Mark Smith's Analyst Perspectives

Can You Trust Salesforce and Rypple for Performance Management?

Posted by Mark Smith on Mar 30, 2012 5:41:37 PM

Salesforce has begun to toot its marketing horn about its new capabilities for performance management through its acquisition of Rypple, a provider of software designed for social collaboration for improving employee engagement. I have already discussed this acquisition (See: Salesforce.com looking for a Successful Rypple in Human Capital Management) and have actually signed up for and used the software. Rypple has introduced some great innovations to promote feedback and dialogue between employees and managers. Salesforce has expanded what this software can be used for in an organization with its latest announcement, as it discussed at its Cloudforce conference and posted on YouTube. Rypple has many cutting-edge customers, including Facebook, that are looking for a different approach to talent management processes than that of the traditional HR organizations in well-established industries. However, anyone expecting to use the application to replace existing performance management software will find Salesforce’s announcement to be a little premature based on the state of the application and capabilities.

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Topics: Salesforce.com, Social Media, Human Capital Management, LMS, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Recruiting, Research, SuccessFactors, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Business Performance Management (BPM), Compensation, HR, HRMS, Jobscience, Rypple, Saba, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

The Jobscience of Human Capital Management

Posted by Mark Smith on Mar 30, 2012 1:36:39 PM

New human capital management solutions are entering the market, aiming to simplify recruiting, hiring, onboarding and managing employees. Many such applications focus on talent management for use after employees are hired, but vendors also need to streamline tasks for recruiters, HR administrators and hiring managers. Jobscience provides software that simplifies the processes of getting the talent you want to hire ready to work as quickly as possible.

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Topics: Salesforce.com, Social Media, Sustainability, Human Capital Management, LMS, Performance, Recruiting, Research, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Mobility, Business Performance Management (BPM), Compensation, Financial Performance Management (FPM), HR, HRMS, Information Applications (IA), Information Management (IM), Jobscience, Rypple, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

Saba Expands the Concept of Human Capital Management

Posted by Mark Smith on Mar 23, 2012 3:33:16 PM

Saba this week announced its acquisition of Human Concepts, which provides applications and tools for understanding and interacting with employees through visualizations based on the organizational chart. Human Concepts had expanded its portfolio beyond tools to support planning and change processes critical for organizational succession and transition. The company has more than 500 customers worldwide, including partners like Infor, Oracle and SAP.

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Topics: Social Media, Human Capital Management, Human Concepts, LMS, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Recruiting, Research, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Mobility, Business Performance Management (BPM), Compensation, Customer Performance Management (CPM), HR, HRMS, Saba, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

IBM Launches Smarter Analytics: Ready to Get Smart?

Posted by Mark Smith on Mar 23, 2012 9:31:14 AM

IBM this week launched a business initiative called Smarter Analytics to showcase the value of its technology and professional services in this area. The event, led by Steve Mills, head of IBM’s software and systems business, highlighted the company’s ability to solve analytic challenges at all levels of complexity. At the event IBM highlighted Watson, the learning and expert systems technology that in 2011 beat human champions on Jeopardy. IBM also introduced a collection of case studies exemplifying its customers’ success. 

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Topics: Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Technology, CIO, Cloud Computing, Information Management, Information Technology, Operational Intelligence, Business Performance Management (BPM), Information Applications (IA), Information Management (IM), IT Performance Management (ITPM)

Ceridian’s Ambitious Agenda in Human Capital Management

Posted by Mark Smith on Mar 9, 2012 11:15:52 AM

I attended the Ceridian analyst summit (Twitter #CENAday) in Boston to see how the company  is expanding its business in HR-related software and services into human capital management (HCM). Ceridian derives $1.5 billion in revenue from more than 130,000 customers with 25 million employees at organizations ranging from small and midsize business to two-thirds of the Fortune 500. CEO Stuart Harvey has been expanding the company’s management team, with key additions in heads of marketing and finance and promotions of internal management, all of whom were front and center for the analyst summit. Ceridian’s focus on human capital management meshes with our 2012 research agenda in this field as it tries to exploit the potential value of an entire workforce to meet the needs of the business.

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Topics: Human Capital Management, LMS, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Recruiting, Research, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Business Performance Management (BPM), Ceridian, Compensation, dayforce, Financial Performance Management (FPM), HR, HRMS, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

Human Capital Management Research and Educational Agenda for 2012

Posted by Mark Smith on Mar 9, 2012 8:14:16 AM

Utilizing the talents of everyone in the workforce is a critical priority for businesses. Savvy executives understand and are anxious to avoid the cost and time incurred in replacing trained, experienced employees and the downturn in productivity while jobs are unfilled. Our benchmark research into recruiting found that more than half of organizations now use metrics of cost and time-to-hire, which indicates the maturing of human resources organizations in response to this challenge. 

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Topics: Human Capital Management, LMS, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Recruiting, Research, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Business Performance Management (BPM), Compensation, Financial Performance Management (FPM), HR, HRMS, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

The Business of Sales Research Agenda for 2012

Posted by Mark Smith on Mar 6, 2012 10:28:00 PM

Investing wisely in sales-related people and processes is a key to business success. In 2012, helping sales staff perform at their highest levels should be a top priority for management. That may take some effort, according to our benchmark research, which indicates that only 14 percent of sales organizations operate at the highest level of innovation and competitiveness. In recent years, most organizations merely discussed moving beyond using only their sales force automation application and Microsoft Office for improving sales efficiency. Now sales organizations can move beyond systems that were designed decades ago, thanks to the availability of a broad range of applications to support sales activities and processes. In fact dozens of new types of sales applications are available to help sales focus on selling, which creates another issue. Where should sales organizations focus their limited resources and budgets?

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Topics: Big Data, Mobile, Planning, Sales, Social Media, assets, Learning, Office of Finance, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Reporting, Sales Compensation, Sales Force Automation, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Business Performance Management (BPM), channel, coaching, commission, CRM, Customer Performance Management (CPM), Financial Performance Management (FPM), Sales Performance Management, Sales Performance Management (SPM), SFA, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

Alteryx’s Business Analytics Empowers New Generation of Data Artisans

Posted by Mark Smith on Mar 1, 2012 3:51:30 PM

I attended the Alteryx user conference called Inspire 2012 (Twitter: #Inspire12)  in Denver this week. This fairly new analytics software company has been gaining customers in a range of brand-name organizations such as Dick’s Sporting Goods, Supervalu, U.S. Cellular and VF Corp. The company focuses on meeting the needs of analysts across the business analytic spectrum including a geographic and location context for simplifying the analytic tasks and processes for the needs of business at the strategic and operational level.

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Topics: Big Data, Mobile, Predictive Analytics, R, Social Media, alteryx, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Customer Performance Management (CPM), Data, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Information Applications (IA), Information Management (IM), Sales Performance Management (SPM), Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM)