Jeitosa has just completed the preliminary analysis of Global Readiness Survey results. Some of the key findings include:

• Survey participants were asked what top three challenges they encountered in going global in the HR/HRIT function. The majority of respondents indicated cultural differences (53%) as the top external challenge they faced, followed by compliance with data privacy regulations (42%).

The good news is that there are solutions available for these challenges: leadership development, cultural awareness training, change management programs, and global communication plans can help individuals understand and appreciate cultural differences and provide tools and techniques for improving cross-cultural collaboration. Formalized strategies for dealing with data privacy challenges, particularly in dealing with the European Data Privacy Directive, can be developed and include approaches such as Safe Harbor, Model Contracts, and Corporate Binding Rules.

• The top internal challenges companies are facing in going global fall into two major categories: lack of technology and systems to support global initiatives (51%) and lack of experienced and culturally adept resources to work effectively in a global environment – both a lack of global leadership (47%) and a lack of sufficient other global resources (45%). Going global is a relatively new initiative for many companies, so it is not surprising that many would still be immature in these areas.

Solutions to these challenges are readily available, but organizations need to step up and realize that building a global infrastructure with global systems and global people takes effort, resources, budget, and time. More and more vendors are globalizing their product and service offerings making it now possible to source a global solution for HR systems. With the increased mobility and globalization of the workforce, it is also now possible to find experienced resources who understand first-hand the issues and challenges in designing and deploying a global solution.

• Working globally, companies are also experiencing some successes. By far, the greatest success they are finding is in developing and appreciating global diversity (68%). While this is a challenge for some, it is also a success for others. Generally, the more familiar one culture is with another, the greater the understanding and acceptance of the differences that exist.

You can download a copy of the preliminary research report by clicking here. The participate in the survey and receive a free, personalized copy of the full report, benchmarking your organization to others who have taken the survey, please click here.

In this videocast, John Macy talks about On-Demand or Software-as-a-Service as the next, common sense, logical evolution of technology.

• In the traditional On-Premise environment, the client owns the infrastructure and licenses the application from the vendor. The client is responsible for all of the upfront costs and the ongoing maintenance and upgrades.

• In the new On-Demand world, the responsibility for looking after the infrastructure is passed to the supplier. There are no upfront software or hardware costs, rather the client pays for the service as it is used — pay-as-you-go approach.

There are two major benefits of the On-Demand model:

• Technology complexity is avoided by letting someone else take responsibility for the software and the technical infrastructure.

• Total Cost of Ownership is reduced because there is no major outlay for hardware or software and implementation time is drastically minimized.

On-Demand is way of the future because it avoids complexity, delivers the total cost of ownership that executives expect, and supports implementation and roll-out in far shorter timeframes than ever before.

Marc Andreessen’s blog The three kinds of platforms you meet on the Internet is a very accurate description of the choices facing HR software developers today.

I think most people would agree a browser is the user interface of choice for the future and the Internet is the preferred network. The question is what platform should it run on?

Marc describes three platform options: Level 1 “Access API” is where the application code lives outside of the platform and probably executes on a server elsewhere. The application calls the web services API (Application Programming Interface) to access data and services. The entire application development, including runtime system, programming language, database, servers, storage and so on, is the responsibility of the developer. The Human Capitalist blog places most HR applications today on that platform and I agree.

Level 2 is what Marc Andreessen describes as “Plug-In API”. Developers build new functions that can be “plugged in” the core application. Like Level 1 the developer builds the function and the core application calls it up to execute as part of a total solution. In HR terms that is like joining third party applications for functions such as recruiting, benefits, training, and so on. In reality, the HR application becomes a portal and the third party applications contain their own unique attributes including database and screens. There are many HR vendors that promote their products as web service or SOA (Services Oriented Architecture) designed simply because they can be called up by a “plug in” API but are nowhere close to integrated.

Level 3 is described as the “Runtime Environment” where third party code actually runs inside the platform and developers are given access to code via a browser to build or change applications. Marc believes Level 3 platforms are the future and when it comes to HR applications, I agree. Some of the advantages Marc discusses include the ease of developing with simplified development tools (expertise levels drops by 90%) and cost is minimal (the level of money needed drops to $0). Marc claims the “sky’s the limit in terms of how much development can happen on a platform like that”.

An example of an organisation that provides a Level 3 platform mentioned by Marc is Salesforce.com. Salesforce.com are into CRM (Customer Relationship Management) applications but have only started to scratch the surface when it comes to HR applications. Marc suggests you can “provide a marketplace that lets people buy and sell code”. To some extent Salesforce.com do that via their AppExchange initiative but an HR ecosystem to support Level 3 applications require much more than that. There must be design standards to develop applications and a marketplace based on HR business process to facilitate the discovery of components.

