Before we embark, here is a great slide on the history of both SAP HCM and SuccessFactors:
As typical for a Progress Report – here are my Top 3 takeaways:
1. A lot of moving parts – Even before the SAP S/4HANA announcement from the other week (see my First Take here), there were already a lot of moving parts in the SAP HCM / SuccessFactors portfolio. While SAP built EmployeeCentral on the MDF Framework, it was clear that more had to happen with the rest of the SuccessFactors application portfolio, as well as the BI / Analytics space. And SAP was also working on making the proven and venerable R/3 payroll engine available for SaaS deployments. And then there was this new database that SuccessFactors is supposed to run on, HANA. And with the new S/4HANA product, there is a new architecture and product suite announced and it will need to have some HCM capabilities, too. So let’s peel all these pieces back:
2. APIs as the new integration paradigm – Dmitri Krakovsky walked us through a set of new qualities for future SuccessFactors products as well as capabilities of the existing architecture. And as Ettling pointed out earlier, SAP HCM has abandoned the mantra of the one schema / object model. The future are APIs and using OData as interface to have the existing and new applications communicate to each other [Update SAP correctly reminds me that it is using ODATA already today.] Not a new approach, but new for SAP overall. Many questions remain, such as if the APIs will be open to outside of SAP built consumption, what is the integration platform (HCP?) for more complex integration and transformation processes and so on. From a strategic perspective the most important aspect was that Krakovsky said that being ready for more acquisitions was an additional benefit of the strategy. And while that was not a statement to any specific acquisitions, it is certainly is good to be ready for them – on an architecture level.
3. Services as differentiator!? – SAP spend a good portion of the day talking about various service offerings and capabilities. The topic is near and dear to SAP HCM leader Ettling, so it is good to SAP investing in the area. When I asked what sets SAP apart in services, Ettling said it is the adoption teams that grow proportionally to subscription revenue and the newly revisited support offerings.
1. A lot of moving parts – Even before the SAP S/4HANA announcement from the other week (see my First Take here), there were already a lot of moving parts in the SAP HCM / SuccessFactors portfolio. While SAP built EmployeeCentral on the MDF Framework, it was clear that more had to happen with the rest of the SuccessFactors application portfolio, as well as the BI / Analytics space. And SAP was also working on making the proven and venerable R/3 payroll engine available for SaaS deployments. And then there was this new database that SuccessFactors is supposed to run on, HANA. And with the new S/4HANA product, there is a new architecture and product suite announced and it will need to have some HCM capabilities, too. So let’s peel all these pieces back:
- SAP plans to make cloud applications only available for real cloud deployments. In contrast to S/4HANA – EmployeeCentral and other SuccessFactors applications will not be available to be installed on premise or in a private cloud. Not really a surprise as the code is probably not designed and engineered for that – but what kind of new ERP suite is S/4HANA without HCM. Of course SAP has already ‘side by side’ implementations of Business Suite and EmployeeCentral / SuccessFactors available, and is likely to make the same available for on premise and private cloud S/4HANA installations. But it means that you can have the new SAP HCM products only in the cloud. A gutsy move considering that there are still large customer groups that think / want to deploy HCM on premise (or private cloud). Of course SAP still has R/3 HCM available – but questions will arise in regards of how in tune that functionality is with the HCM best practices of 2015.
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| The SuccessFactors V12 Home Page |
- SAP is in the process of moving all payroll relevant information into EmployeeCentral, making the R/3 payroll engine more and more a ‘thin & dumb’ engine that can be called easily, and quasi elastic. SAP showed a demo of an employee taking vacation / time off and how it instantly changed the paycheck. Given the history of the SAP payroll engine, quite a feat. But a necessity as e.g. ADP and Ceridian have shown the same already last year. Additionally SAP has made progress in the UI it uses on top of the Payroll Administration – looks as good (or is it) Fiori [Update Feb. 19th - SAP confirms it is Fiori. Good.]. Maybe it can bring back some ‘fun’ to run payroll.
- SAP is in process of finishing its work around the Learning module. Bringing your own content sharing and using ‘true’ analytics to serve relevant content will be a powerful upgrade to the former Plateau product.
- At the same time SAP plans (sorry details under NDA) to move other SuccessFactors Talent Management modules to the MDF platform. That is certainly welcome as the diversity of the different SuccessFactors architecture is a sizeable technical debt. Good to see SAP tackling this area (at last some customers say).
- And finally SAP has some interesting plans in the Business Intelligence and Analytics space. SuccessFactors has always been good at Benchmarking, with almost all customers participating in the benchmarking process. With the integration of Lumira, SAP HCM users will receive an attractive BI tool with probably good enough capabilities to fight of potential Tableau installs for the average HCM user. Moreover, SAP is making good progress in the ‘real’ analytics area for some selected analytical questions (what I mean with ‘real’ analytics – read here).
