SAP has announced two large wins on the same day for SAP SuccessFactors. Action BV, a Netherlands headquarters multinational retailer will replace SAP HCM. In the US, Thomas Jefferson University will replace PeopleSoft in a competitive win.
Action BV moves to SuccessFactors for growth
Action BV is a nonfood discount chain. It has more than 900 stores across Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, Austria and Luxemburg. In 2016 alone it opened 197 new stores and it achieved a sales growth of 34% to €2,675 million. Having saturated the Benelux market that growth was focused primarily in France (100 new stores) and Germany (60 new stores). In 2017 they are aiming to open more than 2016 mainly in France and Germany according to their results announcement.
That growth brings HRM challenges. Jens Burgers, IT director, Action commented: “We are navigating the digital transformation during a period of hugely accelerated company growth with at present more than 35,000 employees across six countries. We recognize that the experience we provide our employees, from recruitment to how we train, motivate and incentivize them, is absolutely central to our ongoing business success. SAP SuccessFactors solutions provide us with the localization capabilities and the ability to scale that we need to operate in multiple markets.”
The cmpany is an existing SAP customer leveraging finance, logistics and warehousing solutions, all running on the SAP HANA platform. This decision was not a given it seems and Action did look elsewhere. Burgers added: “While we have benefited from SAP innovation for over a decade, we were keen to look thoroughly at the human capital management market as a whole and evaluate all the competing solutions. We chose SAP SuccessFactors solutions for their ability to manage a flexible and changing workforce and reduce complexity while effectively engaging and developing employees across different geographies and cultures.”
With the solution also sitting on SAP HANA it means that blended analytics from sales and HCM will be easier to achieve in the future.
Did Thomas Jefferson University snub Oracle?
Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health jointly selected SAP SuccessFactors to replace their legacy PeopleSoft solution. The organisations support more than 30,000 employees in the Philadelphia and surrounding areas including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
Employee experience of IT is important for both the university and the hospital. The university needs to engage with a younger demographic who are sensitive to the user experience of software. The hospital also needed a system that would make attracting and retaining employees easier.
Jeffrey Stevens, chief human resources officer, Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health commented: “As an organization at the forefront of modern healthcare and higher education, it’s critical we empower our staff to fulfill their passions and deliver the highest quality education and patient care. We needed a modern HR solution that provides the learning and collaboration tools to elevate the employee experience – and ultimately the patient experience. After an extensive evaluation, it was a clear choice to go with SAP SuccessFactors solutions to provide the best support and development opportunities for our staff, which will help unlock their true potential and ensure the highest standard of care for our patients.”
The organisation has chosen to implement several modules from SAP SuccessFactors. It includes: the SAP SuccessFactors Learning, SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals, SAP SuccessFactors Succession & Development and the SAP Jam collaboration platform. The Jam platform will be utilised to enhance communication, collaboration and informal learning. There are two things to watch. The first is how effective the roll out of that application is. The second is whether employees engage in what may not be their social media platform of choice.
Once implemented the organisation will hope that improving employee experience leads to a better experience for patients. Implementation of the learning tools and other modules should certainly help employees progress their careers. It should also help improve their quality of service delivery. Robert Enslin, Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and president of Cloud Business Group, SAP explains further saying: “The patient experience is central to any organization in the healthcare industry, with the level of care provided being completely dependent on employees,” said “Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health has always put its patients first, and a key part of that has been enabling employees across the organization to deliver innovative healthcare and medical education. “
Conclusion
There is no mention of the timescales for implementation within either of these organisations. Both of them are complex projects. Action BV needs to deal with multinational issues and cultural differences. Thomas Jefferson has multiple sites and an implementation that cannot impact the business other than positively during the process.
Both organisations selected SuccessFactors to improve their talent management in the future. Employees want the same experience with corporate software as they get with consumer apps. SuccessFactors delivers this by replacing the legacy solutions with a better mobile and cloud experience. Robert Enslin, Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and president of Cloud Business Group, SAP commented: “Action has demonstrated its commitment to employees’ development which will support sustainable business growth. It’s about taking that step from using technology to manage talent to really engaging individuals and promoting a strong culture of putting people first.”
While Action BV is a migration to cloud from a legacy SAP solution, the second is a significant win. It shows that despite comments from Workday that they consistently beat SAP, perhaps the truth is more balanced.
