Earlier this week SAP SuccessFactors announced its new capabilities in Performance Management, taking a first step at helping make Performance Management 'work'.



 

So take a look:



 
 
 
 
f you don't have a chance to watch - here are the key takeaways:
 
 
  • Today Performance Management is broken - We know this already, champagne bottles are opened when the performance review cycle is being cancelled. Not only for software reasons, but software can improve and it is good to see vendors taking new approaches to make Performance Management a success.
     
  • SuccesFactors innovates in Talent Management - For a long time the SuccessFactors R&D effort has been on Employee Central, Payroll, platform etc. with customers getting worried about the investment in the rest of the Talent Management capabilities. This forms the first major and pretty fundamental investment by SuccessFactors in Talent Management.
      
  • Back to the Basics - SuccessFactors was founded with the idea of enabling Goals and Performance Management. Going back to the basics is hard for enterprise software vendors, so kudos for SuccessFactors to go back to the basics, and admit that something is not working in Performance Management (originally announced back at SuccessConnect 2015 in Las Vegas).
     
  • 1 to 1s are a good approach - Looking at were the high frequency interactions are is a successful course to set in the journey to fix Performance Management. And surprisingly 1 to 1s have not been at all supported by HCM vendors.
     
  • Multi-cultural Aspects matter - The 1 to 1 is a North American, more specifically US management instrument. SuccessFactors will have to look at what the high frequency interactions are that could form the base for continuous feedback leading to better performance management, e.g. in Europe and Asia.
     

MyPOV


Always good to see innovation, especially in an area where a vendor has long term strengths, or even was the inventor / innovator of the category. Continuous feedback is a known approach to address the Performance Management ailing, but it stands and falls with the usage of the 1 to 1 meeting management approach and (given the mobility of users) the uptake of the mobile app. You need the longitudinal performance and feedback data in order to really change the quality, ease of use of the quarterly or half yearly performance review. 
 
But for now a good start - we will be there to watch the adoption. 

Also, check out the Constellation Insights piece my colleague Chris Kanarucus wrote on the topic - here

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More on overall SAP strategy and products:

 

  • Event Report - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Good Progress sprinkled with innovative ideas and challenging the status quo - read here
  • News Analysis - WorkForce Software Announces Global Reseller Agreement with SAP - read here
  • First Take - SAP SuccessFactors SuccessConnect - Day #1 Keynote Top 3 Takeaways - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP SuccessFactors introduces Next Generation of HCM software - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP delivers next release of SAP HANA - SPS 10 - Ready for BigData and IoT - read here
  • Event Report - SAP Sapphire - Top 3 Positives and Concerns - read here
  • First Take - Bernd Leukert and Steve Singh Day #2 Keynote - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP and IBM join forces ... read here
  • First Take - SAP Sapphire Bill McDermott Day #1 Keynote - read here
  • In Depth - S/4HANA qualities as presented by Plattner - play for play - read here
  • First Take - SAP Cloud for Planning - the next spreadsheet killer is off to a good start - read here
  • Progress Report - SAP HCM makes progress and consolidates - a lot of moving parts - read here
  • 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:
  • Event Prieview - SAP TechEd 2015 - read here
  • News Analysis - SAP Unveils New Cloud Platform Services and In-Memory Innovation on Hadoop to Accelerate Digital Transformation – A key milestone for SAP read here
  • 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.

Find more coverage on the Constellation Research website here and checkout my magazine on Flipboard and my YouTube channel here