HR Tech Another Success: Part 2

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

In my blog earlier this week, I wrote about highlights from the new Outsourcing Track at HR Tech as well as the RPO meetings I attended. In related news, my fourth global RPO market analysis report was published on Monday.

In addition to walking through the exhibit hall and attending technology demonstrations, my additional meetings at HR Tech included:

• Patersons: Its 2012 revenue growth is 70% YTD, driven by multi-country payroll. Safeguard World International has also reported similar success due to high growth for multi-country payroll services according to a business update two weeks ago.
• IBM: The company is experiencing increased demand for its RPO and learning services and many of its key learning clients have renewed in 2012. New learning contracts include one in South Africa and pipeline activity includes a large global bank. The Kenexa acquisition will bring in new RPO and talent management opportunities that IBM will enhance with its social and analytics capabilities.
• Hogan Assessments and SHL Assessments: Both companies provide personality assessments to predict work performance. SHL has also issued a talent management report with key findings showing that Eastern Europe ranks 1^st in supplying IT and essential business skills; the U.S. ranks 23^rd.
• Secova: The benefits administration provider offers online enrollment, a 24/7 call center, eligibility verification, billing management, and leave management services that are delivered from their ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certified platforms. Services are provided from California, New Jersey, and Chennai.
• Equifax Workforce Solutions: This was formerly operating as TALX, which rebranded as a result of its increased emphasis on the provision of workforce analytics and business intelligence to help clients improve their company’s performance.
• HireVue: Offers a Digital Interview Platform that saves time, travel, and costs by allowing clients to create online interview guides with scientifically proven questions. Candidates then record answers via a webcam, which recruiting and hiring managers then view on demand, including from smart phones, to build digital talent pools.
• JobVite: Provides a modular SaaS-based recruiting platform for applicant tracking, recruiter CRM, and sourcing talent.

Highlights from ADP include having ~30,000 clients for its cloud-based HCM platforms including:

• ADP Workforce Now: Launched in October 2009, it supports clients with 50 – 1,000 employees. The majority of its 20k+ clients purchase the broader HCM suite.
• ADP Vantage HCM:Piloted in October 2011 with general availability launched in June 2012, this platform, which targets employers with >1,000 employees, already has >30 clients. ADP has been adding ~5 – 6 new clients a month with a high percentage buying talent management, benefits (H&W), and time & attendance in addition to payroll. New wins include:
  • A national restaurant chain with ~24,000 employees
  • An employee healthcare staffing company with 15,000 employees
  • A retail chain with 4,500 employees.
• ADP GlobalView: It now includes ADP Talent Management globally and has won several major clients including an electronics manufacturer with 85,000 employees in 29 countries including the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, which recently added the compensation module.
• ADP Talent Management: It provides recruiting, performance, learning, compensation, and succession in 14 languages and 80 currencies for ~4,000 clients.
• ADP Mobile Solutions: Deployed globally and offered in 12 languages, the app has ~30,000 clients and ~450,000 users.

See you all next year at HR Tech in Las Vegas October 7 – 9, 2013.

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HR Tech Another Success: Part I

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

HR Tech was again a very worthwhile investment of my time. Here are some highlights of the new Outsourcing Track presentations I attended:

• Cisco Uses RPO to Help Hire Up to 15,000 a Year:Using a hybrid co-ownership model, the Randstad Sourceright recruitment team works alongside the Cisco recruitment team to provide services including sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding. Services provided are primarily in the Americas, but may expand into EMEA and possibly Asia where Randstad Sourceright has a presence. Using the hybrid model, Cisco has been able to cut its $120m talent acquisition spend in half.
  • Mark Hamberlin, VP HR Global Staffing, Cisco
  • Rebecca Callahan, President RPO, Randstad Sourceright
• Ericsson Outsources Global Payroll in Manila:Ericsson issued a RFI to 25 vendors, then created a short-list of 5, and ultimately selected Talent2. Managed payroll services provided by Talent2 for Ericsson in Southeast Asia and Oceania include 4,500 employees in 12 countries, which prior to outsourcing had 12 different payroll processes. Manila is the shared service center. Major benefits obtained by Ericsson thus far include: reduced risk management, minimized complexity of dealing with local tax laws, and ease of expanding into new countries.
  • Mark Howes, HR Director Asia Pacific, Ericsson
  • Mary Sue Rogers, Global Managing Director, HR Managed Services, Talent2
• Whirlpool Leverages RPO to Transform Talent Acquisition:Pre-RPO recruitment was decentralized and lacked consistency and methodology in its sourcing approach. Business partners were also spending a lot of time doing transactional work including screening and reviewing resumes. Kenexa’s RPO services include: sourcing, screening, administration, candidate management, creation of employment value proposition, and management of the candidate experience primarily in North America with some testing in Europe. KPI’s include: time to fill, quality of the candidate slate, diversity slate, and end-user satisfaction.
  • Lynanne Kunkel, VP of HR, Whirlpool North America
  • Rudy Karsan, CEO, Kenexa