If the “sky’s the limit” what is in the pipeline now for HR applications?

The Salesforce.com model is a good guide to the future. We know Oracle and SAP are dragging their feet when it comes to moving to Marc’s Level 3 Platform. They have invested heavily in their current platforms and change will not be quick or easy for them. On the other hand Workday have gone to market with an offering that fits Marc’s Level 3 better than any other product I know. However, it does not open up the code to developers to build their own variation to functions, in the same way Salesforce.com allows custom built components. Communities of developers can build components using Workday’s toolset and expand the functionality of the core system but true Level 3 applications require more than that.

From a development perspective, integration of components (possibly by multiple developers) is critical. There are many workarounds, but there is no substitute for a commonly available database that can be accessed (with create, read, update and delete capabilities) by all applications developed to work within the vendor’s framework application. Any other form of integration is only a developer’s way of dodging the real issue.

Regarding INTEGRATION, under Marc’s Level 1 application integration relied on protocols such as CORBA, COM and EJB or XML file transfers. That didn’t work. Under Marc’s Level 2 integration was not taken seriously. Data duplication thrived and data exchange was the only way to make information coming out of the systems meaningful: Even then accuracy and consistency could not be assured because solutions usually involved multiple proprietary systems from different vendors using different database structures. The Level 3 code and database on the same server provide some chance of success, if they can conform to published specifications and standards.

From a commercial perspective, an elegantly designed Level 3 application will not be successful unless an appropriate market operation is in place to support the component discovery and delivery process. That involves the ultimate consumer of Level 3 HR applications, and that is the business user. There is a point where technical design must give over to business implementation and finding the right mix of components and services cannot be left to chance. Developer communities, vendors and the HR industry must agree a way of cataloguing components for system assembly rather than rely on semantic discovery techniques. Otherwise the Level 3 platform on the Internet will end up being just another good idea the business community failed to embrace.

In this Jeitocast, Karen Beaman interviews Christian Adlung on the subject of what’s changing in the HR landscape in Europe. The top three trends that Christian sees occurring across Europe are: (1) harmonization of talent management practices and policies both on an European regional level and on a global level; (2) movement towards shared services, particularly placing shared service centers in Eastern Europe in countries such as Hungary and the Czech Republic; and (3) development of more strategic talent management capabilities, such as performance management, recruiting, and staffing. Christian also talks about the challenges multinational companies face when expanding their business in Europe: (1) the highly regulated and diverse legislative situation making it difficult to standardize practices across countries; (2) the strong cultural differences throughout the 27 different countries of the European Union, confounding the difficulties in harmonization; and (3) the uneven population size of companies in the different countries making it difficult to provide the same high levels of service to everyone.

 

 What's changing in the HR landscape in Europe? [17:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As is common this time of year, I’d like to put forward my own projections for 2007. Here are the top five trends that I believe we’ll be hearing a lot about in 2007:
1. Sourcing Strategies — Software as as Service (Saas) will become the de facto approach for systems deployment. The infrastructure is being proven through companies such as Salesforce.com and Dave Duffield’s new venture Workday. Companies are tired of the “upgrade treadmill” and established vendors like Oracle and SAP will struggle to respond.
2. Talent Management — Performance Management will be a fundamental aspect in most HCM deployments. Shareholders are increasingly holding their executives accountable for performance, and HR executives will have to step up to the plate. Performance management software will the most frequently deployed application over the coming year.
3. Social Networks — Our global, mobile, virtual world will continue to evolve as much of our “water cooler talk” will continue to move to the Web via blogging, tagging, and advanced search algorithms using natural language syntax. VOIP and chat software will continue to expand into more aspects of our business and personal life.
4. Globalization — While most global companies are now well situated in Europe, there will be increasing movement toward Asia, in particular China. As the Web technologies mature, and as English, the lingua franca for business, continues to expand, it will become increasingly easier to work across global borders bringing more challenges and cultural conflicts.
5. Workforce – The aging baby boomer population, increasing numbers of immigrants, and ongoing use of offshoring to lower cost environments will continue to have a profound impact on our workforce. Line managers and human resources professionals will need to expand their repertories to develop the facility to manage an increasingly diverse workforce.

Many of these things will not come as a surprise to anyone — life/business, afterall, really is an evolution — revolutions in a true sense are rare.