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...
