Ceridian Has a Whole New Feeling

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

Ceridian just held its annual sales kick-off meeting and according to Jayson Saba, vice president of marketing strategy and analyst relations, there was “a whole new feeling of excitement.”

Ceridian Made a Big Bet

Ceridian is a mature service provider having been in payroll and HR services since 1932. So, what is causing such excitement in 2013? The answer is Dayforce HCM.

Ceridian began partnering with Dayforce in 2010, which soon led to investing in the company, and then to purchasing the company in early 2012 and forming a new business unit, Dayforce, led by David Ossip, Dayforce’s CEO.

This was a major strategic bet on SaaS as the new direction for a large portion of an already successful company with an estimated $1.5bn in revenues. How big a bet? Well, in late 2012, Ceridian made the decision to realign its sales and marketing efforts behind Dayforce HCM in North America, the company’s largest customer and revenue base!

The company will continue to support clients on its current systems and will not force migration. In fact, it will continue to invest in adding more features and functionality in key areas. Its other service lines will also continue including international payroll, benefits administration, EAP, and stored value solutions (electronic cards with preset or refillable financial value).

Dayforce HCM is a Party of One

Dayforce is a cloud-based platform built as a single application with one record, one rules engine, and zero interfaces. Real SaaS can eliminate the need to enter data in multiple systems, manage complex interfaces, and confusion about who to call when multiple vendors are involved, and it provides easier implementations.

Dayforce HCM includes:

• Payroll and tax: view, edit, fix, and preview payroll in real-time
• Workforce management: plan, schedule, and forecast labor requirements, and time tracking and compliance
• Benefits: manage enrollment, calculate eligibility, and support an unlimited number of benefit plan types
• Human resources: forms and workflows for managers and employees to manage work and life events
• Mobile: access, manage, and change schedules and other aspects of employee records including shift trading, availability, and time-off requests.

The system can scale for small, mid, and large market clients with a sweet spot in the 1,000 to 10,000 range. Ceridian already has several deployments of 15- to 30,000+ employees. Major retail clients include Aéropostale, Pier 1, and Crate & Barrel.

With a Clear Roadmap for the Future

The new system already has hundreds of clients and is available in the U.S. and Canada, and NelsonHall predicts that it will soon be expanded to the U.K. as well. We estimate Dayforce will become  the HR system of record for all of Ceridian’s HCM customers including managed and international payroll services and eventually become a global HRIS offering.

Ceridian is also working on new additions for talent management (performance management, compensation, and recruiting) and other social media features.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Imagine the excitement when your new system far exceeds expectations, wins awards, and delights customers. No wonder a good time was had at Ceridian’s annual sales conference!

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Kenexa’s Analyst Day and 7th World Conference – A Winner: Part 1

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

Kenexa’s October 16^th analyst day included:

• A conversation with CEO Rudy Karsan
• Product overviews
• Business unit highlights
• A customer panel
• One-on-one meetings with executives including Rudy and CMO Tim Geisert.

IBM’s acquisition of Kenexa, which is expected to close by the end of the year, could only be talked about in limited discussion. Kenexa employees will be integrated during 2013. Initially, IBM’s RPO business will be integrated into Kenexa’s RPO business and will be named IBM Kenexa RPO. The group will report into Rudy, who will then report into Alistair Rennie of IBM. Phase 1, occurring through 2013, will be business as usual with IBM as a new source of business for Kenexa, a very large channel. Phase 2 will be integration into IBM.

In addition to RPO, key assets Kenexa brings to IBM include SaaS, innovation, and the ability to get big data into IBM’s warehouses (e.g., Kenexa has 100m employee touches a year globally). Kenexa’s 2015 revenue projection will be doubled with IBM’s added social capabilities and analytics (IBM will demo this at its conference in January 2013).

Below is an overview of Kenexa’s new products and services that were presented by the respective product manager. The presentations also included videos and a one-page user-friendly brochure.

