared with the maturity of a rival offering in a competitive situation. Clients should not be afraid to leverage this in contract negotiations.

Oracle HCM Cloud

Oracle HCM Cloud combines its natively developed Fusion Applications for global core HR, payroll, time and labor, and talent management with its acquired Taleo products for recruiting, onboarding and learning (see Figure 1). User experience continues to improve across the suite, as Oracle executes on its multiyear plan for user harmonization and application integration.

Source: Gartner (May 2015)

Delivered mobile applications are strong; however, they don't yet cover enough functions to be a competitive differentiator for Oracle, while a common platform and embedded social/collaboration functionality is steadily manifesting throughout the suite. Oracle is innovating with a series of "Work Life" applications, such as "My Reputation" (delivered in Release 9), as well as future applications focused on wellness, competitions and other contributors to improving and measuring workforce engagement.

Core HRMS

Oracle Cloud HCM delivers on global HR requirements through a three-tier approach: delivery of localized payroll in Tier 3 countries (currently seven); delivery of localized HR and absence management, including data and delivered reports, for statutory compliance in Tier 2 countries (currently 17); and delivery of preconfigured data fields and the reporting tools needed for clients to produce localized statutory reporting across person and employment data in Tier 1 countries (currently 23, with plans to expand to 100 by the end of 2015). Beyond delivered localizations, configuration options enable clients to comply with local regulatory requirements.

Oracle will continue to invest in payroll localizations, while additionally focusing on integrations with PeopleSoft and E-Business Suite (EBS) payrolls, third-party partners (such as NGA, ADP and Ceridian) and payroll interface technologies (now included in the core HR subscription cost) for extended localized payroll support. The suite supports both U.S. benefits administration and international benefit programs, but does not currently include health and safety or grievance tracking. Basic digital HR document management is part of Global HR Cloud. The adoption of HCM Cloud payroll is limited; while approximately 200 have purchased the application, Gartner estimates that fewer than 30 are in production.

Service Delivery

HR Call Center functionality is available through the Oracle Service Cloud (acquired RightNow Technologies). Oracle HCM Cloud has extensive employee and manager self-service functionality and a growing number of applications available for use on iOS and Android mobile devices, as well as mobile device support through the use of responsive Web design via HTML5.

Talent Management

The Oracle Talent Management Cloud is composed of applications developed as part of the Fusion Application product line: Performance Management, Goal Management, Succession Planning, Talent Review, Career Development, Workforce Compensation and Workforce Modeling. In addition, the acquired Taleo suite is composed of recruiting, onboarding and learning modules (the latter acquired from Learn.com in 2010). The 2012 acquisition of SelectMinds extends Oracle's offering in social recruiting and sourcing. In March 2015, the vendor introduced Oracle Learning Cloud, its newest offering to support the digital workplace via mobile, social and video-based learning. Oracle was rated a Leader in the "Magic Quadrant for Talent Management Suites."

Workforce Management

Oracle delivers natively developed absence management through Oracle Global HR Cloud and Oracle Time and Labor Cloud (first available in Release 8) as part of Oracle HCM Cloud. Other workforce management (WFM) components, such as labor scheduling, task management and industry-specific solutions, are not yet available. This module is early in its maturation, and Gartner estimates that fewer than 25 customers are in production.

SAP SuccessFactors

Following its acquisition by SAP in 2012, SuccessFactors became SAP's strategic platform for HCM in the cloud. Employee Central, the core HR offering, received significant investment from SAP following the acquisition. It has now emerged as a viable global HR offering, heralding SuccessFactors' entry into the HCM suite space (prior to that it was seen as a talent management suite vendor only). The HCM suite (see Figure 2) combines natively developed and acquired solutions. Investments in user experience and analytics, as well as product advances, highlight its focus on interactivity and transparency of information.

The vendor has increased its focus on mobile accessibility; however, it currently lags market leaders, whereas social/collaboration support tends to be more advanced than most. SAP acquired Fieldglass in 2014, a vendor management system for managing contractor spending, and has begun to deliver process integration and analytics spanning both solutions for a more holistic view into the broader workforce, encompassing employees and nonemployees.

