Ventana Research recently announced its 2023 Market Agenda for Human Capital Management, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for two decades to help organizations derive maximum potential from workforce- and people-related technology investments and initiatives. In crafting this Market Agenda, we focused on three critical themes top-of-mind for both HCM vendors and buyers: Organizational resiliency, employee engagement and utilizing digital technology to derive deeper insights into the state of the workforce so that leadership can take action to promote retention and growth.
HCM Market Agenda: A Focus on Experience and Engagement
Posted by
Quincy Valencia on Jan 26, 2023 3:00:00 AM
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Employee Engagement, Learning Management, Talent Management, Workforce Management, Payroll Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience
The Power of People Analytics: Moving Beyond the Dashboard
Posted by
Quincy Valencia on Sep 8, 2022 3:00:00 AM
People analytics enable organizations to gain data-driven insights that optimize the impact and value of the workforce. For decades, human capital management (HCM) leaders have been sold tools marketed as analytics that were no more than dashboards filled with nice visualizations of historic data with no context as to what each individual data point meant to their strategic objectives and initiatives. And yet, our recent Analytics and Data Benchmark Research shows that 83% of organizations indicate that dashboards are very important or are currently in use for analytics. A dashboard, while important for a snapshot view of key metrics, is not an analytics tool. Today, advances in technology allow systems to provide actionable insights into potential people risks or opportunities before it’s too late.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Analytic Data Platforms
I am excited to announce that I have joined Ventana Research to lead our market coverage of our Human Capital Management expertise, including focus areas of Continuous Payroll, Employee Experience, Learning Management, Talent Management, Total Compensation Management and Workforce Management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Payroll Management, Talent Managment, Total Compensation Management, employee experience
The Workforce Management Value Index Assesses Technology Vendors
Posted by
Mark Smith on Feb 7, 2022 3:00:00 AM
I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2022 is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. Drawing on our Benchmark Research, we apply a structured methodology built on evaluation categories that reflect the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal to workforce management vendors supporting the spectrum of these requirements. Using this methodology, we evaluated vendor submissions in seven categories: five relevant to the product experience ﹘ Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability ﹘ and two related to the customer experience ﹘ Total Cost of Ownership/Return on Investment and Vendor Validation.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Talent Management, Workforce Management, Payroll Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience
Workforce Management Software Brings Automation and Intelligence
Posted by
Mark Smith on Feb 3, 2022 3:00:00 AM
Workforce management processes and activities, a major focus of investment and optimization efforts for decades, have undergone a huge transformation in recent years. In our view, this is mostly a function of two significant trends: the explosion of technology innovation associated with the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and embedded analytics in many areas of a business including a range of human capital management processes and operations; and a major reframing of the employer/employee relationship stemming from the now universal emphasis on elevating the worker experience. This was becoming more of a strategic focus across most organizations before the pandemic, but the past two years has made delivering a great employee experience an essential part of operating a business. In the absence of this, employees tend to become disengaged, and many will leave. The same can be true of the customers serviced by those employees.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Talent Management, Workforce Management, Payroll Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience
Human Capital Management Market Agenda: Readiness and Resilience
Posted by
Mark Smith on Feb 1, 2022 3:00:00 AM
Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 Market Agenda for Human Capital Management, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for two decades to help organizations derive maximum potential from workforce- and people-related technology investments and initiatives. In crafting this Market Agenda, we focused on three critical themes top-of-mind for both HCM vendors and buyers: Organizational readiness, workforce resilience utilizing digital technology to increase retention, and advance worker skills for career development.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Payroll Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, candidate engagement
High-Impact People Data: Many Opportunities Remain
Posted by
Ventana Research on Dec 15, 2021 3:00:00 AM
Data from human capital management systems has delivered significant value to organizations for decades. The value continuum has included ensuring compliance with workforce-related laws and regulations around the globe; optimizing human resources’ processes (when combined with various other elements such as change management); maintaining a historical record of key employee activities and transactions; tracking cost trendlines such as those related to recruiting, compensation and benefits; feeding payroll systems from time and attendance platforms; and providing visibility into learning and development needs. This, of course, is just a sampling, but truth be told, the capability to maintain and report on this type of information — while broadly beneficial to every organization — doesn’t pass what I refer to as my “ascension test.” In other words, merely doing a better or even great job of tracking and reporting on these and many other types of people data is not likely to allow an organization to ascend the ranks within its industry sector.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Talent Management, Workforce Management, employee experience
The pandemic has had many profound impacts on organizations and their workforces, particularly the need to manage workers differently. Fewer face-to-face interactions make it difficult to “read” employee sentiments and reactions, even with the assistance of artificial intelligence. Employers are faced with the challenge of managing engagement more closely given unprecedented levels of change in policies and corresponding practices.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll
Oracle Cloud HCM: Tackling the Tough Requirements Pays Off
Posted by
Ventana Research on Nov 2, 2021 3:00:00 AM
In my recently published Analyst Perspective “Selecting an HCM System? Include the Tougher Use Cases in Evaluations,” I highlighted a few HCM systems use cases that have historically been under-supported across the vendor/product landscape. My view on “critical HCM use cases” is the same today as when I led global HR and HR technology initiatives: use cases flow from the business imperatives faced by nearly every organization and their associated workforce-related implications. These HCM business imperatives range from elevating organizational agility—which I define as the ability to rapidly respond to both potential business risks and opportunities with optimal workforce-related actions and decisions—to delivering a superior employee experience or “EX” which directly correlates with a great customer experience and therefore business performance, to continuously focusing on ways of improving employee productivity, as even modest productivity gains can translate into major value creation.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll
Workforce Planning: Seizing the Moment Strategically
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 15, 2021 12:00:00 AM
It’s no secret that many large organizations operate in a somewhat insular and siloed manner. This dynamic applies to corporate functions where value-creation from taking advantage of operational synergies could otherwise be quite significant. Historically, human resources and finance departments, for example, were among the operating areas known to closely collaborate only when absolutely necessary. Actually, the 1992 book, "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," comes to mind when I reflect back on how I needed to navigate around a lack of integrated HR/finance data and processes when I was a global HR practitioner, especially since this was often exacerbated by the use of stereotypes like "people/people vs. numbers/people." The combination of these factors clearly created a sense of disconnectedness between the two groups. And having different definitions for commonly used business terms — like headcount and labor costs — as well as different methods for measuring and reporting on these items didn’t make the situation more manageable. But that wasn’t the whole enchilada of operational challenges when linking HR and finance: You also had to account for different processing and reporting cycles and cutoff dates, which often created hours of agonizing reconciliation work for the respective teams.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Talent Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management
PandoLogic Earns the HCM Digital Innovation Award for 2021
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 31, 2021 3:00:00 AM
The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, employee experience, candidate engagement, Awards
HR Technology Business Cases: Amplify the Dependencies
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 20, 2021 3:00:00 AM
One of the many things I learned while I was accountable for multiple HCM systems and tools deployments in my pre-analyst and advisor days relates to crafting what I referred to as a “winning business case.” In this context, I define “winning” as not just securing the funds, but actually realizing the expected benefits and ROI that underpinned the major elements highlighted in the business case. Critical to all this, as I came to learn after a couple of HCM systems implementations, was the ability to not only achieve but sustain adoption and usage.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, Continuous Payroll, Topic
Palantir Earns Overall Digital Innovation Award for 2021
Posted by
Mark Smith on Aug 4, 2021 3:00:00 AM
The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.
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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Continuous Planning, embedded analytics, Learning Management, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Internet of Things, Business Planning, Contact Center, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Revenue, blockchain, natural language processing, data lakes, Total Compensation Management, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, employee experience, candidate engagement, Conversational Computing, Continuous Payroll, AI and Machine Learning, collaborative computing, mobile computing, continuous supply chain, Subscription Management, agent management, extended reality, intelligent marketing, sales enablement, work experience management, lease and tax accounting, robotic automation
Why Adaptive HCM Should Be an Enterprise-Wide Priority
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 16, 2021 3:00:00 AM
"Configurable" has historically been used to describe the degree to which enterprise software, such as HCM systems, can readily adapt to a customer’s business and process requirements, ideally with no (or only modest) involvement from software experts or IT teams. The term will likely always have considerable value when evaluating HCM systems because, while not always top of mind with buyers, the level of configurability in applications is essential for achieving key strategic goals, such as elevating organizational agility. Configurability is the means, but when an enterprise can react or adapt to indications of potential business risks or opportunities with quick, decisive workforce actions and decisions, this is the true business opportunity in the configurability and flexibility equation. Organizational agility is one of the most reliable paths to sustaining competitive advantage. Think of the situation where a large consultancy has determined they can successfully bring a new service offering to the market. They must quickly and effectively execute a broad range of workforce-related activities including, in some cases, conducting a type of analysis or tracking some information for the first time. Their agility is clearly aided by having an adaptable HCM system.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll
The Flavors of Global Payroll: Mission Dictates Model
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 7, 2021 3:00:00 AM
Payroll management is one of the six major focus areas in the Human Capital Management research and advisory practice at Ventana Research. The umbrella term “continuous payroll” is used to connote the always-on nature of a modern payroll function and related demands of supporting technologies. It’s an appropriate term, especially considering that one of the most significant advances in payroll management in decades is “on-demand pay,” also known as earned wage access, which is as continuous as you can get.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, Continuous Payroll
Selecting an HCM System? Evaluate the Tougher Use Cases
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jun 30, 2021 10:50:00 AM
Many organizations are having a difficult time selecting what they believe to be the “best fit” HCM system for their particular strategic workforce goals and priorities. This is due in some cases to the very different evaluation lenses or criteria used by IT and HR teams involved in the process. The former tends to emphasize technology-specific selection considerations such as whether the system meets well-defined usability, performance and reliability criteria such as number of clicks needed to navigate, speed of database calls or system uptime thresholds, respectively. In contrast, many users from HR and other non-IT departments seek freedom from “IT dependency” in influencing the way the system presents itself and meets their business requirements, also referred to as the system’s configurability by end-users. This is the essence of the Adaptability evaluation dimension in Ventana Research’s Value Index market reports.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll
The Human Experience in HCM with SAP SuccessFactors
Posted by
Ventana Research on May 12, 2021 3:00:00 AM
There is a sea change happening in the Human Capital Management systems market. Historically, the predominant orientation of human resources departments has been about mission and goals from an employer’s perspective, spanning areas such as regulatory compliance, workforce costs, efficiency and effectiveness levels, and actions needed to improve skills and overall impact. This rather one-sided focus is now in the rearview mirror of many successful organizations. There’s a new orientation or operating lens as it relates to the enterprise’s workforce: “What does a worker need to be extremely effective but also have a high-quality ̶ if not positively memorable ̶ experience at work?”
