Much has already been written about SAP’s annual Human Resources customer and partner event, SuccessConnect held 9/12-14 in Las Vegas. The purpose of this article is to synthesize some of the best analyst reviews with my own observations in having attended both the SAP Partner Forum and conference. For many customers, this was the first opportunity to reconnect in person in close to 3 years and a chance for many of the new SAP SuccessFactors leadership team to present and discuss the product vision and enhancements live. The event was very well-attended despite having a flurry of other competing HR events happening at the same time. Below are 10 key observations and research links (with photos to help tell the story.)
1. People Sustainability. If there was an overarching theme, it would be the concept of people sustainability—the idea that the ethical and fair treatment of employees helps drive resiliance, agility and helps to ensure the future sustainability of an organization. “Sustainability” is one of SAP’s core mission words, and “people sustainability” is a natural progression with the HR functional domain and capabilities within the SAP SucessFactors product an extension of that.
See: Trish Mcfarlane and Tim Crawford on SAP’s “People Sustainability” / World Economic Forum 5 ways organizations can create sustainable workforces
2. Growth of the SuccessFactors customer base – now Surpasses 5k Customers. The growth of Employee Central has been 90-fold since the acquisition of SuccessFactors in 2011. Current count: 5k EC customers with 220M Users Globally. In 2022, SAp has had 850 Go-Lives.
(See SAP SuccessFactors Surpasses 5,000 Customers)
3. Product Enhancements around Skills. Analyst Josh Bersin writes, “As most of you know, we’ve entered a world where employee skills, preferences, and day to day activities are under enormous stress. People work remotely, the quit rate is high, and companies are working harder then ever to find ways to support people, reskill them, and offer them new opportunities as the company grows.”
The new functionality demonstrated in the H2 release provides a way for employees to visualize a career path (versus the traditional job openings) and use the new skills ontology platform to have personalized recommendations on projects, part time work, mentors and learning opportunities.
See “SAP SuccessFactors Launches its Biggest Release in a Decade”,
4. Dynamic Teams. Dynamic teams are defined as a ‘temporary project team that comes together to achieve a specific goal and disbands when the goal is accomplished.’ SAP SuccessFactors have built new HR tools to create and manage cross-functional teams and measure their performance to enable engagement across the company and break-down silos. (This contrasts the traditional ‘team’ structure which was top down and by department only.)
See also – “Bridge HR Across the Business: 5 Key Takeaways from SuccessConnect 2022”
5. Partner Ecosystem Updates. The partner forum was held on Monday, 9/12 prior to the customer conference and attended by close to 800 partner attendees. Partners are an important part of SAP’s customer success and service delivery and approximately 40% of SAP SuccessFactors opportunities were initiated by partners. There are 300+ partner apps available, services partners are doing > 90% of installs and the Expo hall was filled with services and solutions partner exhibitors who offer extensions to the SAP product suite (including Semos Cloud, SpinifexIT and Beamery among others.) This was the first year that SuccessFactors awarded a Raven Intelligence award for customer project success (as rated by customers directly.) By using a 3rd party for independent review, this signals a receptivity toward project transparency and authentic commitment to customer success.
See also: SAP Announces Global Partner Awards,
Filip Miscovski (CEO, Semos Cloud)
6. Data Center Upgrades. Amy Wilson, SVP of Products and Design said that every single tenant will be upgraded to a public cloud-grade hyperscaler infrastructure. This will have significant improvements in load times–>20%.
7. Integrations getting attention. “We focused on the plumbing so you can focus on the decor.” Amy Wilson, on the integration between @successfactors @sap and 3rd party apps.
8. Customers on stage. A significant portion of the event was presented by customers — either directly or via panel. While I was unable to attend all the individual sessions, I did see presentations from Lockheed Martin, Sun, Tractor Supply Co and enjoyed hearing from customers directly.
9. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and BELONGING. “How to Citizen”. SAP’s closing keynote was presented by Baratunde Thurston, and underpinned the importance of empowering employees to bring their “whole self” to work confidently. Aaron Green, Chief Marketing Officer said that companies should not strive only to have “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” efforts, but add “Belonging” – as having employees who feel like they belong within the organization is an essential outcome. Thurston talked about how individuals and leaders can model behaviors that enable the DEIB framework, which are:
1. Show up and participate – in discussions, in democracy and life. Don’t be a passenger.
2. Invest in relationships – this brings understanding and investing in others brings change.
3. Understand power – where it is held and what has our attention. That to which we give attention, we give power.
4. Do this all to benefit the “Collective Self” – which is to say the benefit of all of us versus being individually-minded.
(See replay and panel discussion here.)
10. HR needs to be data-driven. The new world of work requires HR to be facilitators of information, opportunities, change and empowerment – and being able to provide this digitally is key. “Having the data readily available about career pathing takes much of the burden off HR and empowers employees to control their careers. “Our product needs to be data-informed and driven to solved the skills gap. Our view & vision is to help empower employees to control their destiny.” – Meg Bear, President & Chief Product Officer
Bonnie Tinder was named a “Top 100 HR Tech Influencer in 2022” by HR Executive Magazine. For over 25 years, she has worked with top Software companies leading implementation, marketing and sales initiatives. In 2018, she founded Raven Intelligence—a peer review site for Enterprise Software Consulting, designed to help customers make a well-informed choice in an implementation partner. Raven Intelligence works with leading Systems Integrators and Software Vendors to understand and interpret the Voice of the Customer related to implementation and project success from an independent perspective.
In building the Raven community, Bonnie has interviewed over 1,000 customers about their Enterprise Software implementation experiences and has produced several reports on the state of HCM implementation and software, which are available here.