Here are highlights from my RPO meetings:

• Pinstripe and Ochre House: Pinstripe has won 12 new RPO contracts YTD and its partner Ochre House continues to win new contracts in EMEA including North Africa and the Middle East as a result of its acquisitions of TAAHEED and Carmichael Fisher in early 2012.
• ManpowerGroup Solutions: New contract wins YTD include 40+ RPO deals globally in 20 countries. It has also expanded existing clients into new geographies including a U.S.-headquartered firm that expanded into China and Southeast Asia and a Spanish-headquartered firm that expanded throughout Europe and Latin America.
• Randstad Sourceright: Currently with ~100 RPO clients, it won 18 new contracts YTD. Four of its new wins are global deals as a result of the merger of Randstad and SFN Group, which was completed in September 2011. Its fastest growth has been in the mid-market.
• The RightThing, an ADP Company: Total RPO client count is at 80+. YTD wins include several enterprise and mid-market clients with ~50% as new clients and ~50% as existing ADP clients that added RPO services.
• WilsonHCG: Primarily serving large and mid-size clients, WilsonHCG also has small clients with <500 employees. The company has a 94% satisfaction rating with candidates and hiring managers across clients.

Stay tuned for my next blog where I will discuss additional meetings I had with Patersons, IBM, Hogan Assessments, SHL Assessments, Secova, ADP, Equifax Workforce Solutions, HireVue, and JobVite.

In the meantime, NelsonHall just published its fourth global RPO market analysis.

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The Parable of IBM and Kenexa: Part II

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

It’s common for major HRO announcements to be followed by a conference call, and sometimes one-on-one briefings are also offered for analysts as in the case of the IBM and Kenexa deal.  Naturally, the NelsonHall HRO team including myself, Gary Bragar, and Amy Gurchensky took advantage of both opportunities.  

IBM’s Own View

The initial announcement was largely from the perspective of the IBM Social Business group that will add Kenexa’s HCM capabilities to its combination of social media, content management, and analytics. IBM believes that this creates value through the application of social technology to front office processes and generates ROI by creating social networks of expertise that leverage analytic insights to improve business processes. In sum, a “Smarter Workforce.”

It is the Whole Elephant…

In Part I, I compared the various views of the IBM and Kenexa news to the analogy of the blind men and the elephant. The answer is that all of the following interpretations are rationales of the deal:

• Builds upon IBM’s social media, analytics, and professional services including BPO
• Brings valuable software, HRO expertise, as well as talent management capabilities
• Increases competition and cross-selling to both IBM’s and Kenexa’s base of Fortune 500 customers
• Delivers value to C-suite executives, HR executives, and the whole value chain of management and employees.

…and Much More

The IBM Global Process Service’s HRO team was involved from the start and will be deeply involved throughout the integration process. RPO services will be combined creating an even bigger global footprint with new service centers including three in the U.S. Kenexa’s learning platform will be reverse engineered to support IBM’s learning services. There are also other parts of Kenexa that can be kept or spun off such as compensation services, behavioral sciences surveys and assessments, and middle market customers.

Kenexa will be a wholly-owned subsidiary for the first year to allow time to determine the best options for unleashing the full value of the deal. Kenexa brings innovative and collaborative intellectual capabilities and a portion of the value is greater than the “stuff” that can be divided up. Even with Kenexa’s leadership intact, the decisions will be many, with lots of players due to the matrix nature of the services and opportunities adding to the normal M&A complexities.

IBM’s Smart Workforce incorporates the concept of the boundary-less enterprise that works across the “whitespace” between processes and organizational silos. IBM wants to make human capital management an integral part of business operations by enabling people to unleash their talent when, where, and how it is most needed to create measureable value.

We each see the world through our own lens of experience and expectations, and sometimes the truly new and innovative “elephant” is harder to see. IBM and Kenexa can create the truly new and we should all hope they do. HCM, HR, HRO, HR tech, IT, social media, and more will have to raise their game to benefit from the new technology, services, and consulting opportunities. And that is a good thing!

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The Parable of IBM and Kenexa: Part I

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

I have not seen such a range of varied opinions from members of the HRO and HR tech communities as those about IBM’s acquisition of Kenexa. The commentary showed that many were taken a bit by surprise and weren’t sure how to analyze the news that IBM was acquiring Kenexa for $1.3bn.

IBM Bought Kenexa?

The surprise was not the purchase of Kenexa, which was foreshadowed by the acquisition of Taleo by Oracle and SuccessFactors by SAP. It was more about the fact that IBM was doing the purchasing.