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll
The joining forces of two sizable companies, in this case totaling over 12,000 employees, can be expected to elevate both business risk and business opportunity. The risk side of the ledger typically impacts employees and customers. Employees become distracted or have their productivity dip until they know exactly how they will be impacted and what is changing, or even leaving voluntarily. Similarly, a segment of existing and potential customers view a merger as a net positive down the road but face fear, uncertainty and doubt about when those benefits will be achieved. Delays can lead both employees and customers to hitch their wagons to other horses as it were.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll
The Benefits of AI in HCM: Practical Advice from a HR Veteran
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 21, 2021 3:00:00 AM
Many of us who have operated within the human resources profession or been involved in strategic initiatives aimed at placing the workforce at the center of competitive advantage (aka human capital management endeavors), thought we were at least conversational about predictive HCM tools. We were aware that industrial and organizational psychologists have, for decades, been creating skill- and personality-based assessments using predictive algorithms that stood up to rigorous testing, and how tools such as the Hogan or Myers-Briggs tests became industry standards.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll
Salesforce Service Cloud: Contact Center with Workforce Engagement
Posted by
Keith Dawson on Mar 24, 2021 3:00:00 AM
The modern contact center relies heavily on software that enables agents to perform multiple complex tasks while simultaneously managing the customer-facing side of interactions. This has allowed CRM vendors to build tools, such as agent desktop interfaces, that control virtually all aspects of the service environment.
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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, agent management, sales enablement
HR Technology in M&As: The Tipping Point Has Arrived
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 9, 2021 3:00:00 AM
Simply defined, an “HR-M&A lifecycle” is the sequence of critical workforce and HR-related activities and decisions that span due diligence through business integration after an M&A event is announced. Until recently, these potentially game-changing events were not the province or focus of HR technology offerings. This is due in part to HCM systems that, historically, were designed primarily to automate and optimize typical HR/HCM processes and events that occur throughout the year, to better understand and drive employee engagement, productivity and retention, and to mitigate workforce-related compliance risks.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience
The One HCM System Imperative to Put People First
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 5, 2021 3:00:00 AM
Even the most casual observer of HR Technology trends and associated vendor marketing themes will have noticed that the notion of “putting people first” has become ubiquitous as a way for vendors to distinguish themselves. This has become a double-edged sword. Customers ultimately benefit from the intense competition to add functionality that supports this claim, resulting in richer and more robust offerings. The downside, as is the case when any core plank in vendor value propositions becomes ubiquitous, is that buyers are increasingly challenged by differentiating whose “people first” claims are more supported by product capabilities and plans. Also difficult to discern is which product will translate into tangible business improvements within their unique organizational context.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience
The 2021 Human Capital Management Market Agenda: Enriching the Employee Experience
Posted by
Ventana Research on Feb 26, 2021 4:00:00 AM
Ventana Research recently announced its 2021 research agenda for Human Capital Management, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for two decades to help organizations derive maximum value from workforce-related technology investments and initiatives. In crafting this research agenda, we focused on three critical themes top-of-mind for both HCM vendors and buyers: Organizational agility and resilience, worker productivity, and leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning as broadly as practical.
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Topics: HCM, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience
The 2021 Market Agenda for Customer Experience: Achieving Excellence in Engagement
Posted by
Keith Dawson on Feb 24, 2021 3:30:00 AM
Ventana Research recently announced its 2021 market agenda in the expertise area of Customer Experience. Most organizations have some degree of focus on managing how they interact with their customers, but it is often a disjointed and constrained process. Developing an effective customer experience has become an investment priority in recent years as organizations increasingly recognize the importance of good experiences to profitability, customer longevity and advocacy on behalf of brands.
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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Customer Service, Contact Center, Workforce Management, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, AI and Machine Learning, agent management, Customer Experience Management, Field Service
ServiceNow: Now Platform earns our Overall Digital Innovation Award
Posted by
Mark Smith on Oct 6, 2020 3:00:00 AM
The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and the performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations that advance business and IT.
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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Contact Center, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, employee experience, continuous supply chain, agent management, work experience management
Cegid Learning Management Provides Good Tools for Business Case
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 7, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Cegid drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
D2L’s Learning Management System: Good Investment and Satisfied Customers
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 6, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on D2L drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
SumTotal Systems’ Learning Management Product Excels in TCO/ROI
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 5, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on SumTotal Systems drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
Workday is a Leader in Usability for Learning Management Systems
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 4, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Workday drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
Skillsoft’s Percipio: A Value Index Leader in Customer Assurance
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 3, 2020 9:47:15 AM
Here are some insights on Skillsoft drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
The Business Continuity Imperative: Price and Revenue Management for Resilience in 2020 and Beyond
Posted by
Mark Smith on Aug 2, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Economic dynamics and market pressures during a black-swan event can wreak havoc on efforts to effectively manage revenue operations and pricing for business continuity. For many organizations, environmental changes disrupt the methods by which these essential business processes are managed can be disrupted, damaging the revenue streams that create profitability. The array of pricing strategies and related promotional tactics across channels for configure, price and quote (CPQ), digital commerce and subscription management can challenge the best of organizations. Leadership must examine the agility of pricing management to determine if they have ability to make and manage changes to determine the effectiveness of decisions. This requires visibility into revenue operations and selling channels, which in turn requires programs, processes and technology designed to meet the needs of what is called price and revenue management (PRM).
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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Workforce Planning, Price and Revenue Management, Total Compensation Management, Conversational Computing
Infor’s Learning Management System Advances Capabilities
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 31, 2020 7:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Infor drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
Docebo’s Learning Management System: A Leader in Customer Assurance
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 30, 2020 7:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Docebo drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
PeopleFluent’s Learning Management System Excels in TCO/ROI and Manageability
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 29, 2020 7:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on PeopleFluent drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
Oracle Offers a Robust Learning Management System
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 28, 2020 7:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Oracle drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
SAP SuccessFactors Is a Leader in Learning Management Systems
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 27, 2020 10:49:34 AM
Here are some insights on SAP SuccessFactors drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
The Business Continuity Imperative: Experience Management across Business for Organizational Effectiveness in 2020 and Beyond
Posted by
Mark Smith on Jul 26, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Over the past several months, I have discussed a wide range of topics that organizations must consider and appropriately prioritize to maintain business continuity during periods of upheaval. But sometimes it’s important to take a step back and reflect on a critical and recurring theme: experiences. The array of experiences across the workforce and business processes both inside and outside of the organization are an essential part of an organization’s success. Leadership must give these experiences the attention they deserve, and this requires visibility into operations and the tools to measure effectiveness, especially during black-swan events. Fulfilling this objective requires the programs, processes and technology designed to meet the needs of what is called experience management (XM).
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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Data, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Workforce Planning, Operations & Supply Chain, Total Compensation Management, Conversational Computing
Saba, Now Part of Cornerstone, Ranks as Learning Management Systems Value Index Leader
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 24, 2020 7:31:19 AM
Here are some insights on Saba drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
Cornerstone OnDemand Takes Top Spot as LMS Value Index Leader
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 23, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Cornerstone OnDemand drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides a balanced perspective of Learning Management Systems (LMS) vendors and products that’s rooted in an understanding of business drivers and needs. Our continuous research and analysis of the market for business applications and technologies guide our comprehensive approach to this Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020. Organizations can use it to evaluate existing suppliers and potential new technology partners; applying it can shorten the cycle time for an RFP. This approach not only reduces cost and time but also minimizes the risk of making a decision that is bad for the business. Using the Value Index will enable your organization to achieve the levels of efficiency and effectiveness needed to optimize learning management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, CHRO, Learning Management, Workforce Management
The Vendor and Product Landscape for Learning Management Systems
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 21, 2020 6:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights from our latest Value Index research, which rates how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ performance requirements in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). The Ventana Research Value Index on Learning Management Systems 2020 (LMS) is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. Drawing on our benchmark research and expertise, this research-based index is the first such evaluation to assess the full business value of learning management software.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
The Business Continuity Imperative: The Continuous Planning Experience and Organizational Agility in 2020 and Beyond
Posted by
Mark Smith on Jul 19, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Business planning is an essential part of an organization’s focus on its future performance and overall potential because it ensures continuous operations, even in black-swan events. Planning across the entire organization needs to be a critical priority and leadership should give it the attention it deserves. In challenging times, a focus on execution tends to take hold — this is not unreasonable but in focusing on satisfying immediate customer and workforce needs and putting out fires, business leaders too often forget that forward-looking continuous planning is essential to achieving desired outcomes. Fulfilling this objective requires technology designed to meet these needs for every business process in the organization.
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Topics: Sales, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Data, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Total Compensation Management, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing
The Steady Pace of Digital Innovation in Learning Management Systems
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 17, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Over the last two decades, the learning management system (LMS) technology market has evolved more dramatically than any other HR or HCM technology area, and for good reason. Organizations use learning applications across every department every day, thus these systems are an integral part of any organization concerned about productivity, organizational agility and operational excellence. These technologies enable organizations to demonstrate their investment in people, as LMS not only facilitate regulatory compliance and other forms of cost avoidance but also can improve internal mobility, career growth and the employee experience. This in turn tends to improve employee productivity, retention and engagement.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management
The Business Continuity Imperative: The Workforce Experience and Human Capital Management in 2020 and Beyond
Posted by
Mark Smith on Jul 12, 2020 6:00:00 AM
The workforce is an essential part of an organization’s overall business potential because it ensures continuous operations, even in black-swan events. The workforce is the core of the organization and should get the attention it deserves. In challenging times, a “customer-first” mentality tends to take hold — this is not unreasonable but in focusing on satisfying customers and opportunities, business leaders too often forget that the workforce experience is essential to achieving desired results. Fulfilling this objective requires technology designed to meet these human capital management (HCM) objectives. An organization’s agility and ability to invest adequate time and resources into the workforce experience is essential to an organization’s sustainability and operational effectiveness.
