Knowledge Infuser

Think Globally, Act Locally

jason.averbook — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:03:28 GMT

While speaking at a HR conference in Bermuda today for one of the largest hospitality organizations in the world, the theme of the event that was repeated over and over again was "think globally, act locally."

This theme is the theme that Knowledge Infusion uses on a daily basis when working with client whether operations solely in the US or whether a multi-national, global enterprise with locations all over the world. Talent Management is a global function and continues to change the face of HR forever. Whether dealing with regulations or local unions, HR for the most part has been able to focus on where the business does business. This is no longer as organizations strive for any competitive advantage in recruiting talent from around the world.

On the SuccessFactors blog today, Erik Berggren does a good job of recapping this theme as well and a read for all looking at talent management and the impact that technology MUST have today for HR to be successful.

HR is a global operation and will be from this point forward. It is an imperative to build your HR and talent management technology strategy in this way or you will lose competitive advantage very quickly.

Another infusion of knowledge...

Link to SuccessFactors blog entry today

Live for The Conference Board Strategic e-HR Conference - San Diego

jason.averbook — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:08:49 GMT

This morning I have the opportunity to be in San Diego at the Strategic e-HR Conference produced by The Conference Board. We are lucky enough to have many of our clients here and look forward to the interaction. There are about 100 in attendance.

Leading off the conference is Rob Bernshteyn from SuccessFactors.

Rob leads off with "What impact will the recession have on HR and Business Performance". Very interesting how this message is spreading as the media continues to spread the message about a recession. Notice this link from CNN late last night...[Click here for article..|http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/05/news/economy/recession/index.htm?postversion=2008020512]

Rob did a good job of painting a picture as to why Talent Management is a big part of business today; not only a HR function, but a business function.
Good discussion about how strategic HR functions tie to business impact
Topic of discussion: Data...Where do I store my employee data and how can it be used
How can I make e-HR strategic in our company?

Retention
Number of skill gaps bridged through training
Conduct employee surveys to keep workforce engaged and a pulse on organization

Issues with how HR has rolled out technology up to now

Unable to support dynamic processes
Inability to support approvals
Hard to find data

What are we doing today around e-HR?

Organizations working heavily around a strategic, 3 year plan
If HR doesn't do this, we will be left behind by rest of enterprise

Technology today

Goal alignment crucial
Performance Management
360 degree feedback
Compensation
Using all transactions in non-intrusive way to build out analytics that matter

HR makes the mistake of LABELING our people (High performer, etc)

We all change on a daily basis
How do we look at performance data over time
Analytics drive this

Every employee is a potential user

Key point (The work we do at Knowledge Infusion very much aligned and pushing this thought as well)
Tools and products must be designed for everyone in the company
Must be easy to use to ensure adoption
Success is about RESTRAINING themselves and deploy what makes sense in Round 1
Dealing with change management (or as we call it, Deployment Excellence)

When thinking about e-HR, think simplicity
Discussion about Software as a Service

Much talk about Old Model vs. SaaS

Good education about what new model means
Interesting discussion about how vendors are "Not profitable" including SuccessFactors until the customer is satisfied in SaaS model

Discussion about how strategic HR customers outperform the stock market
Discussion about how organizations create value using e-HR talent management software
Good discussion about EMPLOYEE PROFILE and the value to the enterprise and all of talent management

Another infusion of knowledge...

HR and Enterprise 2.0? - COMPLETELY AGREE

jason.averbook — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:41:44 GMT

Over the last 24 hours, the number of blogs and press clippings on the latest release of SuccessFactors named ULTRA has caught many people's attention in the industry. I would like to congratulate SuccessFactors on their release, but more importantly, helping to bring the reality of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 to the forefront of the minds of the HR audience.

ZDNet does a great job of ushering in the new features of ULTRA, all of which are attractive to many individuals - the question now is "Is HR ready to use them?" This is something that Knowledge Infusion has been working with our clients on for the last 18 months and have more active relationships looking to deploy tools like this than we could have ever imagined at the beginning of 2007. The HR, HCM and Talent Management space now has the opportunity to make a difference to the workforce, not the HR department, like never before.