Core HRMS

SuccessFactors has rapidly advanced its core HR offering, Employee Central, and now delivers 71 country localizations. SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll includes a hosted instance of SAP Payroll, enabling it to deliver country extensions rapidly (28 as of this writing), although Gartner estimates that there are fewer than 20 customers in production. Global benefits administration functionality is available, while U.S. benefits administration is provided through partners (such as Benefitfocus). Health and safety tracking (but not grievance) is delivered with Employee Central. Basic digital HR document management is supported by enabling various attachment types within process workflows.

Service Delivery

Of the three vendors profiled in the research, SuccessFactors' mobile strategy is the least advanced, with comparatively limited availability of self-service solutions across mobile phones and tablets. Natively developed Help Desk capabilities were introduced in 2014 via the Employee Central Service Center and the addition of "AskHR" links on each page to facilitate knowledge search and service center ticket creation.

Talent Management

The SAP SuccessFactors talent management suite is composed of natively developed solutions from SuccessFactors (i.e., performance and goal management, compensation, succession and career development, and recruiting management), as well as solutions that were acquired and subsequently enhanced: Plateau (learning management system [LMS]), Jobs2Web (recruiting marketing), Inform (workforce analytics and workforce planning), KMS (forms engine, primarily for use in onboarding), CubeTree and Jambok (social collaboration). SuccessFactors continues to develop these acquired solutions: Jambok and CubeTree were combined and enhanced to create SAP JAM; and the KMS forms engine was combined with additional development to deliver Onboarding. Functionality across the talent modules ranges from above average to best in class ("Critical Capabilities for Talent Management Suites").

Workforce Management

Leave and absence management, as well as core time sheet functionality, is supported within Employee Central, with broader WFM capabilities delivered through partners (such as Kronos or Workforce Software).

Workday HCM

Workday HCM (see Figure 3) delivers natively developed functionality spanning global HR, targeted local payroll, talent management, workforce management, and extensive employee and manager self-service. Mobile enablement in core HR was an early advantage for Workday,

while social and analytics capabilities are emerging more prominently in the suite. Because Workday HCM is a single unified solution, core HR is a prerequisite for the rest of the suite.

In a 2014 Gartner global survey of more than 240 organizations using 30 applications, reference customers ranked Workday HCM highest in helping them meet their main objectives for implementing HCM solutions (including reporting, process standardization and improved quality of HR services).1

Core HRMS

Global HR functionality is enabled through delivery or configuration of the fields necessary to support statutory reporting in individual countries. Payroll is provided for the U.S., Canada and the U.K. (new with Workday 24), with payroll for France targeted for 2016. Workday has not announced plans for the development of any additional payroll localizations. Instead, it is focusing on partner integrations and payroll interface technologies to satisfy additional country requirements. Gartner estimates that approximately 55% of Workday clients use U.S. or Canadian payroll. Benefits administration is delivered as part of core HR, and Cloud Connect for Benefits delivers prepackaged connections to third-party providers. Health and safety tracking is supported; however, grievance tracking is not. Basic digital HR document management is supported through attaching various document types to the core worker record. Expense Management, fully integrated with the suite, is also available as an optional module for HCM customers.

Service Delivery

Extensive self-service for managers and employees is enabled via role-based views of the system. Workday delivers native mobile support for iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices, as well as responsive Web design via HTML5. HR Help Desk for shared-service centers is provided through partners integrating with the Workday functionality.

Talent Management

Workday delivers functionality to support performance management, succession planning, compensation management, workforce planning, recruiting and onboarding. Functionality across performance, succession and compensation is generally of average competitiveness. Recruiting is still relatively new (launched in May 2014), with capability gaps compared with the broad and deep offerings of the more-established recruiting suite solutions (such as Oracle Taleo or IBM Kenexa). However, almost 100 clients have signed up for the solution in the first year, while others have delayed purchase until the solution matures over subsequent releases. An LMS is not offered; however, Workday partners with several LMS vendors (such as Cornerstone OnDemand and Saba) to deliver standard integration with Workday HCM. A new Talent Insight offering released in April 2015 delivers data science and machine-learning capabilities (acquired in its 2014 purchase of Identified) to deliver predictive and prescriptive recommendations into key talent work streams.

Workforce Management

Workday delivers absence management through its core HR solution and offers a separate module for time tracking. The time-tracking solution is designed for organizations to collect, process and distribute time data to manage time and labor for their global workforces. Workday clients with more-complex requirements in this area (including industry-specific needs, such as complex work rules and scheduling optimization) will typically turn to third-party solutions (see "Understanding the Fragmented Workforce Management Solution Market"). Gartner estimates that approximately 40% of Workday HCM clients use Workday Time Tracking.

