Here are my top 3 takeaways from the conference (and checkout my First Take of Day #1 here):
Stay the course - While last year’s MOTM (read here) was all about ADP laying out the roadmap to a better future for its customers, with innovations around mobile and the paycheck and a beautiful new user interface (UI) - this year’s MOTM was all about delivery record and staying the course. As mentioned earlier, ADP did a good job in the opening keynote showing how the vendor announced innovations around ACA, Analytics and UI and has delivered on them: Each of the three areas was shown with live and video testimonial – nothing is better than hearing it straight from a customer. And the references were authentic, convincing - and most unusual for the traditional customers of the ‘old’ ADP – excited about what they are using and have rolled out.
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| All 4 ADP Businesses with key stats |
Affordable Care Act (ACA) - No surprise - ADP has delivered on its ACA announcements, wrapped into the ‘Health Compliance’ product. The screens and system are well designed, easy to use and when talking to practitioners they liked them and said they very helpful in day to day operations. What remains clear is that the average large enterprise is still in the process of making sense of the ACA and its implementation, with whole customer delegations visiting MOTM for the whole purpose of better understanding the ACA. At the same time it became clear during the conference what high level of distraction this is for enterprises and to what large amount it takes their attention and resources away from ultimately more strategic topics, like people development, talent management etc.
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| Screenshot of ADP Health Compliance Portal |
All coming together in 2015 - Another insight was that things are coming together for ADP in the next two quarters. The vendor did not say it as explicitly in the keynotes as they could have / should have (or I may have missed it) - but all the work around the new UI, creating a middleware platform, encapsulating APIs is coming to a conclusion with the ADP fall releases. And coming to an end of a 10+ years journey, with a number of product launches and an even greater number of acquisitions during that time - it is a major achievement that ADP customers can now use almost all of ADP HCM functionality in a single, modern UI. IT teams, partners and consultants will appreciate a single API based architecture. And with developer.adp.com and marketplace.adp.com, ADP has done a lot of progressive steps, uncharacteristic of the ADP of old - to make all technical work around its products significantly easier. So 2015 is a key year from ADP from a product perspective, time for customers to notice.
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| Camby shows new Manager Portal |
Analyst Tidbits
- Data Cloud - ADP shared its new Data Cloud offering, and it the latest effort of the vendor to bring business intelligence to both business users and HR professionals. ADP has built an attractive front end and even more importantly has changed the backend of the system to a modern Hadoop enabled architecture. And it is open for non HR data - which is key to really understand performance – right from the first version. Even more importantly the system is ready for more relevant (and interesting) ‘real’ analytics use case.
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| Masiero presents Cloud Stats |
- Global - ADP keeps investing into its global capabilities bringing together its GlobalView and Streamline products even more. Today ADP addresses 95%+ of multinational employees, pays 11M global employees and offers payroll in 104 countries.
- Developer.adp.com - ADP debuted the site last year - but either I missed the expansion then – or it has done much more to make it easier for developers from 3rd parties to understand and use its APIs. An example other vendors should take note of.
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| Screenshot from dp.developer.com - Payroll APIs |
- New Head of Product - Last year long tenured CIO Michael Capone left ADP, and recently ADP appointed long term veteran Stuart Sackman to be the new Head of Product. We had the chance to meet with Sackman, he shared his plans for the development organization and we can say from our first impression that product development is in good hands. Also good to see that the ‘new’ ADP got rid of the ‘CIO’ title, and ‘Product’ has made its way into Sackman’s title. Sackman’s last responsibility was ADP’s Multinational Solutions business and it’s good to see an executive at the helm of products who understands globalization first hand. But Sackman has been almost ‘everywhere’ during his 22+ career at ADP – so good for ADP to have a product leader who knows all facets of the ADP business.
MyPOV
It easily gets seen as ‘boring’ from an analyst perspective if no major new announcements are being made, but as a former product developer, I appreciate the steady state, as this is when good things happen for customers, as ultimately value is being created. Good software is like wine, it takes time to mature, and ADP is on track to bring its innovations across its vast product suite. Gone will be the days of inconsistent UIs that troubled users, different architectures that hampered consultants and irritated IT professionals – so with all major product issues being addressed, it’s time for the ADP leadership to consider more bold moves on the go to market side.I had the chance to ask CEO Carlos Rodriguez where he wants to see ADP in 3 years from now. In his candid character Rodriguez answered that he would like to see more product unification, the vendor finding ways to lower its cost base and continuing the visons of technology enabled services, with the emphasis a little more on the ‘T’ than on the ‘S’. Overall a very candid and fair assessment in my view.
The key developments to watch with ADP is no longer if ADP can build a great and competitive product, but if ADP can change its market image from payroll / compliance to overall HCM player. This is a significant marketing positioning challenge that not only needs heavy lifting in marketing, but also in sales, delivery and the partner ecosystem. When ADP stresses more of the ‘T’ in technology enabled services, it may not as well be able to partner with almost any player in the HCM market as it does today – but may rough some feathers as ADP’s ambition is more than being a payroll / compliance vendor / provider. When the executive team starts that process and with how much pressure on the gas pedal, will be something we will follow keenly. For the longest time ADP’s issues have been around product, but those times are clearly becoming part of its history. Exciting times ahead for ADP customers, prospects, partners and ADP employees. Tough decision with delicate timing for Rodriguez and team.
More on ADP
- First Take - ADP Meeting of the Minds - Day #1 Keynote - read here
- Progress Report - ADP shows great vision, delivers product innovation - now it needs adoption - read here
- Site Visit - ADP's new innovation lab in Chelsea - read here
- News Analysis - ADP announces Spin-Off plans for Dealer Services, sharpens ADP's focus on HCM - read here.
- Event Report - ADP's Meeting of the Minds - ADP has made up its mind (almost) - customers not yet - read here.
- First take - 3 Key Takeaways from ADP's Meeting of the Minds Conference Day 1 Keynote - read here.
- ADP innovates with with verve and good timing – read here.
And more on the importance of the paycheck for HCM:
- Could the paycheck re-invent HCM – yes it can – read here.
- And suddenly, payroll matters again! Read here.
Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here.