During 2008, one of the things that we will see MUCH more of is organizations actually learning to use, which includes developing processes and deploying excellent change management tools in their organization to leverage investments that they have already made in tools like this and others. This is no small task as enterprises are asked to change processes that have existed for 50 years and for no real reason except to give a small merit increase. Will be interesting to watch.

The other callout for this article is that HR (along with CRM) are being called out as the leaders in bringing these new technologies to the enterprise (WHAT? - Did I just say that). Yes I did, and it is time now more than ever, for HR to realize that they have a GOLDEN opportunity to be the ones that shepard these new technologies into the organization and take the leadership position in driving a collaborative, engaged workforce.

Congratulations to the vendors in the space for developing products that give HR an opportunity to jump to this position. Now as HR professionals, lets take advantage of it and change our role forever.

Another infusion of knowledge...

Link to ZDNet blog posting

9 Things You Need to Know About Software as a Service "Saas"

jason.averbook — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:27:41 GMT

Computerworld does a great job of talking with a Software as a Service (SaaS) expert from Saugatuck Technology Inc and the things that all enterprises need to be thinking about when looking and deploying SaaS solutions.

On a daily basis, Knowledge Infusion is working with clients to help them understand this evolving market and what organizations need to be thinking about before entering and during deployment of these types of solutions. The nine things that this article highlights and some Knowledge Infusion comments are:

What is Saas? - Read this carefully and do not let vendors try to confuse OnDemand or ASP with Software as a Service. Organizations such as Workday and SuccessFactors to name a few are doing this right today in the human capital management and talent management markets.
What about security? - Take time to really understand how secure your data is. The vendors in this space make your data much more secure in their world then it would be stored at your site.
How do SaaS vendors charge?- This is very important to take time to understand, especially in the HR space. Many people have said to us, "The software would be more than what we paid for PeopleSoft or SAP!!". The thing they are forgetting is how much they have paid in the past for support. You have to look at this as a TCO argument.
What kinds of services do SaaS vendors provide? - Once again, very important to understand in this space. If you are used to x level support from your ERP provider, you are going to get Y level support from the SaaS vendor. Not necessarily good or bad, just different. You are also not implementing, but deploying which changes the types of support and services you need as well.
Is SaaS only for small and medium businesses or will it work in our enterprise? - SaaS solutions are proving with the right planning upfront to work in any size enterprise. The PLANNING piece is critical. You have to look at your processes and understand how the SaaS vendors solution fits into your enterprise process flow.
How mature are SaaS services? - Not very mature and rapidly growing up. Depends on the vendor and talk to references.
How mature is the SaaS market? - See response to number 6
Is SaaS more than a flash in the pan? - We believe this is the right solution for many organizations, not all, but many and depending on factors such as, may be the future for your organization with PLANNING.

What is your ERP?
What is your BI strategy?
What is your global strategy?

What involvement should the service users have with the vendor once contract is signed? - ALOT. This market is in constant BETA mode and things that you need in your solution are being added daily. Your feedback is so important and it is important to give it early and often.

It is a very exciting time in this space as vendors continue to shift towards this model. We will continue to see talent management vendors such as Taleo, Vurv, Authoria, Plateau, Saba, SumTotal, Halogen, Cornerstone OnDemand, Workscape and others continue to enhance or deploy their SaaS solutions over the next 12 months. Also, dont be suprised to see Oracle, SAP and Lawson continue to get MUCH better in this space. Learn about the market now, stay tuned - much more to come!!

Another infusion of knowledge...

Link to Computerworld Article

PLEASE COMMENT BELOW!!

Updated with scoring: Live from the Talent Mgmt Shootout - 11:00am Central Thursday - Authoria Wins

jason.averbook — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:40:56 GMT

As part of the Knowledge Infusion live coverage from the HR Technology Conference, here is a blow by blow from the Performance/Learning Management Shootout. Huge audience in attendance showing interest in the space.