Overall Customer Adoption

This dimension includes the application's tenure in the HCM marketplace, current release number and frequency, estimated customer counts (purchased and in production), major industries of focus, distribution by employee size segment and noteworthy customers. Clients should use this data to determine whether each solution's maturity level, company size distribution and industry representation meets their high-level inclusion criteria and warrants further exploration.

Oracle HCM Cloud

Oracle's core HR module (Global HR) was made generally available in early 2012, and early adopter customers went live later that year. Built on Oracle's Fusion technology stack, the product is in Release 10 and is updated twice annually. Oracle has reported that, as of 28 February 2015, more than 700 customers had purchased Global HR, and more than 350 are in production. In addition, Gartner estimates that Oracle has more than 650 upper midmarket and large enterprise recruiting customers using its Talent Cloud stand-alone, integrated with HCM Cloud Core HR or coexisting with its other core HR offerings. Although Oracle customers come from a broad set of industries, those in professional/consulting services, banking and securities, communications and media, and manufacturing represent an estimated 51% of the customer base. Gartner estimates that more than 70% of customers have more than 1,000 employees and about 30% have more than 10,000 employees. Noteworthy customers include Activision, Elizabeth Arden, BG Group, British Telecom, Omnicare and Blackrock.

SAP SuccessFactors

SAP includes multiple talent management modules, as well as Employee Central (EC), its core HR management platform, which first came to market in 2009 and has been substantially built out since the acquisition by SAP in January 2012. EC has been updated on a quarterly basis since its inception, and, as of YE14, Gartner estimates that more than 550 customers have purchased the product (an increase from approximately 300 at YE13), and more than 260 are in production. EC deployments range across multiple industries, with slightly more adoption in manufacturing, professional/consulting services, communications/media and business services

(together comprising an estimated 43% of the customer base). Approximately 46% of customers have 1,000 employees or more, and 14% have more than 10,000 employees. Noteworthy customers include Timken, Amway, Meggitt, Unify, Brooks Brothers and NTT Data.

Workday HCM

Workday debuted in November 2006, with the first customer go-lives in 2007. Since that time, Gartner estimates that more than 900 customers have purchased core HCM (more than 600 in production) through YE14. Workday has delivered 24 product updates since 2007 to enhance core HR capabilities and build out talent management modules, including recruiting, which was released in May 2014. At that time, the vendor also shifted to a semiannual release schedule (March/September). Workday customers come from a broad cross-section of industries; however, professional/consulting services, education, business services, insurance and manufacturing are the primary verticals, with an estimated 63% of the customer base. Gartner estimates that 85% of Workday customers have more than 1,000 employees, and 26% have more than 10,000. Noteworthy customers include Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, Hewlett-Packard, Lafarge, Four Seasons and Lenovo.

Geographic Presence

Geographic presence evaluates the vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of geographies outside its "home" or native geography, either directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries, as appropriate for that geography and market. Clients should determine the relative priority of a strong presence in their home countries/regions versus other criteria. Then they should ask deeper questions during the RFP and demonstration phases to get precise definitions (such as what "support" means, and how language translations are kept current and new ones are delivered). Gartner client inquiry indicates that vendors generally tend to "hold the line" on pricing more firmly within their "home" regions where they have a substantial presence; however, they tend to be more aggressive with pricing and discounting in regions where they are looking to increase customer adoption.

Oracle HCM Cloud

Oracle has physical offices in each region across the globe: Greater China, the Asia/Pacific (APAC) region, Japan, Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and North America, including direct sales and in-country customer support centers. Customers span the globe; however, Gartner estimates that roughly 50% of clients are U.S.-based organizations, 30% are in EMEA, and the remainder are in the APAC region and Latin America. These customers manage workforces in more than 180 countries. Oracle offers 34 translations across Oracle Global HR Cloud and 24 translations across the Talent Management Cloud. Oracle also supports 19 data centers worldwide.

SAP SuccessFactors

SAP SuccessFactors claims in-country presence in every region of the globe, including direct sales and in-country customer support representatives. Customers are largely based in the U.S. (approximately 40% of clients) and Western Europe (more than 25%); however, Latin America and Asia/Pacific-based clients each constitute more than 12% of the total client base, with Middle East, Africa and Greater China making up the remaining 11%. Employee Central provides HR localization support for 71 countries and translated in 39 languages at the time of this writing, with additional localizations and translations planned. SAP SuccessFactors operates two data centers in the U.S., three in EMEA and two in the APAC region.

