Mark Smith's Analyst Perspectives

The necessity of learning is essential for every organization to realize the full potential of the workforce. But many organizations treat learning like training or academic instruction to ensure policy or compliance to a minimum level of work performance, instead of continuing career education and improving skills in the operational workflow. The context for where and how workers work is critical to ensure that on-the-job learning is possible. While traditional learning management systems (LMS) have advanced the authoring and curriculum for formalized training in a digital learning environment, the need to adapt learning to the operational requirements is essential for every organization. This context provides the opportunity for continuous skills development, which is essential to building organizational readiness and workforce resilience critical for everyday operations and business continuity. We assert that by 2024, learning management systems and learning experience platforms with embedded skill and job ontologies that recommend optimal learning paths will guide one-half of organizations to elevate employee engagement, retention and productivity.

Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning, LMS, Digital Business, inkling, LXP

Partners play a key role in the revenue and growth of every organization. Whether channel selling is in assistance to internal sales or independent, what happens in partnering has ramifications that are simply too important to underestimate. The imperative to maintain business continuity with channel partners becomes painfully clear in a global pandemic, and that imperative demands that organizations cultivate partner excellence and channel performance. This effort should start with partner leadership and operations, with the objective of building channel relationships that can survive the test of time. Effective sales channel partnerships are built on mutual trust and a shared belief in the market opportunity, and recruiting and managing partners must be supported by effective processes and technology. The health of these relationships and the resulting revenue from the channel hinges on an effective partner experience, and this requires technology investments that enable leaders to not just manage channel performance, but help inspire it every single day.

Topics: Big Data, Customer Experience, Learning, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Business Continuity, Analytics, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Sales Enablement and Execution, Conversational Computing, AI and Machine Learning, work experience management, partner management

The workforce is the center of any organization, no matter if the workforce consists of employees, contractors or what we call gig workers. It stands to reason that a black-swan event has an immediate impact on a workforce and thus an organization’s overall business health. In challenging times, a “family-first” mentality tends to take hold — a reality that, far too often, business leaders and HR organizations underestimate. But organizational readiness is essential for sustainability and operational effectiveness.

Topics: Big Data, Customer Experience, Learning, Voice of the Customer, Business Continuity, Analytics, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Sales Enablement and Execution, Conversational Computing, AI and Machine Learning

Maximizing the performance and value of people in the workforce should be a primary focus for any business these days. It is a complex task, especially for larger organizations, and chances for success can be increased by investment in human capital management (HCM) applications. In this competitive software market SAP is making a strong push, aided by acquisitions in the last three years of SuccessFactors for talent management and more recently Fieldglass for contingent labor management. Recently I attended the SAP HCM analyst summit to hear about its direction and plans to grow its market share. The company has made progress since our last analyst perspective on it. Mike Ettling, SAP’s president for the HR line of business, discussed its newly refined strategy and organizational structure; the company has added executives from around the globe to emphasize its commitment to helping human resources organizations.

Topics: SAP, Social Media, HCM, Human Capital Management, Learning, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Recruiting, SuccessFactors, Analytics, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, Business Performance Management (BPM), Compensation, Financial Performance Management (FPM), HRMS, Vendor Management Systems, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management, Workforce Planning

IBM held its 20th annual IBM Connect conference (previously known as Lotusphere) as part of its IBM Social Business efforts at the end of January. The conference focuses on business and social collaboration technology, which our business technology innovation research found to be the second-ranked priority for business innovation. At the conference IBM made a series of significant announcements, including a new version of its social collaboration suite, IBM Connections, and the ability to use the software on a cloud computing platform.

Topics: Social Media, Human Capital Management, Kenexa, Learning, Performance, Recruiting, Smarter Analytics, Smarter Workforce, Social Business, Social Collaboration, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), IBM, Compensation, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

Topics: Mobile, Social Media, HCM, Human Capital Management, Learning, LMS, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Business Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Business Performance Management (BPM), Compensation, Financial Performance Management (FPM), HR, Sales Performance Management (SPM), TCM, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

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)

Topics: Learning, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Business Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Business Performance Management (BPM), Compensation, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

Topics: Learning, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Business Performance Management (BPM), Compensation, Customer Performance Management (CPM), Sales Performance Management (SPM), Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)

Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Performance, Recruiting, Cloud Computing, Business Performance Management (BPM), Compensation, Hiring, Talent Generation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Performance Management (WPM)