• RapidHire: 2x BrassRing’s high-volume hiring module (ideal for the retail, restaurant, and hospitality sectors)
• 2x Onboard: used in ~50% of contracts (including many global deals for cost savings and compliance), improves the employee experience (with mobile access available) by:
  • Making introductions before the employee’s first day
  • Helping new hires understand the culture
  • Conducting employment eligibility verifications for new hires
  • Providing new hire surveys, which can be scheduled at any time
  • Assisting internal employees and contractors who have been transferred
• 2x Perform: includes performance, succession, and compensation management
• Learning: includes a new social LMS, content management, and Hot Lava to develop content on all mediums (i.e., tablets, mobile devices, and PC’s)
• Engagement: highlights include a mobile feedback application that can be used for immediate feedback from meetings / events, employee surveys, and 360 degree feedback
• Global Talent Management: clients include Shell, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, BP, Yum (in China), and Huawei (in China); 2012 sales included the suite of recruitment, learning, and performance management; EMEA sales grew 40%, mostly from competitor conversions
• Compensation Management (part of 2x Perform): added ~500 new compensation clients YTD 2012 including Ernst & Young, Cox Enterprises, and Cracker Barrel.

For more information on these products and services, please see my prior blog entries, Kenexa’s vendor profile, and the NelsonHall database.

Kenexa is also continuing to develop its survey, assessment, and leadership development capabilities with recent contract awards including Amazon, Campbell’s, and Cargill announced October 16^th.

Stay tuned for part 2 later this week, which will include RPO highlights.

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RPO, A Bright Future on the Path to Business Impact

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

The future of RPO is bright with growth opportunities in every area of the world. According to NelsonHall’s “HRO Market Forecast 2012 – 2013,” RPO will remain the fastest growing area within HRO.

RPO is still evolving as a service line, moving from back-office paperwork administration to the front lines of recruiting, predictive assessment, and employer brand management. Contract renewals and extensions are now a regular part of the RPO news stream. Among those with announcements of renewals and extensions are:

• Alexander Mann Services
• Capita
• Manpower Group
• Novotus
• Pinstripe.

RPO is not for the faint of heart

With great opportunity comes increased risk. Growth is seldom in a straight path upwards and RPO is also on the leading edge of any business downturn that impacts hiring. It is not uncommon to see up and down swings in revenues of 20% or more between good and bad years. RPO providers need to be ready to rock and roll incredibly fast and be flexible in responding to changes in demand while balancing its own core of subject matter expertise.

RPO is the trail blazer

It is hard for any business including HRO service lines to keep up with new technologies, global service delivery networks, social media, and open device access. To recruit highly skilled multi-generational talent anywhere on the planet, RPO needs the latest tools and technologies to bring capabilities to employers they could not easily and affordably duplicate.

RPO has a direct path to business impact

Dr. John Sullivan, a respected HR thought leader, recently said that RPO has the greatest business impact of any HR function. Dr. Sullivan is referring to The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) “Realizing the Value of People Management from Capability to Profitability” research that rates the relative business impact of different HR functions on growth and profitability.

This was a major study of over 4,000 respondents across 102 countries, comparing the difference in revenue growth and profit margins at firms with “very high capability” individual HR functions to the business impacts of “low capability” HR functions. The firms studied had been named to Fortune’s “100 Best Places to Work For” list at least three times in the last ten years; their stock price growth was then compared to the stock price growth of the S&P 500. The “best companies” with great HR saw their stock price increase an average of 109% when the S&P 500 rose only 10% over the last 10 years, up to 10 times higher. Wow!

BCG found that the top ten performing HR functions in rank order were:

• Recruiting
• Onboarding and retention
• Managing talent
• Employer branding
• Performance management and rewards
• Leadership development
• Mastering HR process
• Global people management and global expansion
• Enhancing employee engagement
• Providing HR shared services and outsourcing.

In addition to the good news for RPO, the broader picture is the need for integrated talent management and the boost for HR outsourcing. Great HR can and does directly support great business results, and great RPO and HRO can be a part of that success story.

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IBM Accentuates its RPO and Talent Management Offering by Acquiring Kenexa

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

Although a bit smaller than the $1.9bn Oracle paid for Taleo (coincidentally at $46 per share as well) and the $3.4bn SAP paid for SuccessFactors, I believe that IBM’s acquisition of Kenexa, a cash transaction at $46 per share or ~$1.3bn and closing in Q4 2012, will have a much more immediate and larger impact than the aforementioned acquisitions.

Both Taleo and SuccessFactors were specifically acquired for their talent management (TM) technology. Beyond the strength of Kenexa’s technology, however, is the provision of TM services including:

• Consulting
• RPO
• Employee engagement
• Leadership development.

According to an IBM study conducted earlier this year, 71% of respondents cited “human capital” as the leading source of sustained economic value, above products and services innovation and significantly higher than technology. Kenexa, as a HCM and TM provider, will compliment IBM’s TM offering, which focuses on the full TM life cycle of attracting, developing, rewarding, and retaining talent. Specifically, IBM’s TM offering includes:

• Recruiting
• Learning
• Performance management
• Compensation
• Succession management.