Authoria - Tod Loofbourrow
HRSmart - Mark Hamdan
SuccessFactors - Lars Dalgaard
Vurv - Derek Mercer

Vendors CEO's will be following scripts prepared by HR Technology Co-Chair - Bill Kutik

3 Segments of Demonstrations

Scenario 1 - need to fill a position, put it out there, modify competencies, send to job board

Vurv

Starts out with sexy dashboard view
Good overview of comptencies, storing over 2000 competencies including factors and interview questions
Great visual view of talent side by side - drill down by goals
Easy to drill into profile details
Nice view of interview evaluation form
Request feedback right from interview review - very easy to send out emails for feedback (good use of workflow)
Easy to add competencies to job model
User interface looks very nice
Automatic email - Mgr goes right from Outlook email to right place in Vurv application for manager to do their job
Good flow, easy to understand

SuccessFactors

Leads off with some SEXY org charting
Great employee profile
Easy to take action right from org chart
Great view of information right next to org view
Easy to use text editing, MS Word like
Knockout questions - nice formatting for recruiting
Leverage performance data from past to link to recruiting process - value of integration

HRSmart

Dashboard start
Nice gap analysis from succession standpoint
Ad Hoc approvals - easy to understand
Interface easy to understand - steps easy to understand
Not alot of showing of competency libraries, etc

Authoria

starts with story about how Authoria can help with conversations
User interface and dashboard incredible - easiest to understand
Nice org chart view
Drill down to profile to allow for meaningful conversation
Take actions right from Org Chart
Great wizard to add positions
Designed for managers, not HR department - big difference between Authoria and other vendors in that area
Slide bar to ratchet up rigor around compentencies and knockout questions
Wizard makes it looks easy, standardization or processes

Scenario #1 Voting: Authoria 66%, Vurv 25%, SuccessFactors 5%, HRsmart 2%

Segment 2: Finding the best candidate for jobs

SuccessFactors

Starts out with Google Maps view of where positions and people are
Great alerts with flags - drill back to Google Maps - see in candidate Chicago, not San Jose and not willing to moveherefore not really a candidate
Left Axis - Average cost of driving candidate into org (HotJobs, Monster)
Bottom Axis - Performance - AMAZING way to see where the best candidates have come from integrated into performance management - At this point, best I have seen - not only how they did, where they came from, but how much it cost to recruit
More use of dashboards - showing ratings by colors, with drill down into details

HRSmart

Good view of searches
Look back in past, people I have interviewed
Not as graphical, but good amount of detail per search and view screens without drilling around
Easy to navigate tabs
Nice view using graphs - pie charts, spider graphs
More sophisticated views - different approach from SuccessFactors - harder to compare (text vs. graphical with successfactors)
Good compare functionality

Authoria

Once again, great opening dashboard and similar starting spot - good for deployment
CNBC looking User Interface - tying in content with metrics / analytics
Drill down on metrics and analytics to data
Blinking yellow star - alerts
Task based actions from task lists
Drill to resume and find search terms - google desktop type approach
Nice compare - side by side
Ad hoc workflow for sending of data off to managers

Vurv

Concept search
Easy to understand interface
Good compare functionality
Not as detailed from an analytical standpoint
More user friendly than HRSmart for recruiters
Consistent UI throughout

Scenario #2 Voting: Authoria 70%, Vurv 14%, SuccessFactors 10%, HRsmart 6%

Major discussion about time left for each candidate - CONTROVERSY (smile)

HRSmart

Nice dashboard view of hiring history
Good Integration to training summary in one place
Career development - nice views
Good transactional application - consistent look and feel
Not as sexy as others, but based on guy sitting next to me, we arent looking for sexy

Authoria

Same dashboard and interface - consistently the best looking (doesnt mean a ton to everyone)
Very task based allowing for automation of processes
Development plan - training / mentor
Built in change management - Just in time coaching (VERY COOL FOR DEPLOYMENT PURPOSES)
RAPID ASSIST COACHING - Microsoft Dog like
Metrics and Analytics are easy to understand, drillable, detailed

Vurv

Great interface - tabs showing goals, development plans
Attendee sitting next to me likes the interface better than the best - perfect level of sexiness
Pre delivered coaching ideas - nice feature
Compare sources to performance - basic compared to Authoria and SuccessFactors, but enough for some

SuccessFactors

Nice color coding and alerts
Great point on driving accountability across organization
Everything done in one view - easy for a leader
Creating goals (good mentions of DDI, PDI, Lominger - gives much credibility to SuccessFactors
Make real not just look good - a bit of a rip on someone? hmm
Dashboards from SuccessFactors tie it all together - amazing graphical views without multiple clicks

Scenario #3 Votign: Authoria 45%, SuccessFactors 31%, Vurv 14%,HRsmart 9%

Overall winner - Authoria