Workday HCM

Workday has physical offices across North America, Western Europe, the APAC region, Japan, Australia and Greater China, including direct sales and in-country customer support representatives. It has many large, multinational clients that together have workforces operating in more than 200 countries. Gartner estimates that 75% to 80% of current clients are based in the U.S., 10% in EMEA, and 8% across the APAC/Japan/Greater China region, with the remainder in the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America. Workday is executing a European expansion strategy, focused on growing product, sales and marketing services. Gartner inquiry volumes confirm Workday is increasing its presence in this region, as well as in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). Growth across Southeast Asia and Japan is also a strategic initiative for Workday; however, uptake lags its current growth rates in Europe and ANZ. Today, Workday provides translations of employee and manager self-service transactions in 24 languages. It operates multiple data centers in North America and has two data centers in Europe (Ireland and The Netherlands).

Architectural Approach

One of the sharpest and most visible "dividing lines" in the overall HCM technology market is the approach that vendors have taken to developing functionality and deploying it to customers. Some have embraced the concept of a natively developed suite, believing that the advantages of one development environment, built-in integration, a common user experience for employees, managers and administrators, and single platform for reporting outweigh the disadvantages of (sometimes) slower time to market for specific functionality desired by the customer base. Others have chosen the acquisition route and invested in integration tools to bring disparate products together, thus prioritizing quicker delivery of deeper capabilities in a given functional area, with the trade-off of a 24- to 36-month period (and sometimes longer), where integration (i.e., data, process and user experience) is developed and enhanced.

Another outcome of architectural approach relates to how the software is deployed. Some vendors developed their products as multitenant SaaS from inception, and can deploy their solutions in their public cloud only. This single focus on public cloud simplifies the software update process, because all customers get the updates the same way within a short period of

time (sometimes measured in hours), which enables the vendor to allocate more resources to innovation. In most cases, customers must change how they manage product updates to accommodate the vendor's deployment timeline (see "Effective HCM SaaS Release Management Demands New Thinking").

Other vendors have developed their cloud HCM suites from more-traditional architectures and, as a result, can offer more deployment options, including private cloud and on-premises self-hosting, as well as the public cloud. Although this flexibility often complicates vendor support and development (such as having to support multiple versions of products), it appeals to many prospects whose leaders have not fully embraced the idea of core HR data and processes in a public cloud, a common situation outside North America and in certain industries, regardless of geography (such as the public sector and heavily regulated industries).

Prospective customers of these solutions need to prioritize the relative importance of the architectural differences described below and to determine what is most important to the context of their organizations.

Oracle HCM Cloud

Oracle HCM Cloud has been developed using the Fusion technology stack (including Java, Fusion middleware and Oracle Database) for core HR, payroll, benefits administration, performance management, career development, succession planning and talent review. Oracle expanded its talent management portfolio by acquiring Taleo in 2012 for recruiting, onboarding and learning (a separate technology via Taleo's previous acquisition of Learn.com). Therefore, Oracle customer that want a full cloud HCM solution will use as many as three separate technologies, resulting in divergent user experiences, as well as vendor-delivered integration to keep the products in sync. Oracle continues to execute on a multiyear strategy to improve integration, harmonize the user experiences and enable a federated talent profile. Recent evidence of progress includes a new Hiring Manager user experience in Release 9 (October 2014). The modules of Oracle HCM Cloud developed on Fusion can be deployed on-premises, via private cloud or public cloud (the vendor indicates that most implementations have been via the public cloud); the Taleo functionality is public cloud only.

SAP SuccessFactors

SAP SuccessFactors began as a natively developed talent management suite for performance management. Career development, succession planning, compensation, recruiting and core HR were added later. Via multiple acquisitions, the vendor then added Plateau to the suite for learning management (2011), as well as CubeTree for social/collaboration (2010), Inform for workforce analytics (2010), Jobs2web for social posting/recruiting marketing (2011), KMS for onboarding (2013) and Fieldglass for contingent labor management (2014).