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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Continuous Planning, Business Continuity, Analytics, Business Planning, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Robotic Process Automation, employee experience, Conversational Computing, AI and Machine Learning, collaborative computing, mobile computing, agent management, People Analytics
ADP Provides a Reliable Total Compensation Management Offering
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 16, 2020 3:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on ADP drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well total compensation management vendors’ offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Total Compensation Management 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated ADP and six other vendors in seven categories, five product-related (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two concerning the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each of the seven categories to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on data derived from our benchmark research on total compensation.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Continuous Payroll
Identifying the Leaders in Total Compensation Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 9, 2020 3:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights from our latest Value Index research, which rates how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ performance requirements in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). The Ventana Research Value Index on Total Compensation Management 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. Drawing on our benchmark research and expertise, this research-based index is the first such evaluation to assess the full business value of total compensation management software. You can learn more about our Value Index as an effective vendor selection and RFI/RFP tool here and participating vendors can learn more about how to use the Value Index here.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, total rewards management
Compensation management is a critical part of human capital and talent management processes. Organizations must determine and provide the appropriate compensation for each person — whether it involves base pay, short or long-term incentives, cash or equity-based compensation — to attract and retain productive members of the workforce. However, the complexities of compensation can make it difficult for human resources departments to keep employees productive, satisfied and motivated.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Total Compensation Management, employee experience, total rewards management
Payroll Software Value Index: Paychex Appears Poised for Growth
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 7, 2020 3:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Paychex drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well payroll software vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Payroll Software 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Paychex and seven other vendors in seven categories, five product-related (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two concerning the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each of the seven categories to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on data derived from our benchmark research on payroll software.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
Workday is Reliable and Adaptable to Payroll Needs
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 6, 2020 3:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Workday drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well payroll software vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Payroll Software 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Workday and seven other vendors in seven categories, five product-related (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two concerning the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each of the seven categories to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on data derived from our benchmark research on payroll software.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
Kronos a Leader in Customer Assurance in Payroll Software Value Index
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 3, 2020 3:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Kronos drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well payroll software vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Payroll Software 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Kronos and seven other vendors in seven categories, five product-related (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two concerning the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each of the seven categories to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on data derived from our benchmark research on payroll software.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
I like Louis Pasteur’s observation that “fortune favors the prepared mind.” So-called black swan events happen regularly and can have a very negative effect on a business. Of course, risk is inherent in any commercial undertaking; organizations don’t succeed by being overly cautious and reckless ones usually fail after awhile. Those that are consistently successful are ones that manage risk intelligently. That is, they correctly identify vulnerabilities, avoid the decisions and situations where risks outweigh the benefits, insure the risks that are economically insurable and quickly mitigate the impact of negative events. They are resilient in the face of change because they are adaptable.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Work and Resource Management, Predictive Planning
SAP SuccessFactors is a Payroll Value Index Leader in Manageability and Usability
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 2, 2020 3:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on SAP SuccessFactors drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well payroll software vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Payroll Software 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated SAP SuccessFactors and seven other vendors in seven categories, five product-related (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two concerning the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each of the seven categories to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on data derived from our benchmark research on payroll software.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
Ultimate Software is a Value Index Leader in Payroll Software
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 1, 2020 3:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Ultimate Software drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well payroll software vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Payroll Software 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Ultimate Software Group and seven other vendors in seven categories, five product-related (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two concerning the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each of the seven categories to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on data derived from our benchmark research on payroll software.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
Oracle’s Payroll Software is a Ventana Research Value Index Leader
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 31, 2020 3:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Oracle drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well payroll software vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Payroll Software 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Oracle and seven other vendors in seven categories, five product-related (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two concerning the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each of the seven categories to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on data derived from our benchmark research on payroll software.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
Ceridian’s Dayforce is a Product Leader in Payroll Software Value Index
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 27, 2020 3:00:00 AM
Here are some insights on Ceridian drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well payroll software vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Payroll Software 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Ceridian and seven other vendors in seven categories, five product-related (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two concerning the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each of the seven categories to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on data derived from our benchmark research on payroll software.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
ADP is a Leader in Ventana Research Payroll Software Value Index
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 26, 2020 3:00:00 AM
ADP, a longtime leader in the payroll software market, ranks first overall in this Value Index evaluation. The vendor is a Value Index Leader in the aggregated Product categories thanks to a robust set of capabilities and payroll coverage in more than 100 countries. It manages more HCM-related customer data in the cloud than any HCM vendor and offers valuable analytics for benchmarking and machine learning. The company’s acquisition of Celergo last year expanded its global footprint and it continues to broaden its partner ecosystem.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Continuous Payroll
Ventana Research Unveils the Leaders in Payroll Software
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 24, 2020 3:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights from our latest Value Index research, which rates how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ performance requirements in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). The Ventana Research Value Index on Payroll Software 2020 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. Drawing on our benchmark research and expertise, this research-based index is the first such evaluation to assess the full business value of payroll software. You can learn more about our Value Index as an effective vendor selection and RFI/RFP tool here and participating vendors can learn more about how to use the Value Index here.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
The payroll preparation process has long been a labor-intensive set of administrative tasks designed to ensure that everyone is paid correctly and on time. This historically has been a transaction- and compliance-centered function that involves manual adjustments, reconciliations and answering routine questions. However, things are changing. With the help of new digital technologies and delivery models, the payroll function today is delivering new value to the business through data-driven decision support and the facilitation of a better employee experience.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Workforce Management, Continuous Payroll
On February 24th Cornerstone OnDemand announced their plan to acquire rival Saba Software for approximately $1.4 billion in cash and stock. Each of the enterprise software companies went to market about twenty years ago with learning management solutions and over time broadened their product portfolios with other talent management offerings including performance management and talent acquisition. The combined company will serve more than 75 million users in about 7,000 organizations around the world and projects annual cloud subscription revenue of roughly $800 million.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
On February 20th Kronos Incorporated and Ultimate Software announced their agreement to merge in an all-stock deal. The companies’ boards have approved the deal, which is expected to close in late March. This union will create one of the world’s largest cloud software entities, one that company representatives are valuing at $22 billion. Aron Ain, long-time Kronos CEO who has overseen Kronos’ journey from Time and Attendance systems purveyor to well-rounded WFM market leader with innovative HCM capabilities, will be at the helm. Ultimate’s UltiPro HCM and Employee Experience products and Kronos’ Workforce Dimensions and Workforce Ready solutions will for some time be the focus of integration and continuing go-to-market efforts.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
Human Capital Management in 2020: Ventana Research Agenda
Posted by
Ventana Research on Feb 20, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Ventana Research recently announced its 2020 research agenda for human capital management, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations derive optimal value from business technology and improve outcomes. A major consideration in crafting this HCM research agenda is balance. HR and business leaders must achieve a meaningful balance in supporting the needs, interests and goals of the enterprise and its workforce. And HR and HCM managers require research to enable them to balance investments in operational excellence with investments that deliver strategic value. To help, we craft our research agenda using our analysts’ expertise on business trends and related systems requirements as well as our knowledge of technology vendors and products.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, candidate engagement, Continuous Payroll, total rewards management
Harnessing Cognitive Assets: A Hallmark of Agile Organizations
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jan 23, 2020 6:00:00 AM
Organizations universally desire the business outcome of improved organizational agility — in other words, the ability to quickly and effectively identify and respond to business risks and opportunities, typically through workforce-related actions. Being agile requires that an organization be adept at two things: harnessing cognitive assets, the knowledge and ideas that comprise the intellectual capital of a workforce, and deploying and using technologies that channel those assets where they will have the greatest impact.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Collaboration, Workforce Management, Knowledge Management, AI and Machine Learning
NOVATime Technology Has Opportunity for Growth in Workforce Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Oct 10, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on NOVAtime Technology drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated NOVAtime and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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Reflexis Workforce Management Excels in Retail Store Operations
Posted by
Ventana Research on Oct 8, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on Reflexis drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated Reflexis and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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I am happy to share some insights on Infor drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated Infor and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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Workday Offers Manageable and Adaptable Workforce Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Oct 1, 2019 7:30:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on Workday drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated Workday and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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SumTotal Systems Provides Strong Usability and Adaptability for Workforce Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 26, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on SumTotal Systems drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated SumTotal Systems and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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JDA in Workforce Management: Solid Marks All Around
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 24, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on JDA drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated JDA and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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Dynamic Insights from Research on Finance Analytics
Posted by
Robert Kugel on Sep 19, 2019 8:30:00 AM
By itself, data isn’t useful for business; the application of analytics is necessary to transform data into actionable information. Data analysis of one sort or another has long been a core competence of finance departments, applied to balance sheets, income statements or cash flow statements. Today, however, Finance must go beyond these basics by expanding the scope of the data being examined to include all financial and operational information that can yield actionable insights. Analysis thus should include, for example, data from the systems that manage sales operations, human resources and field service and that data must be available to all departments and applications that need it.
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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Learning Management, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Lake, Data Preparation, Information Management, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, ERP and Continuous Accounting, blockchain, natural language processing, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, candidate engagement, Intelligent CX, Conversational Computing, Continuous Payroll, AI and Machine Learning, revenue and lease accounting, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, total rewards management, intelligent marketing, intelligent sales
Ultimate Software a Leader in Customer Assurance for Workforce Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 19, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on Ultimate Software drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated Ultimate Software and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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SAP SuccessFactors Offers Adaptable and Robust WFM
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 17, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on SAP SuccessFactors drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated SAP SuccessFactors and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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ADP in Workforce Management: A Standout in Customer Assurance and Product Reliability
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 12, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on ADP drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated ADP and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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Oracle HCM Cloud Earns Solid Marks in Workforce Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 10, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on Oracle drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated Oracle and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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Ceridian’s Dayforce Excels in Usability and Manageability
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 5, 2019 9:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on Ceridian drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated Ceridian and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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Workforce Software Delivers a Solid Workforce Management Offering
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 3, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on WorkForce Software drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated WorkForce Software and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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Kronos Tops Leaderboard in Workforce Management Value Index
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 29, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights on Kronos drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for workforce management. We evaluated Kronos and 12 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on workforce management.
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Workforce Management Value Index Reveals Strong, Competitive Field
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 27, 2019 7:00:00 AM
I am happy to share some insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, which provides our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Workforce Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. Drawing on our benchmark research and expertise, we apply a structured research methodology built on evaluation categories that are designed to reflect the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal to vendors in workforce management. Using this methodology, we evaluated vendor submissions in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). This research-based index is the first such evaluation to assess the full business value of workforce management software. You can learn more about our Value Index as an effective vendor selection and RFI/RFP tool here and participating vendors can learn more about how to use the Value Index here.
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As modern workforce management (WFM) takes hold, employees are seeing changes in how they account for their time and how they access information on payroll, benefits, time off, company policies and improving their knowledge and skills. Over time they additionally will benefit from the deployment of new digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and predictive tools that help both them and their employer mitigate the challenges that historically have been inherent in managing work.
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Ventana Research has awarded IBM its 2019 Digital Innovation Award. This award recognizes the vendor’s support for identity management using blockchain technology through IBM Verify Credentials. The application is a first, small step in establishing a blockchain-enabled system for decentralized identity management, a technology that ultimately will enable point-to-point exchange of information about people, organizations or things. This form of identity management has considerable potential in the following areas:
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Collaboration, Workforce Management, Work and Resource Management, blockchain
“Platform,” as used in the world of technology, originally referred to an operating system on which one could construct software applications. More recently, its usage has been expanded to apply to two types of business models. One enables third parties to create products and services that are complementary to a company’s core technology. For instance, both Apple and Salesforce have attracted a wide array of third-party software developers whose offerings greatly increase the value of each software vendor’s platform to its customers. The second, such as Amazon’s marketplace, Facebook, Twitter and Uber, facilitates transactions and interactions. This latter type adds value by reducing transaction frictions and increasing efficiency and, in attracting large numbers of people to the platform, enables innovative business offerings to take advantage of Metcalf’s law — the “network effect.”
