BlogERP: Jim Holincheck's HCM Software Blog

links for 2008-07-17

2008-07-17T00:32:05-05:00

Gianpaolo's blog : Cloudy Future for the Enterprise and most likely for ISVs too

Hat tip to Vinnie Mirchandani for the link to this post on Cloud Computing and SaaS. It is interesting framework for making buy vs. build and delivery model choices, but I find most customers are agnostic about the delivery model (they want to buy the be

(tags: SaaS cloud architecture)

links for 2008-07-16

2008-07-16T00:32:48-05:00

Andrew McAfee - Serena is Serene about Enterprise Facebook

Interesting example of corporate social networking using a consumer platform.

(tags: enterprise2.0 Facebook web2.0 socialmedia socialnetworking)
The Alps and Zimbabwe « Vendorprisey

Thomas is cycling for a good cause. Check it out on his blog.

(tags: charity)

links for 2008-07-15

2008-07-15T00:32:56-05:00

Taleo Blog - Talent Management Solutions - Talent Economics: Supply & Demand

Good information and links on why Talent Management is critical for business today and over the next few years.

(tags: talentmanagement)

links for 2008-07-12

2008-07-12T00:40:00-05:00

Naomi Alderman doesn't see much point in the dreaded employment appraisal | Comment is free | The Guardian

From my fellow Gartner analyst, Thomas Otter, a refreshing post that hits the nail on the head. You can have the best process and systems for performance management, but it is really about the quality of the conversation.

(tags: EPM)
Hype Cycle for Human Capital Management Software, 2008

Subscription required. Our new Hype Cycle is out. It is expanded from last year. Also, check out some of the other Hype Cycles in the new My Gartner Research link on the BlogERP home page.

(tags: HCM)

links for 2008-07-11

2008-07-11T00:32:11-05:00

Talent Technology buys the applicant tracking system PeopleFilter.

More E-Recruitment M&A ...

(tags: E-Recruitment)
Knowledge Infusion Center of Excellence: Consultant's Corner: The Value of Being a Best Employer - A Business Case for Talent Management?

Some good advice on and links to other articles on building the business case for Talent Management.

(tags: talentmanagement)

links for 2008-07-10

2008-07-10T00:34:12-05:00

Nine Signs of an Effective Blog Post

A good reminder of what is a good blog post (more for me than anyone else)>

links for 2008-07-08

2008-07-08T00:32:25-05:00

The 20 Principles of Strategic Recruiting : ERE.net

A great summary of important principles in recruiting -- also a good thing for E-Recruitment software product strategy folks to hang on their walls as they look at product direction.

(tags: E-Recruitment)
Gautam Ghosh - Management Consultant: If HR people went on strike

Funny and food for thought about the role of HR.

(tags: HCM)

Vendor Briefings - Part 2

2008-07-02T18:01:17-05:00

This post is for vendors who want to do a briefing with me. I posted on this a couple of years ago, so please re-read that post about my philosophy around taking briefings. In this post, I want to talk more specifically about how to get a briefing with me and how to make it productive.

Getting a Briefing

You do not need to contact me first to see if I am interested in a vendor briefing. As I indicated in the original post, I am usually pretty open to talking to any vendor in the HCM space. You do not need to be a Gartner client to get a briefing (if you may run into a rogue account exec who says that, please let me know and I will take care of it). We certainly would like you to be a client, but we would have a limited view if we only talked to our clients. I may turn down a briefing if it is very tangential to HCM or if I am just plain too busy at the time. However, this is pretty rare.

If you want to do a briefing with me, there is a online form on Gartner.com that you can fill out where you can provide background on your company and the purpose for the briefing. It also asks what analysts you want to brief. I assume if you are reading this blog, then you know who I am. However, one of the big reasons that you want to work with the Gartner Vendor Relations folks is that they can help coordinate the schedules of multiple analysts. You might be surprised, but there are actually a lot of us that cover various aspects of HCM at Gartner. So, as you are planning your briefing, please keep in mind my fellow analysts:

Thomas Otter - HCM Software (especially in Europe)
Carol Rozwell - Learning Solutions
Robert Brown - HR BPO
Denise Ganly - ERP/HCM (Asia Pacific)
Pat Phelan - ERP/HCM Implementation Lifecycle
Rolf Jester/Alex Soejarto - HCM/ERP Consultants/Systems Integrators
Chris Pang/Tom Eid - HCM/Learning Market Sizing
Gale Daikoku - Retail Workforce Management
Jim Davies - Call Center Workforce Management
Michael Dunne - Sales Performance Management
Diane Morello - IT Workforce Management Issues (and General Workforce Issues)

Making a Briefing Productive

There are really two types of briefings: an introductory briefing and an update briefing. The introductory briefing is pretty much what it says. It is our first opportunity to learn about a vendor and its solutions. There is a good outline on Gartner.com of the types of things we typically want to know about in an introductory briefing. I would add that I want to know how many customers and employees you have as well how you price your solution (an average sales price is also helpful).