The vendor is enhancing the initial integrations developed to unite these applications by implementing a standards-based approach for interapplication communication (Odata), an

HTML5-based user experience for Web and mobile access (SAP UI5), a metadata "wrapper" that describes each application, and an Events Bus to orchestrate such elements as notifications, event sequence and timing, generation of third-party integrations and automated report distribution. Gartner client inquiry and SAP SuccessFactors customer reference feedback indicates that integration remains a work in progress; however, clients are likely to experience improvements based on this updated integration architecture. SAP SuccessFactors can be deployed via public cloud only.

Workday HCM

Workday was brought to market in late 2006 on the premise that a natively developed suite of HCM functionality on a multitenant SaaS platform would optimize the customer experience and increase the pace of innovation. The vendor has chosen not to acquire functionality since inception, choosing instead to partner for major functions (such as Cornerstone OnDemand and Saba for learning) until native modules are built (recruiting was also done via partners until Workday released its own module in May 2014). Workday has made several acquisitions of underlying technology components to improve scalability, integration and information management, including the Cape Clear integration engine (2010) and Identified (2014) for search and predictive analytics. Inquiry and reference feedback indicates that Workday customers are highly satisfied with integration, user experience and reporting, all of which are major elements of the value proposition of the natively developed suite concept. Workday can be deployed only via public cloud.

Extensibility

Some HCM vendors have gone beyond mere configuration to provide customers the option to extend their applications using platform as a service (PaaS) toolkits (see "Effective HCM SaaS Release Management Demands New Thinking"). Customers and implementation partners use these tools to develop complete, functional submodules that include unique data, business processes, approval workflows and reporting, usually within the same architecture, user experience and security infrastructure of the delivered solution (such as a more robust grievance and disciplinary action tracking capability for a manufacturing firm). The use of extensibility tools involves some trade-offs. Although it enables accommodation of unique business requirements, it also puts the entire burden of support on the customer or system integrator (SI), and it may add complexity to update testing and longer-term update planning. Therefore, organizations must carefully evaluate the pros and cons of using the HCM Suite's extensibility tools to satisfy stakeholder requirements. The following is a high-level summary of each vendor's approach to extensibility.

Oracle HCM Cloud

Oracle HCM Cloud has inherited several extensibility characteristics from the EBS architecture, most notably Flex Fields and Fast Formulas, which enable customers to add user-defined fields to any table in the application and derive calculated values. This can be used in concert with

Fusion Middleware to create ancillary applications that are not affected by updates. In addition, customers can use other tools such as SOA Suite and BPEL to extend delivered capabilities.

SAP SuccessFactors

SAP SuccessFactors offers two options to customers considering deployment of extended functionality. The first is the Meta Data Framework (MDF), a configure-to-extend development environment that enables customers or SI partners to build complete subapplications with no coding within the Web administration tools to define and extend objects, create rules and define user experiences. The second is the Hana Cloud Platform (HCP), a complete code-to-extend PaaS designed to handle more-complex integrations and functional requirements. Since MDF and HCP are natively integrated, users can reduce development and support efforts by building core objects in MDF, then leveraging them in HCP. Several partner extensions developed using these tools are currently available, including Accenture's "HR Audit & Compliance as a Service" and "Clone & Test as a Service," Enterprise Jungle's "Enterprise Jungle for SF" and Semos Group's "JobPts."

Workday HCM

Workday enables customers to create custom fields and attributes for 33 application objects (such as Worker, Job Profile, Location, Pre-Hire and Region). Once created, custom fields can be included in business processes and reporting, and are not affected by application updates. The vendor's decision not to expand this limited extensibility to a full PaaS capability is not due to any architectural constraints, but rather Workday's belief that PaaS might negatively affect its overall customer experience (in areas such as support and product updates).

Reporting and Analytics

This category has traditionally been the most challenging for vendors to meet customer expectations, because it has been difficult to achieve the balance of user-friendliness, complexity of analysis and variety of output needed across all stakeholder roles. This is reflected in customer reference data gathered for both the talent management and core HR vendors during the past 18 months:

Talent Management Suite users (191 responses, 18 solutions, January 2014) rated "Reporting capabilities" a 6.5 out of 7 in importance, but only a 4.78 in satisfaction, resulting in a gap of more than 1.7 points. Reporting was the only product satisfaction attribute (11 total) that was rated below 5.