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Continuous Planning, Information Management, Internet of Things, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, revenue and lease accounting, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management
Technology to Improve the Engagement and Experience of Employees
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 24, 2019 7:00:00 AM
It’s no secret that employees are overwhelmed. They’re having to use an array of systems and enterprise tools in the flow of work and deal with an explosion of email messages and other communications requiring some response or action and mountains of content to consume and retain. On top of these time demands, employees must try to keep up with a staggering amount of organizational change.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, business intelligence, Learning Management, Information Management, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, natural language processing, AI and Machine Learning
How to Prove You Aren’t a Dog: Blockchains For Identity Management and Certification
Posted by
Robert Kugel on May 22, 2019 6:00:00 AM
Identity management is an old problem that has taken on new dimensions in the digital world. In 1993, at the dawn of the World Wide Web (WWW), The New Yorker ran a cartoon featuring two dogs talking, one perched in front of a computer. The caption reads: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” The phrase quickly evolved into a meme highlighting the issue of identity uncertainty in the new digital environment.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Learning Management, Internet of Things, Data, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, ERP and Continuous Accounting, blockchain, candidate engagement, collaborative computing
SAP SuccessFactors Now Offering Kronos Workforce Dimensions
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 8, 2019 7:00:00 AM
In January 2019 SAP SuccessFactors and Kronos announced a global reseller agreement under which SAP SuccessFactors will sell Kronos Workforce Dimensions under the name SAP Time Management by Kronos.
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Topics: SAP, Human Capital Management, Kronos, SuccessFactors, Workforce Management, Continuous Payroll
Change Management Tips for Your Digital HCM Journey
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 22, 2019 6:00:00 AM
Roughly half of my more than 30-year career in human capital management was spent as a line manager responsible for HR technology strategy, selection and deployment. I learned a number of lessons during these years — some just in time, some after the fact. If I had to identify one common thread that unites these insights, it would be that inadequate attention to change management is an ROI-killer on these strategic initiatives every time.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Analytics, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Artificial intelligence, Total Compensation Management, Continuous Payroll
Pursuing the Win-Win with Personalized Learning Experience
Posted by
Ventana Research on Nov 19, 2018 7:00:00 AM
Learning management technology, either as part of a larger HCM software suite or as a standalone niche solution, has evolved from its classroom-based, instructor-led origins. Modern systems deliver information the way many employees learn best, through informal social learning that is personalized and engaging. Some of these new, often mobile-enabled approaches deliver education via short (three to five minute) on-demand videos that are tailored to an individual’s specific job responsibilities or interests and increasingly involve artificial intelligence (AI) technology. AI’s role in this context is to better personalize learning content, modality and the pace of learning. In short, this is all about delivering learning the way each person learns best.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Artificial intelligence, employee experience, Chatbots, Personalization, Predictive HCM
Today’s Payroll Management Software: Strategic Value Abounds
Posted by
Ventana Research on Oct 24, 2018 6:00:00 AM
The early days of my career were spent in HR and payroll systems inside brokerage houses and investment banks. The first CHRO I reported to thought the best way to develop a plan for automating payroll management was for me to run the function’s day-to-day operations. I had no previous experience in payroll but it was a good call, as the trenches of any operations area typically reveal a cornucopia of automation opportunities. Then again, it was a different time; back then the words strategy, decision support and employee experience were rarely heard in a payroll department.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Payroll Optimization, Artificial intelligence, Total Compensation Management, RPA, employee experience, Chatbots, Personalization, Predictive HCM
Modern Digital Workforce Management Systems Are All the Rage
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 28, 2018 1:08:17 AM
Recent advances in workforce management (WFM) software are rewriting the way organizations tackle hourly workforce management and related administrative challenges. This is largely due to improvements in the design of business processes and a focus on enabling more hassle-free user experiences. The result is fundamental changes in how workers account for their time and request PTO, as well as how they access information on payroll, benefits and other company policies. These advances are also enabling managers to more readily consider workers’ as well as the organization’s needs when they forecast and schedule shifts. Scheduling that minimizes worker burnout from too many double shifts, for example, only makes management sense and should be a common interest.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Work and Resource Management, Payroll Optimization
AI Energizing HCM for Better Employee Experience
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 30, 2018 9:25:27 AM
Over the last two years, investments in digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) by nearly every major provider of HCM systems and tools have transformed the HR technology landscape. Many of the investments have gone into developing distinctive product capabilities, particularly capabilities that rely on machine learning technology.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Payroll Optimization, Total Compensation Management, employee experience
A Superior Employee Experience – A New Business Imperative
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jun 14, 2018 8:10:54 AM
Employee engagement has been a dominant theme in both human capital management (HCM) and the systems to manage it in recent years; lately (though not necessarily appropriately) it is a topic often equated with the notion of the employee experience. On a related point, Gallup’s annual employee engagement survey has consistently found the majority of today’s workforce to be disengaged, defined as “not enthusiastic or passionate about their work.” Interest in the degree to which HCM technology can improve employee engagement (or mitigate disengagement) now rivals the attention given to such perennial chief human resources officer (CHRO) concerns as attracting and retaining top talent and retooling the workforce.
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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Human Capital Management, Machine Learning, Learning Management, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, HRMS, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Workforce Optimization
Joining the Ventana Research Team and Community
Posted by
Ventana Research on Dec 6, 2017 5:39:34 AM
I’m thrilled to announce to my HCM vendor and practitioner network as well as the ever-expanding Ventana Research community that I’m now directing Ventana’s HCM practice. I will be working closely with our CEO and Chief Research Officer Mark Smith, who is a fellow HCM enthusiast and thought leader.
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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Human Capital Management, Machine Learning, Learning Management, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Internet of Things, HRMS, Workforce Management, Payroll Optimization, Customer Digital Technology
Unit4 Prevero Provides a Practical Alternative to Spreadsheets
Posted by
Robert Kugel on Sep 22, 2017 8:15:14 AM
In 2016 Unit4 acquired Prevero, a financial performance management software company. The acquisition reflects a trend toward the convergence of transactional and analytical business applications. ERP and financial management software vendors increasingly are adding analytic capabilities – especially in financial performance management (FPM) – to the core functions of transaction processing and accounting in order to broaden the scope of their offerings. The integration of transaction processing and analytical software is especially valuable to Unit4’s core customer base of midsize organizations, which we define as those with 100 to 1,000 employees. Midsize entities have almost the same systems requirements as larger ones but lack the resources the latter enjoy.
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Topics: Marketing, Office of Finance, Continuous Planning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, FPM, Work and Resource Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Sales Planning and Analytics
Compensation Management Software Vendors Evaluated in Value Index
Posted by
Mark Smith on May 22, 2017 8:22:23 AM
Compensation and the processes and systems to support it are at the center of success in every organization, as I have noted recently. In our view, an investment in total compensation management software is a strategic step toward advancing human capital management. Our benchmark research on this topic found some progress in attitudes about modernizing compensation practices. Almost three-fourths (72%) of organizations said that it is important or very important to have a total compensation management system rather than a piecemeal approach. Moreover, nearly half (49%) told us they are confident or very confident that their organization currently manages its compensation processes effectively.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Learning Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Work and Resource Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Payroll Optimization
Effective Compensation Systems Transforms Human Capital Management
Posted by
Mark Smith on May 2, 2017 1:52:01 AM
Compensation management is essential for any organization that values engaging and retaining its employees. It is a fundamental component of a range of personnel-related activities – recruiting and hiring, assessing performance, and career and succession planning. Determining and providing appropriate compensation, which may involve base pay, merit pay, variable pay and incentives or bonuses, is equally important for all members of the workforce – full- or part-time employees, contingent or on-demand workers and contractors. Incentives are an important part of compensation. Business areas such as call centers, sales forces and field service frequently tie incentive compensation to performance objectives. Whatever the particulars, the effectiveness of compensation directly relates to the core challenge faced by human resources departments: keeping employees productive, satisfied and motivated.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Learning Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Work and Resource Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Payroll Optimization
Anaplan Enables Connected Planning across Business
Posted by
Robert Kugel on Apr 27, 2017 11:04:51 AM
Anaplan recently held Anaplan Hub, its annual user group meeting. The company offers a cloud-based business planning platform that incorporates a modeling and calculation engine. The tool makes it relatively easy to add or expand the scope of plans that can be connected and monitored as a central source. Companies typically use Anaplan software for financial planning or budgeting, sales, workforce, marketing and IT planning. These are the types of plans in which companies often need to create models that incorporate their specific requirements, their strategy and their business systems.
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Topics: Customer Analytics, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Marketing Performance Management, Office of Finance, Recurring Revenue, Continuous Planning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, HRMS, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Work and Resource Management, Operations & Supply Chain, Sales Enablement and Execution, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Sales Planning and Analytics
Workforce management is a key topic of expertise for Ventana Research. We define workforce management as the set of activities and processes organizations use to manage their hourly and salaried workforce for maximum productivity. It involves not only scheduling, tracking and paying for time worked but also aligning that work to the tasks and objectives of the organization. Workforce management is a critical component of every company’s operations, human resources and overall human capital management processes, as I recently pointed out. It helps organizations manage their workforces efficiently in such areas as scheduling, time and attendance, absence tracking and clocking work time, and ensures compliance with regulations and efficient payroll processing. Thus effective support of workers, managers, management and the operations and administration of the total workforce is at the heart of workforce management.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Learning Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Work and Resource Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Payroll Optimization
Human capital management (HCM) offers a prime opportunity for organizations and their human resource professionals to make employee-related processes effective in engaging and retaining the workforce. Manual administrative processes often hampered HR in focusing on the workplace experience and employee satisfaction. Modern HCM applications can help them manage members of the workforce as critical assets and make continuous investment in people-related processes, deriving insights on issue such as health and benefits through analytics applied to HR information. This year we will examine attitudes and changes in how organizations approach HCM through a new research endeavor using our latest research product. We will further deepen the knowledge across six essential aspects of HCM as discussed below and outlined in our HCM agenda for 2017.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Learning Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Work and Resource Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting
Historically workforce management has been centered on tracking time and attendance, absences and leaves. Organizations view the time and attendance system as the top priority to integrate with the payroll system; in our payroll management benchmark research half (51%) of organizations called it very important. However, only one in five have integrated the two to streamline processes. So limited an administrative and operational focus does not contribute to improving worker productivity or manager efficiency. Moreover, such an approach can foster employee turnover and undermine worker satisfaction and loyalty. Our research analysis underscores that paying insufficient attention to the worker experience can degrade employees’ sense of accomplishment and in some situations also degrade the customer experience.
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Topics: Human Capital, Human Capital Management, Mobile Technology, Wearable Computing, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, HR, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Workforce Management
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.
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Topics: SAP, HCM, Human Capital Management, Learning, Performance, Recruiting, SuccessFactors, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Compensation, HRMS, Vendor Management Systems, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management, Workforce Planning
Research Agenda: What Matters for Human Capital Management in 2015
Posted by
Mark Smith on Feb 5, 2015 7:43:42 PM
Managing investments in people and their performance is critical to every organization. It also is complicated. To support the various aspects of human capital management (HCM), organizations often use a variety of technology including systems for human resource management, talent management, workforce management and payroll management. Often these separate systems use their own information and are not well connected to each other. Today they are deployed both on-premises and in cloud computing environments, which further complicates integration. This situation disrupts processes and challenges HR departments and leaders to invest time and resources to correct it.
