In today’s cutthroat business environment, an organization’s greatest asset is its people. Managing, motivating, and keeping your staff is now not only important, but essential to your company’s success. There are several Human Resource Management (HRM) systems available, making it difficult to select the best one for your company. SAP’s HCM (Human Capital Management) and SuccessFactors (another popular solution) are designed to meet the varying requirements of businesses of all sizes. But what distinguishes them from one another? Let’s examine the key distinctions between these two HRM programs.
SAP HCM: The On-Premise Powerhouse
Human Resource Management (short for Human Capital Management) within SAP was the company’s first on-premises product. It has a long history and many practical uses in human resources. This all-inclusive system may easily replace SAP HR, as it takes care of HR duties such as payroll processing, application tracking, employee training, and more. SAP HCM also excels at linking personnel and application management with many levels of approval.
Key Modules of SAP HCM:
- Organizational Management: This module helps map an organization’s structure, facilitating personnel planning, career planning, and applicant management.
- Personnel Administration: It serves as the central point for employee master records, eliminating paper-based procedures and ensuring real-time updates.
- Personnel Time Management: This module aids in planning, recording, and evaluating employee performance based on documented working hours.
- Payroll Accounting: Managing salary groups, working hours, absence times, and special payments while remaining compliant with regulations.
- Talent Management: Matching open positions with available human resources based on qualifications and personal interests, fostering career development.
- Recruitment: Automating and tracking various recruitment operations, simplifying the entire employment process.
- Employee Self-Service (ESS) and Management Self-Service (MSS): Empowering employees to manage their data while enabling managers to produce and update personnel data.
SAP HCM is highly customizable, with a wide range of available modules to address a wide variety of corporate needs. SAP HCM will no longer get updates or bug fixes after the year 2040 as the business changes its attention to HXM (Human Experience Management) solutions available via the cloud.
SAP SuccessFactors: The Cloud-Based Evolution
The SAP HXM (Human Experience Management) package, of which SAP SuccessFactors is a component, is a cloud-based human resources solution. SuccessFactors, which SAP purchased in 2011, has since seen tremendous development and now provides a full suite of talent management tools, advanced workforce analytics and planning, and a cutting-edge core HR solution that improves CEO perception and judgment.
Key Features of SAP SuccessFactors:
- E-Recruiting: Facilitating collaborative, objective, and mobile-based selection processes.
- Onboarding: Customizable onboarding procedures that include new hires, recruiting managers, and onboarding buddies.
- Compensation: Managing salary history, positioning, and all compensation procedures through a compensation profile.
- Performance Evaluation: Regulating target agreements and monitoring of target achievement for performance evaluation.
- Learning: A comprehensive learning platform linked to various modules like goal management and onboarding.
- Succession and Development: Automating succession planning operations.
- Employee Central: Managing master data, personnel administration, organizational management, absences, and optional payroll accounting. This serves as the foundation for integrating with an on-premise solution.
- SAP JAM: A social networking-style communication and collaboration platform for employees.
- Analytics: Allowing users to create reports for all SuccessFactors modules.
Making the Choice
When deciding between SAP HCM and SAP SuccessFactors, several factors should be considered:
1. Deployment: SAP HCM is an on-premise solution, while SuccessFactors is cloud-based. Consider your organization’s IT infrastructure and your preference for cloud or on-premise solutions.
2. Features: Both solutions offer an array of features, but SuccessFactors provides additional functionalities and is known for its scalability.
3. Pricing: SAP HCM is often considered expensive, while SuccessFactors offers various licensing options, potentially making it more flexible.
4. ROI: SAP HCM users report seeing a return on investment due to reduced manpower, while SuccessFactors users may have different priorities.
5. Service and Support: Users of both solutions generally express satisfaction with the level of support provided.
The final decision between SAP HCM and SAP SuccessFactors should be based on your company’s individual requirements. SAP HCM’s powerful on-premise features might be a good fit for businesses with well-established IT systems. In comparison, SAP SuccessFactors is a feature-rich and adaptable cloud-based solution. The ultimate choice should be consistent with the HR management strategy and corporate objectives.
Darren Trumbler is a versatile content writer specializing in B2B technology, marketing strategies, and wellness. With a knack for breaking down complex topics into engaging, easy-to-understand narratives, Darren helps businesses communicate effectively with their audiences.
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