Moving HCM To The Cloud Saves Flextronics $100 Million

My job at SAP is to make the case for talent management in the cloud and help SAP Core HR OnPremise customers make the move to the cloud for talent management applications. I point out to customers that significant investments in talent management applications are being made in the cloud not just at SAP, but by the whole industry. I also point out to them that I believe that customers are moving to the cloud because of significant cost savings among other benefits such as faster time to value and faster adoption of new innovation.

I tell the HR and HR-IT audience that their CIO and CFO are going to demand that they move to the cloud for HCM, particularly for talent management applications because of the incredible cost savings they can get. This is going to happen sooner than we think. Here is one very public data point from Flextronics. The company standardized on cloud globally for HCM and, along with other shifts, saved $100 million in three years.

Since Flextronics employee count is public, it might be possible for most organizations to get a rough idea about how much money they can save by moving HCM to the cloud. It may not be 100% accurate. But the projected savings will be compelling enough for any CIO or CFO to give it a try.

Unlike the cost savings the BPO providers promised a few years back, the cost savings promised by cloud HCM providers is real and proven by HCM cloud software providers. I met many customers and software providers this year and asked them about their plans and level of comfort with the cloud. Based on those conversations and some savings projections that i was privy to, I believe that the movement of HCM, particularly talent management, to the cloud is going to happen sooner that we think. 

At SAP TechEd This Week

I will be at SAP TechEd this week listening to Clay Shirky, meeting the SAP Mentors who are there and attending sessions on new technologies such as HANA. As a product manager, I normally go to SAP Insider conferences, ASUG Conferences and Sapphire. This would be my first TechEd. I look forward to the interactive sessions. @finnern has already sent me more than fifteen meeting requests for the next four days. Meeting with influencers, SAP Executives, Design Thinking sessions, Technology Sessions are all on the cards. I plan to keep my eyes and ears open for HANA use cases in people management. Here is an interesting video showing a retail scenario where people are matched with products.

HR Technology Conference Social Media Panel Notes

The social media unpanel in the HR Technology Conference was brilliant. It was refreshing to hear from people who did it. Follow all three of them and you can learn some valuable lessons on how to create a community and make it work in your company. Ask them questions on twitter and I am sure you will get clear authentic answers.

Clay Shirky Is Talking At TechEd 2012 Las Vegas

I am very excited about the keynote by Clay Shirky at TechEd Las Vegas. I am a big fan. His thoughts and books influenced the design of SAP Career OnDemand which inturn is influencing the collaboration features in SAP HCM and Successfactors. Here is a video where he talks about the power of social media.

The Talent Market Is Shifting Eastward

I recently came across an interesting statistic about college graduates in the US, India and China in the Wall Street Journal. The graphic below depicts the number of students and money spent on education.

The World Economic Forum estimates that 81% of U.S. engineering graduates are immediately "employable," while only 25% of Indian graduates and 10% of Chinese graduates are equally well prepared for jobs.

Even if that World Economic Forum is right in its judgement, that still makes 8.3 million Chinese and 16.2 million Indian graduates ready to start a job and perform in a satisfactory manner.

That is a total of 24.5 million employable college graduates compared to about 23 million employable US college graduates. This does not include eligible graduates from other countries.

This info is going to be very interesting for HR Executives and business leaders looking to grow their business.