In addition to its multi-process HRO (MPHRO) offering, which includes TM, IBM also specializes in providing workforce strategy transformation, social technology, and analytics to predict and measure performance.

While RPO is part of IBM’s MPHRO offering, it also provides RPO on a standalone basis to GM. Kenexa’s RPO capabilities, however, will accelerate IBM’s RPO market share, making it one of the largest RPO providers globally with clients headquartered in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Kenexa also delivers RPO services in Latin America including South America in ~25% of its contracts.

Kenexa’s BrassRing technology is one of the two most widely used applicant tracking systems in RPO contracts. Kenexa also brings its Kenexa 2x Recruit platform, which in addition to recruiting and learning contains the following performance management modules:

• Goal setting
• Competencies
• Performance appraisals
• Compensation
• Career development and pathing
• Succession planning.

NelsonHall estimates that Kenexa has more than tripled the size of its RPO business since 2006 with brand name clients including Ford and multi-regional contracts with Baker Hughes and Eli Lilly.

IBM’s price of $46 per share is a 42% premium over Kenexa’s August 24^th close, but it will be well worth it. IBM is getting much more than software technology; it is getting assets, including human talent that can make a HCM difference. IBM’s plan is to combine its approach to social business, analytics, and TM to transform business processes to create smarter workforces with measureable business results. Given Kenexa’s record of growth and IBM’s experience with integrating acquisitions, this sounds like a good plan and a great business opportunity for both companies.

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Bridging Talent Management and Workforce Management with HRO

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

One of the hottest topics in HR and HRO has been talent management (TM), including everything from recruiting and RPO to performance management and employee engagement. Major ERP vendors have snapped up TM software leaders to strengthen HR product lines, e.g., SAP and SuccessFactors; Oracle and Taleo. Very good moves and very on trend, but let’s not forget about the less flashy powerhouse: workforce management (WM).

TM and WM are both critical components of human capital management (HCM) and depending on definitions and models, there can be a lot of overlap. For my purpose here, TM is about the individual and the capabilities for a specific job position and WM is about groups of workers and managing multiple positions.

TM involves attracting, retaining, and developing people with the required capabilities according to requested volumes and performance management. WM involves workforce planning and forecasting the capabilities and volumes needed and day-to-day scheduling and time and attendance. It takes both processes to have the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right places, at the right time.

Let’s consider two more elements, HR analytics and ROI, that will also benefit from seamless HR systems and processes, which our dear HRO community can enable and deliver. Timely and accurate workforce data is a foundation block upon which HR is built. At least part of the drive for multi-country payroll has been to get better employee data, and there is an important feeder into payroll: time reporting. Today’s leading time and attendance systems offer great flexibility in capturing the detailed data needed for payroll plus analyses of productivity, labor costing, pricing, project billing, workforce planning, etc.

Everybody wants to tie HR and HRO to ROI. Lowering the cost of HR operations alone is not enough. We must show real impact in measurable business results. Simplifying a bit, TM supports improved business results through customer satisfaction and revenues generated; WM supports improved business results through optimizing SG&A via operations and reducing losses.

Many HRO offerings come in basic and advanced levels. HRO providers– ensure you offer both levels of time and attendance, scheduling, and attendance management services. Buyers – take the time to determine whether advanced workforce management services will not only provide better data, but will pay for itself through reductions in overtime and the impact of absences. Also, for many positions and industries, ensuring all customer-facing seats are filled at the right capacity, capability, and time has a direct link to productivity and revenues. Finally, don’t forget about compliance with wage, hour, and labor regulations where accurate records and proactive scheduling are a great defense against fines and losses.

HR and HRO in partnership can be the bridge to strengthen TM and WM across the entire human capital value chain.

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ADP: Analyst Day Priorities

Last week, ADP held its annual industry analyst day in NYC. Its priorities for the event included communicating its identity and progress as a global HCM company, its innovations in talent management, and its benefit services. Of course no ADP analyst day would be complete without product demos.

To begin the day, Carlos Rodriguez, CEO, spoke about the company’s vision to become the global HCM market leader. With workforces expanding globally, talent shortages, and the need to be more strategic, the international HCM opportunity is huge and ADP is determined to be at the center of it all. Given its large client footprint for its payroll and time and attendance solutions, integrating talent management functions including learning, compensation, and performance will be paramount for global domination in the HCM market.