HCM Suite users (246 responses, 30 solutions, July 2014) also rated "Reporting and analytics capabilities" a 6.5 out of 7 in importance, but for satisfaction gave their applications somewhat higher marks in aggregate (5.27), resulting in a narrower (but still significant) gap of 1.23 points.

Most vendors in the space have tried to address the issue with a mix of tools (some included with the base subscription, and some at an extra charge) to cover the main categories of standard/operational reporting, dashboards, ad hoc analysis and analytics. They have increased the extent to which analytics are embedded contextually in delivered business processes. Overall, the three vendors have followed this approach, so it's important to determine which tools deliver required (versus nice to have) capabilities and for what cost.

Oracle HCM Cloud

Oracle HCM Cloud delivers a variety of standard/operational reports via Oracle BI Publisher, and enables real-time, ad hoc reporting and role-based dashboards (delivered via desktop or mobile devices) with Oracle Fusion Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI), including more than 900 metrics. Oracle Fusion Workforce Predictions provides predefined models for the prediction of worker performance and voluntary termination, each based on multiple attributes that can be modified by the user. Oracle talent management reference satisfaction for reporting capabilities was slightly below average (perhaps driven by separate standard/operational reporting tools for recruiting and learning); however, HCM Suite reference satisfaction with reporting and analytics capabilities was well above average. Planned investments in 2015 include further delivery of cross-source analytics bridging HR, talent, finance and third-party data sources, as well as additional predictive analytics based on large datasets, such as recruiting and compensation.

SAP SuccessFactors

SAP SuccessFactors delivers standard/operational and ad hoc reporting via its Online Report Designer, delivered dashboards use the Tile-Based Dashboard Framework (based largely on the Youcalc acquisition), with some configurability options. Solution-specific analytics are provided where relevant to delivered talent processes. Optional purchases (based on the Inform acquisition) include Workforce Analytics (advanced dashboards and analytics) and Workforce Planning (strategic planning tools, predefined strategies and guidance). Users of the SAP SuccessFactors talent management applications were somewhat more satisfied with overall reporting capabilities than the average of all respondents; however, Employee Central references were less satisfied than average, with the lowest satisfaction score of the 30 vendor solutions covered by the HCM Suites survey. SAP SuccessFactors investments in 2015 include a new analytics user experience, transition to the Hana platform to increase reporting process throughput and the delivery of additional predictive analytics.

Workday HCM

Workday provides standard/operational reporting and configurable, role-based dashboards (accessible via mobile, as well as browser) as an embedded capability of its application. Composite Reporting was delivered with Release 23 (Fall 2014). Built to support financial reporting requirements, it can also be leveraged across the suite to support complex HR compliance and management reporting needs. With the release of Workday 24, the vendor

made its Big Data Analytics module (formerly a separate module) part of the foundation of Workday Insight Applications, the first of which is Talent Insights (also delivered with Workday 24). HCM Suite reference customers indicated above-average satisfaction with Workday's reporting and analytics capabilities.

Customer Satisfaction: Product and Vendor-Customer Relationship

Product quality System performance Ease of use for professional users Ease of use for employees and managers System administration Workflow Reporting and analytics capabilities (referenced above, but also included below) Ease of integration with other applications Ability to customize or configure the application Documentation with the solution Training made available

Experience through the sales process Initial implementation and deployment Handover from implementation to support Ongoing communication and support Additional deployments and upgrades After-sales care Account management Enhancement request processes

The expectation with vendor-provided references is that they represent the most-positive view of vendor, rather than what the average customer might say about the product and/or service.

On the other hand, Gartner inquiries from existing customers of these applications generally pertain to issues with the vendor product and/or service and, therefore, are likely to represent a more-negative view than the average customer experience.

The relative timing of when survey data was collected (early 2014 for the TMS Magic Quadrant and mid-2014 for the HCM Suite Applications Market Guide) may not fully reflect the current situation, because each vendor continues to make investments to mature their products and improve service levels. In particular, SAP SuccessFactors announced a substantial number of initiatives in September 2014 (after the HCM suite applications data was collected) designed to improve customer support, communication and implementation success rates. Now that six months (and two quarterly updates) have passed, further surveys will reveal the extent to which these investments have improved customer satisfaction (and how quickly). In addition, both Oracle and

Workday have enhanced their products with two updates each since survey data was collected. This shows that, in this rapidly evolving market, the target is always moving.