A few  thought that ADP might make such an acquisition since it had already expanded its benefits capabilities with Workscape and SHPS and its RPO capabilities with The RightThing, so wouldn’t talent management make sense? Speculation continued, perhaps Mercer, Ceridian, or even ADP would be the target of an acquisition or merger.

IBM itself was considered likely to continue its acquisitive ways with something more in the talent management / HCM space. Likely targets mentioned included Cornerstone OnDemand, SilkRoad, SumTotal, Saba, with a few suggesting Halogen, Peoplefluent, and others. In short, someone is going to buy something else.

The Meaning of the Deal?

What does this mean we all asked, much like the tale of the Blind Men and the Elephant as was suggested by the leading light Naomi Bloom. Early viewpoints on the acquisition included:

• Continuing IBM’s move into social media and analytics
• Continuing IBM’s move into professional services including strengthening RPO
• Disrupting the HCM market and becoming a talent management player
• Delivering value to the HR executive
• Delivering value to the C-suite and bypassing HR
• Primarily being a HRO deal with some software attached
• Primarily being a software deal with some HRO attached
• Upping competition with SAP, Oracle, Salesforce.com, and even Workday
• Selling into Kenexa’s IBM-like customer base of Fortune 500 clients.

IBM’s news crossed many markets including HRO, HCM, HR tech (software, platform, cloud, etc.), BPO, social media, talent management, and financial and market analysts. Each commenter viewed the same information through the lens of their personal perspective and professional interest, much like the blind men touching different parts of the elephant.

With so many options before it, including IBM’s own announced intentions for the addition of Kenexa, the opportunities are new and exciting. Given the inherent complexities, IBM will face many risks as well. Look for more on The Parable of IBM and Kenexa coming in Part II.

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IBM & Air Canada: Proof that Traditional MPHRO Contracts Are Not Endangered

Before blogging about other current events such as ADP’s recent acquisition of The RightThing, one final announcement from HR Tech to address further is IBM’s contract win with Air Canada.

Air Canada was an early participant for outsourcing HR services as part of its business practice. In early 2004, it awarded a 7-year multi-process HR outsourcing (MPHRO) services contract to Exult, which was acquired by Hewitt a few months later. Hewitt, and then “Aon Hewitt” since its acquisition, provided Air Canada’s ~36k employees with workforce admin, payroll, benefits admin, recruiting, and learning admin services, a very “traditional” MPHRO contract at the time.

In addition, Air Canada awarded NorthgateArinso with a 5-year contract for managed payroll services in the U.K. in late 2010.  Then it decided to shake things up by opening up its MPHRO contract for competition. Key to winning the contract would be a provider that would continue to drive innovative transformation and ensure lower costs.

Last week, it became clear that IBM was the provider that Air Canada was looking for when it signed a ~8 year MPHRO contract for Air Canada’s North American employees and retirees.  Services include HR contact center, employee data management, employee travel support, payroll, benefits admin, leave management, recruiting services with support from Manpower, and software application support for the HR systems used to provide the services.  This recently announced contract is proof that traditional MPHRO contracts are not endangered.

Several weeks ago, I discussed the four market segments of MPHRO that exist in the market.  Among the emerging segments such as “multi-country standardization” was the “client-specific shared service / transformation” group, which represents many of the traditional, transformative deals that occurred in the early to mid 2000’s such as Hewitt’s contract with Air Canada.  Although growth for this segment isn’t expected to be quite as high as the other emerging segments, it is still expected to increase modestly through 2015 contrary to popular belief.

IBM and Aon Hewitt are both leaders within MPHRO.  Within the shared service transformation segment, Aon Hewitt is ranked first in terms of revenue with nearly ~19% market share; IBM is ranked second with ~14% market share.  Aon Hewitt is also doing its part to keep this segment alive; earlier this year it signed a MPHRO contract of significant size with an unnamed financial services organization.

While all the focus lately is on the newer species of MPHRO contracts, specifically the multi-country standardization contracts, the four existing segments can and will continue to co-exist in the larger ecosystem.

If you’re a MPHRO provider focused on the shared service transformation market segment be sure to tout your contract awards and renewals, so everyone knows that this segment is alive and well.  We love to share the good news!

Amy L. Gurchensky, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

 

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ADP has a Platform for HRO Success

Last week, many of us covered announcements from the HR Technology conference.  Among the new service news was ADP’s Vantage HCM SaaS and BPO platform, which was formally launched on October 3^rd at HR Tech.