Well-timed with the analyst event was ADP’s announcement that it launched an integrated end-to-end platform for talent management. In addition to talent acquisition, compensation and performance management, and succession, the talent management suite now leverages advanced learning management tools, learning content from Bersin and Associates, and an enterprise competency framework, and will be available for both its GlobalView and Vantage platforms.

ADP’s HCM toolbox is loaded and ready to be used. The GlobalView platform is available in 81 countries; the general availability date for Vantage has moved up to June; and WorkforceNow, which includes integrated HR, payroll, time and labor management, benefits, and talent management will soon support Canada. On the back-end, it would be great to see some HR BPO opportunities beyond payroll arise, and the company has been busy making enhancements to this portfolio as well.

In addition to its acquisition of the The RightThing, which brought in RPO capabilities, ADP has been quite busy building up its benefits business. There is great potential for benefits outsourcing due to changing regulations and complexities, not to mention the fact that an HCM market leader would not be complete without a strong benefits offering. Investments began with the Workscape acquisition, and continued with Asparity (for decision-support tools, analytics, and reporting) and SHPS (for reimbursement account administration and absence management). Finally, it added a Strategic Advisory Services offering to provide value-added analytics and advice to clients.

Amy L. Gurchensky, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

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Oracle Buying Taleo: Is It a Good Deal?

As Howie Mandel always says to his guests after they’ve pressed the button and say “Deal!” on the TV show Deal or No Deal—”but was it a good deal?” Time will of course tell, but I do believe Oracle has made a very good deal. As the acquisition was announced just last February 9, I’ll briefly recap what had happened.

Oracle announced an agreement to buy Taleo for $46 per share, an 18% premium over Taleo’s stock price the day before the announcement, equating to $1.9 billion. As Taleo’s board has approved the acquisition, it is now subject to normal regulatory approval and is expected to close by summer. This follows SAP’s announcement on December 3, 2011 to acquire SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion. I had blogged about my take on the acquisition last December 13, 2011, stating that SuccessFactors is a provider of talent management software, but software alone does not get at the core of what makes for effective talent management. First, let me state that I also feel that SAP buying SuccessFactors was a good deal, albeit a steep price, as cloud-based software, including talent management is clearly on the rise and expected to continue to grow. NelsonHall has seen a large increase in the number of cloud SaaS HR services contracts and nearly 15% of HRO contracts in 2011 also included talent management software, often performance management, mostly in the mid-market.

Getting back to Oracle, Taleo provides cloud-based talent management software as well, so this is also a good deal, but how does that make this different? Because Taleo adds recruitment capability that Oracle did not have before. And although SuccessFactors provides recruitment software as does Taleo, Taleo also has an applicant tracking system that according to NelsonHall’s 2011 RPO report is the most widely used recruitment technology and applicant tracking system, utilized by approximately 80% of all RPO vendors for their clients, Oracle’s PeopleSoft had been in sixth place. The RPO report also noted that approximately 45% of all recruitment technology was platform-based. Taleo also has a business edition, popular in the mid-market for clients seeking a more standardized solution, used by vendors including Alexander Mann Solutions and Pinstripe. According to NelsonHall’s HRO forecast, RPO will have the highest growth of all HR services through the forecast period of 2015.

In summary, I think both acquisitions by SAP and Oracle are good; especially as clients continue to focus on talent management and recognize the need to have integrated technology and processes, most importantly supported by leadership that understand this. I’m in the final stages of my learning BPO research interviews and I‘m seeing a clear trend that learning vendors are now also providing talent management software and associated consulting services to their clients along with their learning services. I look forward to aggregating this data that I’ll present at the HRO Today Forum in Washington, DC on May 1st, titled State of the Learning BPO Marketplace, including the Emergence of Social Learning.

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

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HRO 2012 Trends – The Evolution of Talent Management

The NelsonHall HRO team is pleased to once again contribute the annual HRO Today thought leaders forecast of trends that will influence the year ahead. ‘Artful Predictions’ covers a range of topics with talent management (TM) as one of the highlighted trends. We have covered the subject of talent management frequently as we see the opportunity for it to become an integral part of HR business process outsourcing.

For some time, I have called talent management a disputed ground and a potentially disruptive force that could shake up the HRO field. Why? This is because TM elements include so much of the human capital management value chain and cross over everything—from HR ERPs, software modules, HRO business process outsourcing, HR consulting and the roles of HR leaders, HR business partners, and internal shared service centers. TM includes performance management, succession and career planning, recruiting and staffing, compensation, and learning. I also include workforce planning and management under the TM umbrella.