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Topics: Supply Chain Performance, HCM, Human Capital, Human Capital Management, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, HRMS, Talent Management, Workforce Management
Next Generation of Human Resources Technologies Elevates Potential of Employees
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 3, 2014 8:44:02 PM
The human resources management system (HRMS) have been a central part of human resources departments for decades. Though useful to HR, these systems have also been static. Speaking generally, their functionality has not advanced greatly while other technologies have made great strides, and the information in them has been restricted to mostly use by HR professionals. However, along with growth in distinct and integrated talent management systems and in workforce management systems, this has begun to change as the HRMS is being integrated with these newer systems. The changes make it possible for HRMSs to become more strategic as HR professionals use them in new ways. To that end, Ventana Research will conduct a benchmark research project to evaluate the evolution of these systems and processes to determine where they are becoming more strategic applications for HR.
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Topics: Big Data, Mobile, Social Media, HCM, TM, WFM, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Information Applications, Workforce Performance, HRMS, Talent Management, Workforce Management, HR Management, HRIS
Payroll Management Needs Integration with Human Capital Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jun 6, 2014 9:58:08 AM
Our recently released benchmark research on optimizing payroll management assesses how organizations use payroll information, processes and technology. It finds that most of them still need to improve. Our analysis compared the forces motivating investment in payroll management systems to broader strategic drivers for human capital management (HCM) that I previously outlined and found substantial agreement. Three of the five leading factors – demand for higher employee productivity (48%), limited alignment between pay and performance (36%), and inconsistent execution of performance goals (24%) – are part of a broader HCM agenda as seen in previous research projects and discussions with clients. But apart from that the research found a disconnect between what motivates companies and what they actually are doing.
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Topics: Big Data, HCM, Office of Finance, Employee Productivity, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, HR, Talent Management, Workforce Management, benchmark, Pay for Performance, Payroll Management
Kronos Innovates and Leads Workforce Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 4, 2014 2:28:37 AM
In the past year Kronos announced a major release of its Workforce Central suite and more recently, made an announcement regarding a major investment that should help keep the company well capitalized. Kronos is one of the largest vendors of workforce management systems, providing time and attendance, labor scheduling, absence management, HR management, payroll and recruiting applications. In 2013 the company grew to almost US$1 billion in revenue, selling to companies around the globe and having users in more than 100 countries. Kronos offers two product lines based on the sizes of companies. Workforce Ready serves small and some midsize companies, and Workforce Central serves companies from the upper midsize through the very large. A while ago my colleague Mark Smith discussed several major enhancements to Kronos’ products, and there have been notable events since then.
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Topics: Mobile, Social Media, Governance, HCM, Kronos, Office of Finance, Technology Innovation Award, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Workforce Performance, compliance, HR, HRMS, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Value Index, Workforce Management, Social
Oracle Modernizes HR with Mobile and Wearable Computing
Posted by
Mark Smith on Feb 22, 2014 6:43:00 AM
At Oracle’s first-ever HCM World conference, the technology company demonstrated its commitment to human resources customers, explaining its strategy for Modern HR in the Cloud, which is focused on meeting the needs of employees in a large, dispersed workforce. The conference was insightful both intellectually and practically in its discussions of how workforces are changing. Oracle also showed its commitment by having both President Mark Hurd and CEO Larry Ellison present keynotes. This was the first time both have addressed a conference other than the flagship Oracle OpenWorld. It is worth watching the replays of their talks, which reveal the company’s motivation and investment in human capital management (HCM). In developing its HCM products Oracle has in mind multigenerational workforces that require software that is adaptable to people, competencies and new technologies such as mobile devices and social collaboration and recognizes the imperative to access workforce information and analytics immediately. The rebranded Oracle HCM Cloud Service has gained significant momentum, as my colleague Stephan Millard pointed out in his recent analysis of Oracle’s HCM portfolio. Taking a global approach it supports users in 196 countries, 34 languages and multiple currencies and operates entirely in a cloud environment.
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Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Human Capital Analytics, Human Capital Management, Recruiting, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Applications, Oracle, Workforce Performance, HR, Talent Management, Workforce Management
The Value Index of Workforce Management Software for 2014
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jan 23, 2014 9:06:13 AM
Ventana Research recently released our Value Index on Workforce Management for 2014. We define workforce management as the set of processes by which organizations manage their hourly and salaried employees to maximize productivity. It involves not only tracking time worked and providing compensation for it but also aligning that work to the objectives of the organization and to the individual employee’s needs. Our Value Indexes are informed by more than a decade of analysis of how well technology suppliers and their products satisfy specific business and IT needs. For each we perform a detailed evaluation of product functionality and suitability to task in five categories as well as of the effectiveness of vendor support for the buying process and customer assurance. In this case the resulting index gauges the value offered by each vendor and its products in supporting workforce management, which is necessary for running an organization efficiently and effectively.
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Topics: Sales Performance, SAP, Social Media, Human Capital Management, Kronos, Empower, Operational Performance, WFM, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Mobility, Oracle, Workforce Performance, Ceridian, Infor, SumTotal Systems, Value Index, Workforce Management, Workplace
Ceridian Launches HCM Portfolio for Managing Workforces Effectively
Posted by
Ventana Research on May 6, 2013 10:30:57 AM
I attended the 2013 Ceridian’s analyst day in Chicago to hear about and evaluate the progress the company has made over the last year and see the latest updates to its products since our firm last commented on them. Last September my colleague Mark Smith assessed Ceridian’s workforce management product Dayforce. As well we selected Ceridian’s customer Guitar Center for the 2013 Ventana Research Leadership Award for Overall Business Leadership.
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Topics: Social Media, HCM, Office of Finance, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Ceridian, HR, HRMS, Talent Management, Workforce Management
The Rationale and Agenda for Why Human Capital Management in 2013
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jan 18, 2013 12:10:49 AM
Human capital is most organizations’ largest investment and one of their largest differentiators against the competition. So it follows that those that take advantage of the compelling, game-changing technology now available in human capital management (HCM) will place themselves at a competitive advantage.
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Topics: Big Data, Social Media, HCM, Human Capital Management, Learning, Office of Finance, Social Collaboration, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Information Applications, Information Management, Workforce Performance, CFO, Compensation, finance, HR, Talent Management, Workforce Management
Joining Ventana Research to Inspire Human Capital Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jan 16, 2013 4:24:24 AM
Hi; pleased to meet you! I’m tremendously excited to be joining the team here at Ventana Research, and I’m looking forward to adding my experience, observations and opinions to this team of very talented industry analysts! Let me start by telling you a little about my background, and then why a chose to come to work here and what I will be covering at Ventana Research.
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Topics: Social Media, Human Capital Management, Market Research, Office of Finance, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Information Management, Workforce Performance, HR, Talent Management, Workforce Management
Top Priorities for the Next Generation of Workforce Management
Posted by
Mark Smith on Nov 30, 2012 11:22:13 AM
Since the early ’80s, when I personally experienced the transition from written time cards to cards for swiping on a time clock at a grocery retailer I worked at, I have been interested in the software and technology of workforce management. That gives me a perspective not many analysts can match when it comes to transitioning to new technology to help organizations manage and engage workforces. Ventana Research recently completed benchmark research on next-generation workforce management, covering technologies for worker and manager environments and operations. While the research found only 10 percent of organizations at the highest level of overall maturity, which we call Innovative, we did find organizations beginning to deploy and use new workforce management technologies. While we did not distinguish in our research between hourly and salaried employees, the majority of organizations were time-clock-based organizations using technology to manage the nuances of scheduling and working with hourly-based workforces.
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Topics: Mobile Technology, Social Collaboration, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Workforce Performance, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management
Workforce management software vendor Kronos released its financial results at its 15th annual KronosWorks conference (#KronosWorks12) this week. As a private company Kronos had $870 million in revenue for its 2012 fiscal year ending in September, making Kronos one of the largest software and technology companies in the world. Our benchmark research into next-generation workforce management finds the most important technology priorities are collaboration (70%), analytics (68%) and mobility (43%). Kronos addresses these trends with its portfolio of workforce management applications.
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Topics: Mobile Technology, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Information Applications, Tablets, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management
SumTotal Systems HCM Portfolio Advances in a Mobile and Social World
Posted by
Mark Smith on Oct 12, 2012 12:29:50 PM
During its annual industry analyst summit this week, human capital management software vendor SumTotal Systems introduced new heads of finance, marketing and sales, and talked about expanding operations in Europe and Asia-Pacific – all part of a business growth strategy that I am sure the company’s private equity owner is expecting. While I wrote about the company earlier this year, SumTotal now says it has signed up 85 new customers so far in 2012 for its human capital management suite, and its 3,500 customers include brand names such as McAfee, American Express, US Airways and EastWest Bank. Customers United Airlines, POET and McCain Foods made presentations at the summit that illustrated why SumTotal is a relevant and strategic HCM provider.
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Topics: Social Media, Human Capital Management, Mobile Technology, Recruiting, Social Collaboration, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Talent Management, Workforce Management
WorkForce Software Focuses on Effective and Efficient Workforces
Posted by
Mark Smith on Jul 27, 2012 9:20:11 AM
Our research agenda for 2012 in human capital management outlined the importance of workforce management for all organizations. One provider, WorkForce Software, provides systems that support scheduling, time and attendance, leave and absence and fatigue management. As I noted in my last analysis on WorkForce Software, the company’s focus on the fatigue aspect of workforce management, especially in white-collar environments such as transportation, utilities and healthcare, has provided them both recognition and growth. I attended the company’s first technology analyst summit this week to get a deeper view into the company and its products and see how it is shaping up in light of our research on the key applications providers in this market.