Vantage HCM covers HR administration, benefits, payroll, time and attendance, and talent management. It is an enhanced version of ADP’s successful Workforce Now platform, which was launched in October 2009 and already has more than 10,000 clients. ADP is estimated to have invested 18 months and $600m in the new platform. General availability is slated for March 2012 to allow time for full testing of critical high volume HR activities such as annual open enrollment and end-of-year payroll with 12 pilot clients from a variety of industries with 1,200 to 20,000 employees.

I see a bigger story here: ADP has built a business platform to support execution of its strategies. Here are several elements I see in play.

Support the core. ADP is adding new services while protecting and enhancing payroll, its single largest revenue generator. Payroll is built into the core package of each multiple process HR (MPHRO) system.

Serve your main markets. In payroll, ADP supports every size organization. Now, it offers MPHRO platforms for nearly every size organization: Workforce Now provides core HR needs for less than 3,000 employees; Vantage HCM covers more robust HR needs and talent management for up to 20,000 employees; and Global View supports large, multi-country organizations typically with more than 20,000 employees.

Leverage acquisitions.  Vantage HCM talent management services include succession planning, performance management, and compensation management as the fruits of collaboration between ADP and Workscape, which was acquired last year.

Reuse development investments.  Vantage HCM uses “plug and play” design for fast and easy additions, integration of new modules, or preferred partners, such as Cornerstone for learning.  Access will be immediately available from multiple devices including smartphones, another benefit of development reuse.

Roadmap development and growth. Workforce Now and Vantage HCM are U.S. services. Both will be expanded to Canada, with Workforce Now ready in 2012. In the future clients will be able to choose the basic benefits module or Workscape services for more complex benefits needs.

Buy, build, and go. ADP prefers to buy or build for strategic growth services. It chose to build its own proprietary MPHRO systems. It acquires complementary service lines and players in geographies to quickly establish a beachhead with top tier players. Once it identifies a target, it moves fast, integrates new acquisitions and captures synergy savings.  (ADP just announced acquisition of The RightThing for RPO. Acting fast indeed!)

Go your own way. Most MPHRO providers offer HR analytic packages as an added cost option. ADP is building in related data views, dashboards, metrics, and integrating workforce analytics use right at the point of need.

Do you have a business platform as broad and consistently used as ADP’s?

Linda Merritt, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

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Finding it Hard to Keep Up with HR Technology? Plan to Attend HR Tech This Year

After attending last year’s HR Technology Conference in Chicago, I blogged about my positive experience with themes that included portals, platforms, and self-service and highly recommended attending this year’s conference.  Well, the time to plan for this year has come!   This year’s HR Technology Conference and Exhibition is October 3 – 5 in Las Vegas.  I’ve been given a special discount code for attendees to use when registering.  Enter HRO11(all caps) as the promotion code when you register online to get $500 off the posted rate.  The discount expires September 19^th.

Why do I think this is such a worthwhile event? We live in a technology world, but I continue to be amazed at the number of new HR technology offerings that are announced each month, sometimes weekly! As a former HR buy-side client, I can resonate quite well with the masses that are thinking about whether or not to invest in new technology. There are so many things to consider including:

• What is the latest technology for HR and payroll services, be it an applicant tracking system, a talent management system, an e-learning or multi-country payroll platform, benefits enrollment technology, etc.?
• Who is providing what?
• How easy and user friendly is it?
• How will it benefit my business?
• If I’m interested in a particular product or service, how do I know who to contact to get a demo for other members of my organization, etc.?

What I really liked about the conference is that you can walk the exhibit floor and attend whatever demo you like and speak with representatives knowledgeable about the products and services and not feel like you are being swarmed upon by vultures.  This is because the exhibit floor is loaded with many other curious HR practitioners and often the booths have so many people interested that group demos are given, so you can watch, learn, and ask questions with others.

Equally as good if not better are the conference presentations.  For example, let’s say you are the director of employment of talent acquisition for your company and you have been hearing about video interviewing.  Further, maybe you heard about Kenexa’s recent alliance with GreenJobInterview to integrate its virtual video interviewing capability into Kenexa’s 2x BrassRing so candidates can be interviewed virtually.  Well, this all sounds good, but isn’t it better to learn more about the benefits and results obtained by video interviewing from another buy-side client?  Well, you can on October 3^rd from Mike Grennier, Senior Director of Corporate Recruiting at Wal-Mart, at his presentation titled “Wal-Mart Embraces Video Interviewing for Job Applicants.”

If you read my colleague Linda Merritt’s blog earlier this week on analytics and are interested in learning more, then on October 4^th Randy MacDonald, SVP of HR at IBM, will give a presentation on technology and analytics and how IBM helps clients quantify HR results.  I’m a big proponent of technology, but I’m a bigger advocate in my belief that technology is only as good as it is utilized and produces results.  Here, we will learn how IBM helps its clients.

I hope to see you there.

Gary Bragar,  HR Outsourcing Research Director, NelsonHall