In addition to the HR ERP vendors and the specialty TM software providers, there are HRO providers that are also building out their TM capability internally as well as through strategic partnerships and acquisitions.

• Kenexa acquired BHI (Batrus Hollweg) a TM company. Although Kenexa has developed TM expertise internally, the company has also been enhancing its efforts over the past few years through prior acquisitions that have included:
  • Salary.com to strengthen its compensation management capability
  • The Centre for High Performance Development to further strengthen its leadership development and management training offering
  • Gantz Wiley Research to increase its employee survey research capabilities.
• Mercer acquired Censeo Corporation to enhance its TM consulting capabilities and online platform of assessment services.
• Both Kenexa and NGA are partnering with SkillSoft for learning content.
• In July, Talent2 re-branded itself to simplify its talent management focus.
  • It also became a reseller of Cornerstone OnDemand, most widely used for its performance management, including succession planning and learning modules.
  • Talent2 also added advisory services as a service offering to help clients more effectively deploy the capabilities.

With recruiting as one of the core TM processes, RPO vendors are among the early leaders in developing internal as well as external TM service options. NorthgateArinso has been moving in this area as well, coming from the standpoint of bring it all together into one integrated system and services package. With the acquisition of The Right Thing, ADP signals both a stronger move into RPO and its interest in TM.

The HRO Today article also discusses whether HRO has reached the maturity stage of providing ‘true business value’. I believe that talent management evolving into a full-fledged HRO service with technology-enabled tools, data integration across the full suite of HR data, supported by analytics assistance and consulting is critical to HRO providing true business value results for clients and achieving its own full measure of success as an invaluable industry.

Linda Merritt, 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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HR Tech: Another Winner!

Kudos to Bill Kutik and everyone involved in planning and organizing the 14^th Annual HR Tech Conference that took place October 3 -5. Surveys are still being collected, but I’d rate it as a success! As an analyst, I did attend a couple presentations and briefly visited the showroom floor but, the majority of my time was spent in small meetings learning about new outsourcing contract activity and technology offerings, which included demos.  Highlights from some meetings included:

• IBM, already a major global MPHRO and LBPO provider, winning three significant contracts in the past month with clients headquartered in three different continents including a MPHRO contract with Air Canada (press release issued this morning). More to follow on the Air Canada win as well as the other MPHRO and LBPO contract awards as those press releases are issued.
• ManpowerGroup Solutions’ RPO business continuing to grow at > 50% thus far in 2011 with dozens of new clients added YTD in countries that include: U.S., Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, Japan, U.K., Israel, Belgium, Finland, Poland, Netherlands, Sweden, and France.
• ADP’s demo of Vantage HCM, which is initially targeted in the U.S. for organizations with 1,000 – 20,000 employees.  I was impressed with the performance management capabilities and the overall ease of use, which included setting goals, identifying competencies, weighing performance to goals, linking performance to compensation, succession planning, etc. I could easily see how this platform can make an organization’s talent more effective, especially when combined with project management and implementation consultation.
• Kenexa’s recent announcements that include: launching Social Solutions for Recruiting and its new performance management suite, 2x Perform, which integrates performance management, succession planning, and compensation; a partnership with Skillsoft to integrate its e-learning content and SkillPort platform with Kenexa’s talent management platform and 2x Perform; a partnership with The Brooklyn Group to increase RPO presence in Australia; and a partnership with HR GlobBlog for global talent advice.
• SourceRight Solutions, whose revenue has been growing from both new contract wins as well as existing clients increasing hiring volumes, with the biggest news that Randstad completed its acquisition of the SFN Group for ~$771m last month. SourceRight will be the RPO arm for Randstad and with combined company revenue of ~$22 bn, of which ~80% are in Europe, expect great opportunities abroad as well as continued success in North America.
• Mercer’s Human Capital Connect, which combines talent management technology for performance management, succession planning, and compensation. It uses the PeopleFluent platform and a client success team that does a readiness assessment and stays with the client for life. Since its launch in mid-2010, a few major clients have been won, but names cannot be disclosed.

I attended twelve other meetings, demos, and presentations I’ll write more about in a future blog, but for now common themes are that HRO is thriving and that vendors are introducing new offerings for clients to improve talent management. Yes, technology combined with consultation is important and is most effective by organizations trained in how to do performance management.

Gary Bragar, HR Outsourcing Research Director, NelsonHall

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