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| The SAP HCM Cloud Architecture - OData APIs |
2. APIs as the new integration paradigm – Dmitri Krakovsky walked us through a set of new qualities for future SuccessFactors products as well as capabilities of the existing architecture. And as Ettling pointed out earlier, SAP HCM has abandoned the mantra of the one schema / object model. The future are APIs and using OData as interface to have the existing and new applications communicate to each other [Update SAP correctly reminds me that it is using ODATA already today.] Not a new approach, but new for SAP overall. Many questions remain, such as if the APIs will be open to outside of SAP built consumption, what is the integration platform (HCP?) for more complex integration and transformation processes and so on. From a strategic perspective the most important aspect was that Krakovsky said that being ready for more acquisitions was an additional benefit of the strategy. And while that was not a statement to any specific acquisitions, it is certainly is good to be ready for them – on an architecture level.
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| SAP Services Lifecyle |
Tidbits
- SAP JAM - As custom at SAP HCM events, we also got an update on the JAM product. JAM has passed 17.5M users and is growing well, it looks like the work package approach the team has taken, is creating value for SAP customers using JAM alongside SAP HCM products.
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| SAP JAM momentum slide |
- Bye Bye Boomi – SAP SuccessFactors is moving away from the Boomi based integration and towards HANA cloud integration – a good step to reduce technical debt and 3rd party license payments.
- Bye Bye Oracle – And SuccessFactors is moving off Oracle and onto HANA. New customers will be brought to HANA first, but the overall migration will be completed in 2016. We will be watching.
MyPOV
SAP is making good progress on its HCM portfolio. It is good to see, that the vendor is actively embarking on the journey to bring all its HCM products on the MDF Framework, which really is a platform. With that SAP has a dual positioning challenge with HANA Cloud Platform (HCP), but the vendor juggled the two well: MDF is for transactional (HCM) applications, HCP is an all-purpose PaaS product. But that all creates a lot of moving parts, and moving parts in software always bring the risk of quality issues. SAP has a senior enough team for not making that an issue, but it is certainly an area to watch, also given key competitors have less of a re-build / re-write load in the coming next years. But re-writes, re-platforming has to happen every 10 or so years in most cases, so 2015 just marks the date where SAP embarks into the effort. Lastly SAP needs to be more proactive and transparent on the roadmap and milestones related to that effort. A complete roadmap of what is going to happen certainly will be welcomed by prospects, customers and the overall ecosystem. That other events happen, like e.g. an S/4HANA launch, the acquisition of Concur is a possibility, if not a likely reality. And that such events could re-trigger a new roadmap is nothing shocking anymore in the cloud era. It could be even something customers welcome, as they want to take advantage of the new functionality. So a public roadmap of future products would be an important step.
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And more about SAP technology:
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And more on overall SAP strategy and products:
- First Take - SAP launches S/4HANA - The good, the challenge and the concern - read here
- First Take - SAP's IoT strategy becomes clearer - read here
- SAP appoints a CTO - some musings - read here
- Event Report - SAP's SAPtd - (Finally) more talk on PaaS, good progress and aligning with IBM and Oracle - read here
- News Analysis - SAP and IBM partner for cloud success - good news - read here
- Market Move - SAP strikes again - this time it is Concur and the spend into spend management - read here
- Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors picks up speed - but there remains work to be done - read here
- First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Top 3 Takeaways Day 1 Keynote - read here.
- Event Report - Sapphire - SAP finds its (unique) path to cloud - read here
- What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire - read here
- News Analysis - SAP becomes more about applications - again - read here
- Market Move - SAP acquires Fieldglass - off to the contingent workforce - early move or reaction? Read here.
- SAP's startup program keep rolling – read here.
- Why SAP acquired KXEN? Getting serious about Analytics – read here.
- SAP steamlines organization further – the Danes are leaving – read here.
- Reading between the lines… SAP Q2 Earnings – cloudy with potential structural changes – read here.
- SAP wants to be a technology company, really – read here
- Why SAP acquired hybris software – read here.
- SAP gets serious about the cloud – organizationally – read here.
- Taking stock – what SAP answered and it didn’t answer this Sapphire [2013] – read here.
- Act III & Final Day – A tale of two conference – Sapphire & SuiteWorld13 – read here.
- The middle day – 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
- A tale of 2 keynotes and press releases – Sapphire & SuiteWorld – read here.
- What I would like SAP to address this Sapphire – read here.
- Why 3rd party maintenance is key to SAP’s and Oracle’s success – read here.
- Why SAP acquired Camillion – read here.
- Why SAP acquired SmartOps – read here.
- Next in your mall – SAP and Oracle? Read here.
And more about SAP technology:
- HANA Cloud Platform - Revisited - Improvements ahead and turning into a real PaaS - read here
- News Analysis - SAP commits to CloudFoundry and OpenSource - key steps - but what is the direction? - Read here.
- News Analysis - SAP moves Ariba Spend Visibility to HANA - Interesting first step in a long journey - read here
- Launch Report - When BW 7.4 meets HANA it is like 2 + 2 = 5 - but is 5 enough - read here
- Event Report - BI 2014 and HANA 2014 takeaways - it is all about HANA and Lumira - but is that enough? Read here.
- News Analysis – SAP slices and dices into more Cloud, and of course more HANA – read here.
- SAP gets serious about open source and courts developers – about time – read here.
- My top 3 takeaways from the SAP TechEd keynote – read here.
- SAP discovers elasticity for HANA – kind of – read here.
- Can HANA Cloud be elastic? Tough – read here.
- SAP’s Cloud plans get more cloudy – read here.
- HANA Enterprise Cloud helps SAP discover the cloud (benefits) – read here.