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Topics: Big Data, Sales Performance, SAP, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Human Capital Management, SuccessFactors, Business Technology Innovation, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, HTML5, Time & Attendance, Workforce Management
Make It Simple for Customers To Engage with You
Posted by
Ventana Research on May 8, 2012 10:01:01 AM
A recent research project involving 7,000 consumers carried out by the Harvard Business Review concluded that to retain customers and get them to buy more products, organizations must make it simple for people to engage with them, provide information they trust and allow them to weigh their options before they buy. The research found that consumers are bombarded with information and choices, and as a result they tend to go down the easiest route, which often leads them to take a blinkered view: I haven’t got the time and energy to consider options so I’ll take this one.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Interactive Intelligence Offers Customers Mobile Self-Service
Posted by
Ventana Research on May 7, 2012 10:09:56 AM
Interactive Intelligence announced Interaction Mobilizer, the latest application in its growing portfolio of products. As I recently wrote, Interactive Intelligence has come a long way since it launched its first software-based PBX in 1994. It was a pioneer in offering contact center applications in the cloud, which now include communications in the cloud and products for workforce optimization. The latest announcement follows similar ones from other vendors also announcing applications to support mobile self-service. Each of those products supports slightly different sets of capabilities, but all of them follow the trend to provide organizations with another channel through which customers can interact with them, and support customers who want self-service capabilities from their smartphones or tablets.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Information Applications, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
NICE Transforms Customer Experience through Mobile and Interaction Intelligence
Posted by
Mark Smith on May 4, 2012 9:50:58 AM
I attended NICE Systems’ annual Interactions (Twitter #Interaction2012) conference in Nashville to get the latest from this growing global software business that focuses on customer-centric applications. If you have not heard of NICE you might not be primarily involved in managing and interacting with customers, the area in which NICE has been growing organically and by acquiring technology providers that complement its existing portfolio. As we discussed in recent analyses, and NICE acquired Merced Systems for its sales- and service-centric performance management applications and Fizzback for customer feedback management software. Both have helped it become a more strategically focused software business. NICE Systems targets enterprise contact centers as well as financial risk, compliance and security. NICE makes its applications available not just on-premises but also in software as a service and hosted environments.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, NICE Systems, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Customer Engagement Day Reveals New Issues and Opportunity
Posted by
Ventana Research on May 1, 2012 11:15:43 AM
I recently attended the second in the series of customer engagement days organized by the Directors Club (GB & NI). The format of the event was the same as the first day that I wrote about and included three keynote presentations and three roundtable sessions where attendees discussed how organizations should engage with customers. As for the first event I chaired the roundtable on perfecting multichannel customer engagement in the contact center and gave a keynote on how social media is impacting the contact center.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, NICE Systems, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Genesys, InContact, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Noble Systems, Verint
Interactive Intelligence Puts Meaning Back in Innovation
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 23, 2012 9:17:35 AM
Marketing claims about a company’s innovation have become so common as to be almost meaningless, and this is true in the software business. That’s a shame because it obscures cases in which a vendor really is innovative. For example, at a recent partner and analyst event hosted by Interactive Intelligence (ININ), its CMO told me that ININ has stopped using the phrase “deliberately innovative” because claiming to be innovative isn’t helpful in getting across its messages.
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Topics: Microsoft, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Verint Revamps Applications in Information-Driven Approach
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 20, 2012 11:55:29 AM
Verint is one of the major players in the contact center market, with two suites of products that support contact centers and voice of the customer analysis. The company’s website shows that these suites have been put together from a combination of in-house developments and acquisitions (Blue Pumpkin, Witness Systems, Mercom, Iontas, GMT and Vovici are among them). Although this strategy has allowed Verint to create comprehensive suites of products in both areas, it also created issues with integration of the products and a lack of commonality in the user interface. These concerns were the main factors that kept Verint from being ranked as highly as it might have been in our last Value Index for Agent Performance Management (APM).
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Workforce Management, Verint
Last December NICE Systems announced a definitive agreement to acquire Merced Systems. I have been covering both companies for several years, and initially it wasn’t obvious to me why the acquisition made sense. My colleague Mark Smith wrote about the deal and expressed concerns about how the acquisition would impact both sets of customers and both organizations. Now it turns out that the Merced acquisition will have a much bigger effect on NICE than expected.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Workforce Management
In the last several years many companies have shifted away from the mad pursuit of new customers toward focusing on retaining existing customers and winning more business from them. Against that background I expected to see a resurgence of customer relationship management processes and systems, but instead there is a growing focus on social media, customer experience management (CEM) and voice of the customer (VOC). I have already voiced my concerns on the level of focus on social business. My research into CEM shows that as yet few companies fully understand it or have the systems they need to support an enterprise-wide CEM initiative. The same seems to be true of VOC.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Workforce Management
inContact Supports Customer Interaction Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 13, 2012 11:06:55 AM
Managing contact centers typically includes five areas: communications management, workforce optimization, business applications such as CRM, analytics and customer experience management. Last year I wrote about how inContact has evolved from a communications provider to sell a contact center in the cloud that supports most of those requirements. Its products cover communications (ACD, CTI, Dialer and IVR), workforce optimization (Quality Management, Workforce Management and eLearning, which includes content production, hiring and screen recording), analytics (Reports 2.0, which through a partnership with QlikView provides enhanced reporting and analysis capabilities) and customer experience management (ECHO Customer Survey).
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Topics: QlikView, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, InContact, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Workforce Management, Verint
Expo Shows Maturity of Unified Communications
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 14, 2012 11:55:38 AM
Like many other observers with a business perspective, I have been skeptical of unified communications, but a day I spent at the recent Unified Communications Expo 2012 went a long way to convincing me that unified communications has entered the mainstream. At this point I think organizations should consider it as a viable option to improve the efficiency of their communications systems, the ability to collaborate internally and with customers, and the effectiveness of their multimedia contact centers.
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Topics: Microsoft, Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Dell, NEC, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, IBM, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Nokia, Vocalcom and Zeacom
Research Reveals Challenge of Building Customer Relationships
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 13, 2012 2:51:22 AM
Businesses have long struggled to build ongoing, profitable relationships with their customers. Our new benchmark research into customer relationship maturity shows that this is not getting easier.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Customer Engagement Day Highlights Issues for Companies
Posted by
Ventana Research on Mar 9, 2012 10:45:13 AM
My namesake Jon Snow is chairman of the Directors Club (GB & NI), an association for professionals who focus on dealing with customers.Recently he organized the first of a series of customer engagement days designed to bring together senior representatives of U.K. companies to listen to a few presentations about hot issues in engaging with customers and more importantly to share experiences and concerns about key customer engagement issues in roundtable discussions, such as “the rise of the social enterprise,” “listening to the voice of the customer” and “mobile customers require a mobile strategy.” In addition to presenting a keynote on the state of social media in customer service, I chaired a discussion on “perfecting multichannel customer engagement in the contact center.”
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
The Customer and Contact Management Research Agenda for 2012
Posted by
Ventana Research on Feb 21, 2012 11:03:52 AM
In all the years I have spent building contact centers and tracking this market, from both business and technology perspectives many things have not changed. Center managers are still under pressure to drive down costs, customers generally are not satisfied with the way their interactions are handled (perhaps less so), and organizations still aren’t making the most of customer interactions. However, as noted in my predictions for 2012, I am expecting more rapid change in the next couple of years than ever before with the advent of a collection of technologies that are already impacting business interactions with customer or by their actions.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Enkata Expands Customer Analytics for a Better Customer Experience
Posted by
Ventana Research on Feb 2, 2012 10:25:54 AM
The products of Enkata have generally been designed for what Ventana Research terms performance management for customer service and call centers, including applications connected to agent performance management (quality monitoring, coaching, training and related analytics) and operational performance analytics based on transactional, structured data. Recently Enkata has taken a new direction with its branding (“changing the customer experience”) and has been filling out its portfolio of products to include analytics for unstructured data, so it now includes speech (courtesy of a partnership with Callminer), desktop, cross-channel and text analytics; the last supports the analysis of customer surveys and social media posts.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Callminer, Enkata, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Workforce Management, OpenSpan
Confirmit Provides Customer Insights through Surveys
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jan 30, 2012 11:08:56 AM
Ventana Research believes that to provide excellent customer experiences it is necessary to understand what customers want and their likely behaviors, and one direct way to achieve this is by collecting and analyzing customer feedback. The challenge for organizations in this regard is that most customers are reluctant to complete surveys unless they are provided at an appropriate time, in an easy-to-use format and through the channel of their choice. Confirmit’s Horizons products support collection and analysis of feedback from marketing campaigns, employees and customers. The core survey engine enables design and authoring of surveys, and add-on modules handle collecting data, panel management (of a panel of customers, employees or market segments to help focus business activities) and analysis and reporting. It was built on the Microsoft .Net platform, but the most recent release, version 16, extends support to other environments and browsers. This release also enhances security, scalability and availability so Confirmit can collect hundreds of millions of surveys for customers around the world. The product is available for deployment on-premises or as software as a service (SaaS).
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Confirmit
Feedback Management Can Improve the Customer Experience
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jan 25, 2012 10:22:04 AM
There is a lot of talk today in customer service circles about the “voice of the customer” (VOC). For some people it means speech analytics (literally the voice of the customer), some others use it as an equivalent to the “360-degree view” of the customer, and for others it is about customer feedback. At Ventana Research we take a broader view and define VOC as reports and analysis that include as much customer information as possible. It should draw data from all available customer sources and use various forms of analytics to extract, report and analyze it as fully as possible. I am also an avid supporter of customer experience management (CEM) and urge companies to focus on the experiences customers receive at every touch point. This is where I see VOC and customer feedback come together.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Workforce Management
Clarabridge Advances Customer Experience Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jan 13, 2012 8:36:58 AM
Clarabridge is an established vendor of text analytics products, which it sells both directly to the market and indirectly through an extensive set of partnerships with companies such as MicroStrategy, IBM Cognos and Verint. Recently it has been marketing its applications under the category of customer experience management (CEM). To me, CEM is about personalizing and influencing the customer experience while an interaction is in progress. Organizations cannot do this without the right information about the customer, and text analytics is one of the primary tools that allows organizations to derive that information; in this way Clarabridge fits in CEM.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Clarabridge, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Customer and Contact Center Management in 2012
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jan 3, 2012 11:35:26 AM
After reviewing the benchmark research I carried out during 2011 into customer and contact center analytics, the use of technology in contact centers and the adoption of cloud-based contact centers and systems, I have come up with a list of critical investments that I predict will distinguish customer and contact center management in 2012.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Cloud-Based Contact Center Research Finds Deployment Growth
Posted by
Ventana Research on Dec 20, 2011 12:01:03 PM
Cloud-based systems have arrived as an option for how organizations source their IT systems, now and in the future. Proponents of the cloud – of which I am one – will tell you they have several major advantages over conventional on-premises systems. They require little upfront capital expenditure; the major costs come as a monthly “rental” charge for using the service rather than an annual license; they are less demanding on in-house resources; they are quicker, easier and less risky to implement; there is no annual maintenance fee as updates are built into the service charge; and organizations have disaster recovery taken care of by the vendor. With this background I recently carried out benchmark research to discover organizations’ current and likely adoption of cloud-based systems to support their contact center operations.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
NICE to Acquire Merced Systems for Excellence in Customer Service and Sales
Posted by
Mark Smith on Dec 6, 2011 11:45:54 PM
NICE Systems last week announced an agreement to acquire Merced Systems, a provider of business applications for customer service and sales organizations. This acquisition slipped by with little fanfare, but it marks a significant milestone for NICE, a major provider of applications and technology for call centers and a player in their evolution into multichannel contact centers. Building on a good 2010, as my colleague Richard Snow noted, NICE expects to reach almost $800 million of revenue in 2011, which would make it one of the largest companies in its segment. NICE has made multiple acquisitions to build its software portfolio, including purchases of Actimize, CyberTech, eGlue and others mentioned below. It recently won our 2011 Ventana Research Leadership Award in the contact center category with its customer deployment at Alliance Data. NICE Systems plans to have Merced Systems as a foundation of its enterprise systems and a complement to its contact center workforce optimization offering. This purchase builds on its other acquisitions, including FizzBack recently and IEX and Performix in 2006, which helped NICE establish its customer service and back office agent performance management software. That area has not grown as quickly as NICE would like, mostly due to marketing that was not aggressive enough in attracting customers. NICE recently rebranded its NICE SmartCenter for helping agents, as Richard noted, and is leveraging its assets into the back office, which he also assessed. Our benchmark research on contact center technology found that companies’ priorities for future investments match up well with NICE Systems’ focuses on expanding customer service agent applications and analytics applications.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales, Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Marketing, Merced Systems, NICE Systems, Revenue Performance, Sales Compensation, Sales Force Automation, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Call Center, CFO, CMO, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Sales Performance Management, SFA, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
SAP Spends Big on SuccessFactors for Cloud Computing and Talent Management
Posted by
Mark Smith on Dec 5, 2011 12:20:59 PM
In a move to invigorate adoption of its cloud computing and talent management applications, SAP has announced its intent to acquire SuccessFactors – a deal valued at US$3.4 billion . SAP’s years of development and business efforts have produced only mediocre results in customer growth and revenue in cloud computing for human capital management comparably to its expectations and others in the market. In a teleconference SAP and SuccessFactors executives hyped the potential of the combined organizations. SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott said that it will become a “Cloud Powerhouse” and a “Unbeatable Force” and “will become the number-one cloud computing HCM solution in the cloud – period.” This may overstate the case: SuccessFactors is unproven as a power in cloud computing beyond the appeal of its own applications for human capital and HR. It can’t compare, for example, to the reach of Salesforce.com and its Force.com and application ecosystems like that in sales, marketing and other people-related application areas nor provide a platform and tools supporting collaboration and mobility.