An update briefing is also pretty much what it says. It is usually event driven. You have a new major product release, a big customer win or go-live, or some other major event that you want to update us on. It is at your discretion in terms of what is a significant event. However, please do not bombard us with briefings for minor events. It is not a good use of our time or your time. If there are no major events in the year since the last briefing, it is usually good to have a more general update briefing (providing a business update, new customer wins/go lives, new product directions/strategies, etc.) at that point. Sometimes I will get a briefing once from a vendor and never hear back again. Even if we do not write something about you or your market, it does not mean that we are not talking to our end-user clients about it. So, please keep us informed.

A Pet Peeve

A lot of vendors give industry analysts basically the same pitch that they give investors. I will grant that much of the information we want is similar. However, too many vendors spend far too much time giving us an overview of the market, the drivers, and the potential. For the most part, you can assume that we already know this unless it is a really new market (few are really totally new and if you are the only vendor, then it is not really a market yet). So, hit the highlights and move on. We are much more interested in learning about the products, the value proposition, your competitive differentiation (please make sure you can articulate this), the customer experiences, etc.. Ok, rant over.

In closing, I get a lot of e-mail from vendors who ask me if I am interested in a briefing. Hopefully, this will cut down on the e-mail and streamline the process a little. I look forward to speaking with you.

New Stuff for the Blog and More

2008-07-01T14:53:02-05:00

If you have not been to the blog site itself lately, I have finally added a page called "My Gartner Research". It is in the top of the right column. I will try to keep it updated as I publish new research. I also wanted to make you aware that there is a new "Magic Quadrant for Corporate Learning Systems" (subscription required) published Carol Rozwell. This research rounds out Gartner's Talent Management coverage very nicely.

A Look Back at the History of Gartner's Coverage of Talent Management Applications (Part 5)

2008-06-26T20:48:01-05:00

When I started out writing this series of posts, I did not think it would be this long. My apologies for the ramble. In 2006, we made an important change in terms of coverage of Talent Management Applications. We decided to change MarketScope for E-Recruitment Software into a Magic Quadrant. We felt the market had matured to the extent it was warranted and some leaders had emerge. We also introduced a new MarketScope for Retail Time and Labor Applications (the research was going on concurrently) which I worked on with Gale Daikoku from our Retail Industry Advisory service. We did not do an update to the MarketScope for Employee Performance Management Software in 2006 (you can only do so many of these in a year). In addition to those major research projects, that was probably the high point in terms of client inquiries. Talent management was certainly at the top of the agenda.

In May 2007, we published an update to the "MarketScope for Employee Performance Management Software, 2007". We expanded the scope to include Succession Management and Compensation Management in addition to Performance Management. This scope change gave us research that evaluated vendors across all the major areas of Talent Management. We had already been publishing research on the E-Learning market when combined with the EPM and E-Recruitment research, it gave us a pretty comprehensive view.

As we were doing all of this research, I became concerned. In the Hype Cycle for Human Capital Management Software, 2007, I put EPM at the Peak of Inflated Expectations because I saw a lot of organizations buying talent management solutions and positioning them as strategic, but yet when you talked to them about what they had accomplished, it was largely automation of talent management processes. So, in December 2007, I published "Unlocking the Strategic Value of Talent Management Application Investments". I felt it was important that clients understand why integration was important and that analytics was the key to gaining strategic value from these applications.

That brings us almost up to date. We recently published an update to the "Magic Quadrant for E-Recruitment Software". We are about to kickoff the update to the MarketScope for Employee Performance Management Software. I have the approval to make it a Magic Quadrant. The market has matured enough. This will be the first one that Thomas Otter and I collaborate on. I look forward to his insights in this research. We are also going to focus on case studies to help clients understand best practices in strategic use of talent management applications.

Finally, I get asked quite a bit about when we are going to evaluate vendors for the full suite. A MarketScope or Magic Quadrant is used when there is a market. Talent Management Application Suites are not quite there yet. However, we have a new note type called Critical Capabilities to use to evaluate critical capabilities of vendors within and across markets. Thomas, Carol Rozwell (our Learning analyst), and I are strongly considering collaborating on one for the suite. Stay tuned.