Organizations that connect SAP S/4HANA and SAP SuccessFactors Human Experience Management (HXM) Suite accelerate business performance and gain key benefits through improved insights, efficiencies, and experiences across all business areas.
However, some organizations put off integrating HR software with other areas of the business. To better understand the challenges that organizations face with enterprise technology, SAP SuccessFactors interviewed leaders in HR, finance, IT, and other operations at large and midmarket companies. Some of the comments that stood out include: “It’s a complicated dance to integrate the data.” “It’s hard to know how many people we have – let alone what they’re working on.” “How do we use data to tell our people story?”
These business leaders were aware of the benefits of connected cloud ERP and HXM. What was the barrier to investment? It was their organization’s technology strategy. As one member of the group summarized, “Ownership or what’s on fire – it’s impacting our ability to make strategic investment decisions.”
Carrie Klauss from Solution Marketing for SAP SuccessFactors presented these findings at SuccessConnect 2022 in the session “Improving Business Performance by Connecting Cloud ERP and HXM,” available on demand here.
“One of the key things we identified is that while there’s a desire for a much more integrated approach between HR and other business operations – and a strong acknowledgement of the associated value – for many, this remains a challenge,” Klauss said. “To no surprise, the overarching challenge theme was complexity due to silos.”
Thinking Beyond Walls to Connected Business
In the former model of enterprise technology, HR systems were separate from business systems. As a result, there was an inordinate amount of latency, inaccuracy, and complexity in the relationships between the business and the HR organization. Business and HR leaders struggled to understand the connection among management practices, employee engagement levels, and customer outcomes, Klauss noted.
This outdated model continues in some organizations, with business areas operating independent of one another. In these instances, HR is inefficiently connected to the rest of the organization through manual, offline, or similarly inefficient processes that reinforce inaccuracy and complexity.
Alternatively, when organizations take an advanced, connected approach with SAP S/4HANA and SAP SuccessFactors running on a common cloud platform, they succeed in breaking down silos and enable enterprise-wide insights, processes, and experiences.
“It was really interesting to hear the feedback from our research participants,” Klauss said. “While many of them started with a fairly narrow view, specific to their respective area and the associated challenges, the majority quickly pivoted to begin thinking beyond their HR or finance walls.”
Unified Data Leads to Expanded Mission in Healthcare
One SAP customer that is seeing the benefits of a connected approach is Eskenazi Health (HHC), a U.S.-based organization with 5,000 employees. A key pillar of HHC’s vision is to lead with innovation in clinical care, research, education, and service excellence. However, its four business units – healthcare, government, public health, and public safety – previously operated in silos. This business structure led to operational inefficiencies and a frustrating user experience for employees that could also carry over to the patient experience.
HHC deployed SAP S/4HANA for finance and the supply chain and SAP SuccessFactors software on a common platform. As a result, the organization improved its supply chain efficiency, with an 85% reduction in purchase order processing time. It has also seen vast improvements in employee productivity and satisfaction, with a 94% improvement in benefits admin for new and existing employees and an 80% improvement in ad hoc reporting capabilities.
With enterprise-wide data now available, HHC has set new targets to roll out strategic analytics across the enterprise to tackle larger public health issues, such as food insecurity, homelessness, and vector-borne illness.
Putting People at the Center of Business
SAP helps customers advance to a connected cloud approach with SAP S/4HANA and SAP SuccessFactors solutions so they can run as intelligent, sustainable enterprises.
The benefits of SAP’s intelligent suite are manifold. Having data connected on a common data foundation improves speed, accuracy, and insights. The unified integration extends beyond the data to connect processes and employee experiences. In addition, a connected approach opens the opportunity for enterprise-wide adoption of intelligent technologies by removing the limitations of specific business silos or use cases and enabling automation.
Learn more about how connected cloud ERP and HXM can provide opportunity for both your business and people and watch SuccessConnect 2022 keynotes and select sessions on demand here.