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Topics: SAP, Human Capital Management, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Financial Performance, Mobility, Oracle, Workforce Performance, HRMS, Infor, SumTotal Systems, Talent Management, Taleo, Workday, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management
Actuate Brings Business Intelligence to Customer Information
Posted by
Ventana Research on Nov 21, 2011 10:02:43 AM
Actuate, which develops commercial versions of the open source Business Intelligence Reporting Tool (BIRT) technology, recently held a one-day event in London. My colleague Mark Smith covers Actuate’s products, but I was impressed by the simplicity of the company’s message, the core of which is that the ActuateOne suite of products allows companies to extract data from multiple data sources, use one product to analyze it and present the results in multiple formats in response to individual user requirements. A key component of this visualization is how easily it can display the results on smartphones and tablets. Actuate presenters demonstrated these capabilities in a lengthy session designed to show that this is “BI for the layman”; that is, after some from help from IT in setting up access to data sources, users can do everything else through the software’s drag-and-drop capabilities. My recent benchmark research into contact center analytics suggests that such simplicity is critical for more business users to adopt BI; if companies are to move away from using spreadsheets to produce their customer and contact center analyses, in addition to being able to do more the new products will have to be as easy to use as spreadsheets.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
At its 2011 KronosWorks annual user conference, the workforce management application provider advanced its agenda with the introduction of new applications to further its global presence. From my visit, and from looking back at my analysis of its 2010conference, it seems the company’s focus is to simplify management of an hourly workforce.
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Topics: Human Capital Management, Kronos, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, HRMS, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management
SumTotal Systems Optimizes The Use of Human Capital
Posted by
Mark Smith on Nov 11, 2011 12:02:32 PM
I just attended the first-ever analyst summit (Twitter #SumAS11) of SumTotal Systems to learn more about the company’s people and products since my in-depth analysis from earlier in the year. This key player in the business applications market offers a portfolio of applications in HRMS, workforce management and talent management, pieced together over several years with financing from its owner, Vista Equity Partners. This has been a busy year, asSumTotal acquired GeoLearning, Accero and CyberShift to gain entry into the expense and workforce management application markets.
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Topics: SAP, Human Capital Management, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Oracle, Workforce Performance, HRMS, Infor, SumTotal Systems, Talent Management, Workday, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management
Contact Centers Should Align Objectives and Metrics
Posted by
Ventana Research on Nov 10, 2011 9:58:18 AM
It never ceases to amaze me, when you ask people what their business objectives are and how they are measured, how often the two have little in common. This has been the case consistently in the research I have carried out over the last eight years into customer service and contact center performance. The main objective for contact centers is to improve customer satisfaction, but the key performance metric is average call-handling time. Despite hours of contemplation and discussions with colleagues, I still can’t see how one relates to the other.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Despite Recession, Acquisitions Continue in Contact Center Market
Posted by
Ventana Research on Nov 2, 2011 12:42:36 AM
It has been a busy year for relationships among vendors in the contact center market and despite tough economic times, it doesn’t look like things are slowing down. For example, early this year Salesforce.com acquired Radian6 to strengthen its position as a supplier for what it calls “the social enterprise.” This is not a term I particularly like, but there is no doubt CEOs are interested in understanding what customers are saying about them on social media, and so this looks like a smart move. Just how many companies fully understand social media and the implications for their business is another question, but social media is not going to go away so I expect more companies to develop plans for it in 2012.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, [Vendor references]
Transera Delivers Contact Center Interactions in the Cloud
Posted by
Ventana Research on Oct 31, 2011 11:22:25 AM
Throughout this year we have seen more vendors begin to offer a contact center in the cloud. The latestis Transera, which offers an integrated set of products that focuses on enabling interactions for customer service agents. It has four main groups of products: operations management, agent management, media and call management, and routing and queuing.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Transera
Interactive Intelligence Offers Trial Access to Contact Center in the Cloud
Posted by
Ventana Research on Oct 25, 2011 11:08:10 AM
Cloud computing offers companies opportunity to innovate in the ways their contact centers handle customer interactions. Systems vendors have been gradually moving call and other interaction management to the cloud, along with some of the core applications required to operate a contact center such as call recording, workforce management and analytics. Interactive Intelligence is one of the front runners in this market with its Customer Interaction Center. To approach potential customers that aren’t convinced of the virtues of cloud-based systems, Interactive Intelligence recently launched a new service, Quick Spin, a trial version of the its suite.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
I find that customer experience management (CEM) means different things to people. Recently I attended a seminar organized by Rapide, a U.K. technology vendor that specializes in helping companies improve their interactions with customers. The seminar included talks from speakers I don’t normally associate with CEM, and they opened up a new perspective that revolves around a concept I first explored while working at Price Waterhouse Consulting: Moments of Truth.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Rapide, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
New Customer and Contact Center Technology at Call Centre Expo
Posted by
Ventana Research on Oct 15, 2011 3:33:21 AM
I have spent the last two days at the U.K.’s largest contact center trade show, which this year moved to London Olympia from the NEC in Birmingham. While the overall number of visitors seemed to be down, some exhibitors told me there were more high-level attendees with serious intent to purchase.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, SAP, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Call Copy, Enghouse interactive, Enkata, Genesys, NewVoicemedia, Nexidia, ShoreTel, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Cisco, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, and Verint, cTalk Ltd, Noble Systems, Digital Technology
Interactive Intelligence Advances Cloud-Based Contact Center
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 30, 2011 1:43:38 AM
Interactive Intelligence recently released version 4.0 of its Customer Interaction Center (CIC). CIC provides companies with integrated communications and contact center functions that can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud or in a hybrid environment divided between them.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Verint Will Acquire GMT To Extend Workforce Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 29, 2011 12:58:27 PM
Recently Verint announced its intent to acquire GMT, a provider of workforce management products. My initial reaction was that Verint was primarily interested in acquiring GMT’s customer base to extend its already large share of the workforce management market. In a briefing Verint confirmed this but said there are other reasons behind its move as well.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Verint
NICE Acquires Fizzback for Customer Feedback Analytics
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 29, 2011 12:20:50 PM
NICE Systems has agreed to acquire Fizzback, a specialist vendor of customer feedback management software. On first read this appears to be another acquisition to gain market share, as NICE already provides a customer feedback tool; however, Fizzback’s customer base is much smaller than NICE’s, so this looks unlikely. Representatives of NICE explained to me that the acquisition is part of its long-term strategy to enhance its customer feedback management capabilities and to build a stronger voice of the customer.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, NICE Systems, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Salesforce.com Presents the Social Enterprise
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 23, 2011 10:01:39 AM
As he opened last week’s Cloudforce 2011 conference in London, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff declared that companies “must become social or die.” He reiterated the message in answer to a direct question I put to him during lunch with the media and analysts. I have heard several of his keynotes, and reviewed my colleague analysis from recent Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. and this one had a distinct change of emphasis. Benioff seems to feel that the cloud argument has been won, his big CRM competitors have been overcome and it is time to focus on helping companies grasp the changed business environment they now exist in. Dare I say it, there was even a hint that the answer is software – specifically, software to enable what Salesforce calls the social enterprise.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Salesforce.com, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Merced Customers Apply Analytics and Metrics To Improve Agent Performance
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 20, 2011 10:59:12 AM
Ventana Research’s benchmark research into agent performance management shows that most companies recognize the vital role contact center agents play in creating good customer experiences and thus good business outcomes. The research also shows that only the most mature companies have put in place processes and metrics that encourage behaviors that deliver such business outcomes. Furthermore, the research shows that companies are held back from adopting more customer-related metrics because they don’t have performance management tools that can help them create such metrics; instead most rely heavily on spreadsheets. Thus I was encouraged to hear during a recent roundtable discussion sponsored by Merced Systems from two customers that have used the Merced Performance Suite to institute a more rigorous, metrics-driven approach to improving agent performance.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Merced Systems, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
LinkedIn’s CRM experts group is hosting an active discussion about what are the top three CRM systems. Along with the blatant promotion of certain well-known products, you can’t fail to notice that the term means different things to people, and that systems gathered under this acronym may cover a range of capabilities. A closer examination of the discussion shows that a majority of discussion participants associate CRM with sales force automation, fewer with customer service and the fewest with marketing. Dovetail Software belongs in the second group, positioning itself as specializing in “support and service software.”