Summary: Strengths, Trade-Offs and Implications

A careful review of the information listed above reinforces the perspective that none of these solutions represents the best fit for every potential customer in every industry or geography, because the maturity and depth of capability of each functional area vary (often substantially). Therefore, project teams must determine how they will come to grips with the major strengths, trade-offs and implications of each choice.

Oracle HCM Cloud

Oracle HCM Cloud has shown evidence of increased product maturity and has also made substantial progress against its product integration roadmap during the past two years. The vendor has effectively doubled its Global HR module customer base, while improving customer satisfaction. It offers the greatest number of deployment options for core HR, and it delivers robust recruiting and compensation functionality. The trade-off for being able to use deeper product capabilities for recruiting, onboarding and learning is the requirement to work with an evolving product integration landscape, as Oracle completes its multiyear roadmap to bring this functionality together under a harmonized user experience.

SAP SuccessFactors

SAP SuccessFactors leads the way in depth of capabilities and customer adoption for post hire talent management. EC has experienced rapid customer uptake during the past two calendar years (almost 100% year-over-year growth) and has the broadest adoption by organizations headquartered outside North America. However, its rapid growth and the impact of acquisitions has resulted in product, integration and customer support issues. Although the vendor has substantive initiatives underway to improve customer service and integration, potential customers should be aware of the possible impacts on project budget estimates and timelines until these initiatives are fully realized.

Workday HCM

Workday has the most mature core HR application and the largest number of customers in production, and leads the two competitors evaluated here in customer satisfaction. Prospects attracted to the concept of its natively developed suite and common user experience that find gaps in the current functionality or process flows must be willing to wait for modules and/or enhancements to be developed, leverage partners, change business processes or develop workarounds, because Workday's ability to develop extended functionality is limited. Because its adoption by organizations based outside North America is still emerging, prospects should recognize that it will take some time for the vendor to build a reference set of customers headquartered in every geographic region. Those considering Workday will also need to take

into account the vendor's premium pricing approach and substantial upfront switching cost in the hope of reaping both quantitative and qualitative benefits over the long term.

Recommendations

Clearly, a large number of variables will affect an evaluation of this size and scope. The following recommendations will help put the necessary framework in place to increase your chances of success:

Establish a priority order for HCM functionality (based on the business outcomes defined in the HCM technology strategy) to drive proper evaluation of these solutions. You must determine which capabilities are the most crucial to your success, and what applications will deliver them. For example, many organizations will decide that implementing a core HR global system of record is the critical first step in establishing a foundation for all subsequent deployments, and this will work well for all three vendor solutions. However, if an enterprise has identified recruiting and onboarding as the priority, that will limit the options, because Workday core HR must be implemented first as a prerequisite for all other modules. There may be other issues with the sequencing of module deployment (such as the business calendar of when processes begin and end, expiration of contracts for existing applications, and the results of pace layering), so ensure that the vendor understands your relative priorities as early as possible in the evaluation process.

Ask deeper, more-detailed questions during the RFP, demo and contracting phases to find the best-fit solution. Although it's important to gather the same response set from all vendors in the initial RFP, don't be afraid to tailor the follow-up sessions (such as technical review, architecture review and integration deep dive) to address specific concerns for each solution, so that you can understand how each vendor's approach might affect how their applications are implemented, deployed and managed in your environment. Ensure that your due diligence initiatives reflect the needs of your organization, that company and vendor cultures align, and that you understand the future roadmaps of each vendor's offering and their historical ability to deliver on previous roadmap commitments.

Include customer satisfaction criteria (both product and vendor-customer relationship) as a fundamental part of a structured customer reference survey (at least 30 minutes of content), and ensure that the same data is collected on all references. Structured reference checks with similar customers are key to understanding what it's really like to work with the product and vendor. Solicit at least three references from the vendor, and supplement with an equivalent number of "back channel" contacts in the project team's professional networks to get a balanced picture of each finalist vendor's strengths, trade-offs and implications.

Be prepared for the fact that deploying any of these solutions is likely to be a major change in how your core HR will be managed, unless your enterprise is already on a SaaS application (see "Effective HCM SaaS Release Management Demands New Thinking" and

"HCM System Implementations Demand Organizational Change Management" for recommendations on how to best prepare for the changes you'll need to make).

Strategic Planning Assumption

By 2017, 20% of large global enterprises will have implemented a SaaS HCM suite that includes at least three talent management modules.