Branding, Communications, Service Delivery

Perhaps the post should be "Branding, Communications, Service Delivery... Again." Actually, there have been a couple of interesting things on the web. The first is a post by Andrew who referred to another debate about communications strategy and change. In it, the debate rages on about if effective communications come from a top down approach (specifically from the direct supervisor) or from a multi-directional approach.

To be honest, Andrew takes a fairly centrist approach saying that you have to know your employee base to understand what drives them. He also applies the 80/20 rule saying that most people (average performers) don't seek out information and thus need the direct contact by their supervisor. I'll agree with this in low-tech sectors. However, in organizations that have highly sophisticated employee groups such as technology, biotech, professional services... a far higher degree of employees are highly compensated and have more sophistication in terms of data access. So Andrew is correct if we are talking about an assembly manufacturing plant, but perhaps not a biotech research firm. (Andrew - did I just say exactly the same thing you said? lol)

In these more sophisticated employee populations, I subscribe to the idea that the employer has to communicate the brand multi-directionally. The most effective is through self service and the intranet. In fact, I believe direct verbal management communications are highly ineffective in these settings. This is due to the idea that communications become unstable and inconsistent. The role and beauty of web communications is that it's delivered EXACTLY the way you planned.

This brings us to article 2. This is an HR.com article you need to log in for, but it talks about the role of self service and HR service delivery. I've hilighted a few passages

The latest HR Service Delivery Survey done by Towers Perrin suggests that “…employee self-service is nearly a universal fact in corporate America today”, and while manager self-service lags behind a bit, it “is poised for robust growth.” In addition, the survey suggests that in many cases, self-service “is becoming the only option.” A specific measure cited in the survey suggests that “In 2005, nearly two-thirds (60%) of the companies surveyed expect to provide a Web-only option for annual benefits enrollment.”

This newer and more widely accepted model for HR Service Delivery provides more direct and timelier access to users, which allows HR Departments to become more efficient, timelier and more consistent in their delivery of information, data, and transaction processing. Information can pass smoothly to those who need it and HR related transactions can proceed in an orderly approval process anytime, virtually anyplace without the necessity for one-on-one engagement. Moreover, when HR deploys web solutions for its service delivery, it shows its ability to leverage technology on par with the rest of the organization.

Oracle Fusion, and future PeopleSoft functionality

Oracle Fusion has been a pretty good mystery for me. I have not heard much concrete information until lately. While I can't tell you where this information came from (other than it's not from within the organization I work for), it is very reliable.

First of all, Oracle is clearly combining JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Oracle Suite to create Fusion. This has always been well known. I have always assumed that SCM would look like JDE, HR would look like PeopleSoft, and Financials would look like Oracle. Basically, I've heard nothing to invalidate or substantiate this.

What is interesting is their short, mid and long term visions for each product:

Short term (2006):
PeopleSoft will release V9. This is a huge surprise as I thought the current release on 8 would be the last. However, V9 allows Oracle to hang onto PeopleSoft clients for that much longer, and it creates major upgrade revenues as V8 to V9 will probably be strenuous.

Oracle will go to R12 (release 12) while JDE One and JDE World will not have any more major upgrades.

Short term functionality:
PeopleSoft HR V9 will provide a whole new talent management dashboard with hiring, turnover, performance and skills inventories for the organization. They will also be working hard to streamline and standardize workflow and approval processes. Any simplification here would be excellent. Learning management and performance management enhancements are also scheduled for V9 in 2006.

Oracle HR R12 should be interesting as one of the major components in development is a new dashboard for senior level HR practitioners (execs). This new dashboard will provide daily insight into the HR health of the organization.

JDE future functionality focuses on supply chain, and continues Oracle's focus on dashboards. This time it's in a plant manager dashboard, so I won't dwell on it.

Oracle Fusion:
Oracle has clearly stated that Fusion is the successor for all 3 product lines. This means that there will be upgrade paths from Oracle, PeopleSoft and JDE. The hope is that upgrades will be simplified, but I think we all know that Oracle will most likely struggle with maintaining clients unless the functionality is spectacular (which it promises to be). They have also clearly stated that Fusion will include the best functionality from all product lines. Lastly, I'll point out that Fusion is supposed to adhere to industry open standards.

Mid Term (2007):
Oracle Fusion will deliver more dashboards, onboarding, recruitment, learning, and workforce scheduling applications in 2007. This is just the first set of apps. Their problem is that early Fusion will not bring a cohesive HRMS to the market - in fact core HRMS is totally missing. This is in fact a good marketing strategy. If their current PeopleSoft clients buy Fusion modules, then they are more likely to upgrade to Fusion HRMS when the time comes.

Long Term (2008):
Oracle Fusion will finally bring HRMS to market in 2008. This will contain a new role based use of the application which I don't quite understand yet. It will also expand on the analytics, metrics and portal capabilities.

I'm honestly quite hopefull regarding the Oracle package. At the moment, nobody but SAP does large business enterprises well, and they desperately need a competitor. Oracle's strategy of maintaining the next PeopleSoft release (V8) and rolling out Fusion a year earlier than I thought was planned should keep the PeopleSoft masses from looking for another software vendor too soon. We'll have to wait and see.

Convergys expands BPO offering beyond HRO

No, I haven't died, quit, or just gone away. I've been in the middle of parallel tests for a client and that has been an all consuming task. This also means that I haven't been doing the normal market research I usually do every week.

Convergys finalized it's deal with Deloitte to acquire the Deloitte Fiancial BPO business. With this acquisition, Cenvergys becomes a much stronger player in the overall BPO market. They are already decent sized for HRO, and this just gives them better ability to attract organizations which want a seamless platform for HR and Finance.

While I'm not sure that most large organizations will want to single-source their BPO to one vendor, this offering certainly increases Convergys' exposure and market share. It's also possible that acquiring Finance BPO from Deloitte will improve their PR outsourcing business.