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Dovetail, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Salesforce.com and the Big Picture from Dreamforce
Posted by
Ventana Research on Sep 3, 2011 9:36:48 AM
Even here in the U.K., we are well aware that Salesforce.com’s annual event Dreamforce is happening this week in San Francisco. Unfortunately I couldn’t be there, but a contingent of the Ventana Research team is there, and from what they are telling me it is quite a show. I have written before that Salesforce has the best marketing machine in the world, let alone the software industry, and it seems to have topped previous events. The company undoubtedly has changed the way many companies think about software, forced many vendors to change their delivery models and is impacting the way consumers think about communicating and running their lives. But let me make a few long-range observations.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales, Salesforce.com, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Alpineaccess Supports Home Agents and Cloud Communications as Outsourcing Alternative
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 29, 2011 10:17:30 AM
In the past companies had two basic choices in how to provide call center services: internally or by outsourcing the service, typically to a company based where labor costs are low. Recently some companies have supplemented their in-company resources with home-based agents, and a growing number of providers offer outsourcing services in-country, for example, in North America. From a technology perspective as well, companies had two choices: on-premises or the outsourcer using its own technology. Here also a third option has opened up as technology vendors provide their systems “in the cloud,” housed at the vendor’s premises and accessed by users over the Internet. One of these is Alpineaccess, which offers an alternative to third-party outsourcing through home-based agents and cloud-based technology.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, [Vendor references]
In the past year various vendors have begun to offer some or all of the systems required to build and run a contact center through a cloud-based service. I recently came across another one, Echopass, which has a different operating model than I am used to. Its core services are provided by products from two vendors that as yet don’t provide their products in the cloud: Genesys, which supplies call routing, intelligent front-door and intelligent back-office workflow, and Verint for workforce optimization (WFO). Echopass supplements these with other vendors’ products, such as Voxify’s speech platform, speech engines from IBM and Nuance and Microsoft .Net and SQL services. Along with a number of in-house developments this array enables Echopass to offer what is in effect a best-of-breed suite that is integrated to create a unified offering.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Echopass, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Envision is an established provider of workforce optimization (WFO) products and last year was rated a “Hot” vendor in the Ventana Research Value Index for Agent Performance Management (APM). Its suite of products includes recording, quality monitoring, workforce management, coaching, e-learning, performance management and speech analytics. The WFO market is now quite competitive, and along with other vendors, Envision recently announced some product improvements. As well as a number of technical improvements – such as support for more Microsoft products, performance and scalability – the main improvements center on quality monitoring and training of contact center agents.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Envision, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
It has taken me a long time to recognize that companies function through a series of processes, mostly executed by people (employees) and supported by information and systems. I was familiar with process maps that show activities happening in sequence and branches caused by certain conditions, but these were mainly paper exercises; my working assumption was that people “just get on with things.” But looking closely reveals that getting on with things happens in processes. To help make this clear, OpenConnect provides a product designed to create process visibility of activities, variances and metrics, with the goal of improving performance.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, OpenConnect
Vitria’s Operational Intelligence Enables Proactive Customer Service
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 8, 2011 9:36:38 AM
Vitria is one of a small group of vendors offering a type of analytics called operational intelligence. The term is not widely known, although Ventana Research has defined and tracked this market for many years and researched. We define operational intelligence (OI) as “a set of event-centered information and analytics processes operating across the network that enable people to take effective actions and make better decisions.” For its part Vitria defines OI as “a new type of real-time, dynamic analytics that delivers visibility into business operations.” Marry the two and you begin to see what differentiates OI from other forms of analytics.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Vitria, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Salesforce.com Customers Demonstrate Tactical Success
Posted by
Ventana Research on Aug 5, 2011 9:14:39 AM
Salesforce.com (SFDC) brought five customers to a recent U.K. analyst event to talk about how they used different SFDC services to solve what turned out to be down-to-earth business issues. SFDC of course would have us believe that moving to the cloud is the only way to purchase IT systems (in its parlance, services) and that it has all the services to solve any issue concerning CRM, sales management, customer service, contact center, social media or software development. Only individual users can judge how successful these services are in their organizations, but the five chosen customers all seemed happy. I want to share with you some observations I gleaned from listening to them.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Salesforce.com, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
I’m no great fan of three-letter acronyms, so I wondered what KANA Software means by positioning itself as the leader in service experience management (SEM), which is a term I had not heard. I have thought of KANA as a CRM vendor, but through a program of internal development and two acquisitions, it has transformed itself into something quite different. The acquisition of Lagan in 2010 added additional CRM functionality, enterprise case management and a track record of providing solutions to public-sector authorities. In April of this year Kana announced the acquisition of Overtone, which added text analytics capabilities, with a particular focus on analyzing content extracted from social media.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Kana, Lagan, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Overtone
CallCopy Continues To Refine Agent Performance Management
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jul 29, 2011 11:16:07 AM
About a year ago I wrote that CallCopy had emerged as a major vendor of agent performance management (APM) software. Ventana Research has updated its definition of APM to mean the people, processes, information and systems involved in effectively managing the entire workforce that handles customer interactions, and this includes interaction recording, quality monitoring, workforce management, training, coaching, incentive management , agent-related analytics and performance management. Our revised definition recognizes that companies now have to manage more channels of communication and that more people, including home workers, are engaged in handling interactions.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Call Copy, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
inContact and Siemens Enterprise Communications Working the Contact Center in the Cloud
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jun 22, 2011 9:15:47 AM
While the contact center business is not the most dynamic market, it is undergoing more changes than I have ever seen. One of the biggest changes is coming about because of cloud computing. This trend was led by salesforce.com, and the impact is now being felt in the contact center market as more vendors start to provide a “contact center in the cloud.” I recently wrote about inContact , one of the first vendors to provide a full contact center in the cloud. Recently inContact announced an important partnership – and it’s not an obvious match.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, InContact, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Siemens Enterprise Communications
InContact Enhances Contact Center in the Cloud
Posted by
Ventana Research on Jun 8, 2011 11:39:22 AM
I have been writing quite a lot lately about the contact center in the cloud. Now it seems that more vendors are moving in this direction. One of them, inContact has evolved from a telecommunications carrier into a software vendor and now has a suite of products for a contact center in the cloud. It includes many of the necessary communications management capabilities (such as ACD, IVR, CTI and autodial) as well as key workforce optimization applications such as interaction recording, quality monitoring, workforce management and e-learning. Recently inContact announced three new features that add even more capabilities.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, InContact, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
Conference Highlights Social Media, Analytics and the Customer Experience
Posted by
Ventana Research on May 25, 2011 5:33:23 AM
The Directors Club of the U.K. recently held its inaugural National Customer Show in London. The event was well attended and attracted sponsorship from some of the biggest vendors in the contact center industry; among them were platinum sponsors Interactive Intelligence and salesforce.com, and session sponsors Nexidia and SwordCiboodle. I noticed three common themes, covering very different aspects of managing the customer, and I’ll hit the highlights of each.
Social Media
These days you can’t escape discussions about social media and the impact it is having on how companies interact with customers and prospects. As I recently wrote, social media is here, and millions of people are using it to communicate with friends, colleagues, businesses and even government. But all the hype, statistics and YouTube videos are masking the realities of business use. My research shows that as yet social media has had little impact on the contact center, and at the show I found confirmation of this point. I also heard more people than usual, even from salesforce.com, uttering cautionary words about social media. The reality is that business use outside of marketing and training videos is still low and consumer use is largely confined to complaining. Several people picked up the latter point; whereas in the past one complaint was heard by a few tens of people, now a single complaint may be heard by thousands (and potentially by millions) of people. Companies need to be aware of this; they need to monitor comments and take positive action about them and do whatever is possible to not let the things that generated the complaints happen again. So the message was monitor social media, have a process and people in place to take appropriate action and have a process to address the root cause of customer issues.
Contact Center Analytics
Throughout the show, and at one session I chaired, I heard conversations about the need for companies to review their existing metrics and add new metrics that reflect their business goals, rather than settle for efficiency metrics that just show how well things are or are not working. The general consensus seemed to be that no one metric is going to fit the bill for all companies. Yes, net promoter scores add insight to potential new business, and having good customer effort scores makes sense from an efficiency and customer perspective because making it easy for customers to interact with your company is likely to generate more business at lower costs. But companies need a balanced set of metrics from contact center analytics that I recently researched that reflect their business and priorities. I was pleased to find considerable support for my view that having “metrics for metrics’ sake” is pointless and that companies need to have in place processes that ensure action is taken based on their key performance metrics.
The Customer Experience
As a concept, customer experience management is going the same way as CRM, in that it means many things to different people. For me it is about proactively managing the experience customers receive at any touch point. So when it comes to the most popular channel – calls to the contact center – CEM is about how agents handle each and every customer call.
This theme was echoed during one session I attended that connected customer experience with agent empowerment. My benchmark research into CEM has shown that the major influence on the customer experience is the agent’s attitude. The discussion took up the theme that if agents are not empowered to handle calls effectively then customers are likely to go away unhappy. Empowerment seemed to come down to doing some basic things well: process (not doing dumb things), training and coaching, motivation, and setting rewards and performance metrics that positively encourage agents to do a good job and deliver to the company’s business requirements.
Personally I like the theme “take the dumb out of handling customer interactions.” Too many times companies do dumb things: asking customers to repeat information they have given before, having metrics that drive agents to do the wrong things (keep calls short rather than solve the problem), using IVR menus that don’t match what customers want to do, providing inconsistent information on different channels – the list goes on. If companies would stand back and examine objectively the dumb things they are doing and put them right, we would all get a better experience.
In this day of social media fixing broken processes is even more important. Dumb things will end up exposed in public. This begs the question of who should be responsible for social media, because one dumb response can cause more trouble than the original issues. As a result companies need to pay more attention to interaction-handling than ever before.
Are you ready to cope with this new environment? Can you be certain that interactions are being handled consistently and effectively across all channels? How is social media impacting customer experience and do you use analytics to gain better visibility to what you do not know. If so, I’d love to know how you do it.
Regards
Richard Snow – VP & Research Director
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Nexidia, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Workforce Management, SwordCiboodle
Recently Verint Witness Actionable Solutions announced the latest release of its Impact 360 Workforce Optimization software, which it calls the first “fifth-generation” product in this space.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Workforce Management, Verint
Twenty years ago, when I began consulting in the contact center industry, building a call center was a hard, resource-consuming task. Just to begin handling calls required purchasing lots of proprietary equipment, such as PBXs and automatic call distributors (ACDs), as well as software for computer/telephony integration (CTI) and business applications such as case management and CRM – and then spending a lot of time and effort integrating them. Lots of tasks were managed using spreadsheets, and if you wanted anything more than the basic reports available from your PBX/ACD supplier, you would have to budget a great deal more money. Right from those early days, call center managers focused on efficiency and relied on basic metrics such as queue lengths, average call-handling time, hold times and call transfers.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, SAP, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, InContact, LiveOps, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Contactual
Interactive Intelligence Integrates Contact Center Interactions
Posted by
Ventana Research on Apr 25, 2011 7:23:16 AM
Interactive Intelligence (ININ) recently invited partners, consultants and analysts to Portugal to hear about the latest developments in its products. Not surprisingly given the extensive range of products it now supports, none of us had much time to enjoy Lisbon but were put through an intensive program of presentations and discussions.
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Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, RightNow, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management
At its annual user conference in Las Vegas, Kronos unveiled the next stage of its approach to workforce management to its customers and partners, showing an aggressively confident posture after completing its fiscal year 2010 with revenue increased 9 percent to $741 million. Kronos is the largest provider of workforce management systems for time and attendance, scheduling, absence tracking, hiring and workforce analytics. Kronos offers the software in several delivery options: through conventional licensing and deployment on-premises, as a managed, hosted service and now software as a service (SaaS). Kronos has made progress since my in-depth analysis last year of its roadmap for its workforce management applications.
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Topics: Human Capital, Human Resources Management, Kronos, Mobile Applications, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Management
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