Looking for digital signals at #HRTechConf

Heading to the 17th annual HR Tech Conference in Vegas this coming week for a day. The Human Resources domain is becoming increasingly more important because for every line of business…

…the world of recording transactions and expertise and performance and other metadata about work, and where work gets done will need to be increasingly connected

…because when you put the end user in the center of the experience, the software has to conform to how *you* want to work.

…and at the nucleus of any digital transformation is human capital leverage. I wrote in a previous post about why human capital management is critical across three vectors:

Operational Transformation: Our customers expect the same level of sophisticated data driven decision making from us that they are accustomed to on the social web. We need to re-think identity, how we onboard, goal, enable and digitally empower each functional area to leverage digital.

Ecosystem Transformation:  We’ve spent the last 2 decades outsourcing our demand and supply chains. Many of the best brains that know more about our products and who touch the customer every day don’t directly work for us anymore. How do we break down the barriers that prevent us from digitally leveraging these ecosystem smarts to rally around our customer?

Industry Transformation:  The focus on one-size fits all cloud-based technology is great for all the reasons we know. But here’s one big problem: You and your competitors can’t differentiate via technology anymore. So as CIOs and HR leaders, how do you select platforms that drive speed of execution for non-core tasks and yet, let you fire surgical strikes where you have differentiated core competencies?

Last year I was looking to learn 4 things. And coming to this year’s event, the fundamental question for me remains:

Is Cloud HR technology just mostly copy-paste of what’s on premise but with a prettier UX or has our ability to leverage talent fundamentally transformed as we make these investments?

The line up is excellent as described in these posts by Bill Kutik and Jason Averbook and Naomi Bloom has some good tips on how to make the best of the event, as does co-chair, Steve Boese. Our team at SAP SuccessFactors, with a leader position in Forrester’s 2014 SaaS HR Management systems fresh off the press will be attending in full force. And with SAP Jam, combined with our breadth of HR applications, we’ve made incredible progress towards re-thinking core activities such as onboarding, learning, mentoring, as well as employee identity and expertise. My team and I are thrilled to see our customer, Marriott International’s Global HR Officer Carol Anderson keynoting the event.

hrt_17thannual

Work aside; it’s always a treat to spend time with the pillars of HCM at this event. This event attracts the mother load of human capital brainpower and some super nice folks.

I previously sized up the significance of Digital Transformation this way:

 “Travelocity changed how we purchase a hotel room. AirBnB is changing the very definition of a hotel room altogether. Taxi Medallions have been great investments. Until now, that is.  Uber is changing the very definition of a cab. Starbucks now deprives your bank of its float altogether with a loyalty card that hangs on your money until you buy a drink. Chinese Internet commerce conglomerate Alibaba pointed its 230 million active users at its newly minted Mutual Fund business and $80 billion dollars flowed in.”

This level industry disruption is the reality for today’s CEO. In principle, HR has the best birds eye view of the organizations readiness to tackle this. This week, I’m looking to learning how HR as a function is planning on playing its part.

See you in sin city.

(cross posted on LinkedIn and Medium)

 

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