SAP acquisition focused on social humans

   SAP will look at people as a new human social element going forward, thanks to its  $3.4 billion acquisition of SuccessFactors, which focuses on cloud-based applications, and the integration of Yammer’s notification and messaging tools that show updates from business suite applications like HR, ERP and CRM.
   The SuccessFactors software will be integrated with SAP’s HANA in-memory database, which SAP called a “key priority” for improving analytics and processing times for “human capital management” (HCM).
   SuccessFactors will be run as an independent subsidiary of SAP and its CEO Lars Dalgaard will lead both SuccessFactors and SAP’s overall cloud strategy. The aim for SuccessFactors’ Employee Central service is to make it the top human resources offering for the cloud and pair it with SAP’s other cloud technology and logistics systems.
   By integrating the system with its HANA database and offering, the service will quickly be able to reach a wide range of customers in the industry and add HCM to existing resource management applications, including compliant third-party systems.
   SAP plans to discuss the joint product road maps in greater detail at an upcoming event. What are expected down the road are country-specific localization – which is already available in their on-premise solutions – and an expansion of its regulatory support. Cloud-based systems are a big market for HR, especially when they can integrate with other logistics services.
   The other new tool for HCM comes from social collaboration tools that Yammer has added for SAP.
   Yammer debuted last year with its tool integrating Salesforce sales data from CRM products with a social collaboration feed. Yammer has done a similar offering for SAP, adding messages and activity stories from SAP’s ERP Central Component software as items in a ticker.
   SAP customers that install the Yammer SAP Connector will see updates from integrated business suite applications including HR, ERP and CRM. The Connector allows users to follow data objects in the SAP platform and monitor changes because these changes will automatically produce an activity story describing the event will appear in Yammer’s Ticker, and all activity is directly linked back to the original record in SAP’s system.
   From here, employees can not only see what is going on as it happens but find an activity log if there is a problem at a cargo’s final destination. Yammer said, for example, that a sales rep can pull up an activity record of any transaction with a single click to find out if there were any delays, mishaps, or billing issues, all of which link back to the SAP item and its associated paperwork.
   These feeds and stories are presented to users in a manner that looks very much like Facebook and allow for commenting, notes, and discussion on individual items and larger processes. These discussions, as well as item updates, can be pushed to individuals through emails, text messages, and real-time activity profiles within mobile apps.
   The company said its SAP work was its first integration with a legacy enterprise system and that this work will likely become major business down the road.
   By adding in these HCM options, SAP has just become very social, but the key is for it to find a balance with these new tools. Some may look at this and other recent expansions and call for SAP to consolidate its cloud offerings or at least limit the platforms and varied architecture.
   While SAP would benefit in some areas from consolidation, that type of effort won’t see an ROI from all of its customers. Separate systems can still be a fine platform in the cloud-based world as long as SAP can create and demonstrate an app that can sit on top of and link all of its separate systems.
   The company will undoubtedly consolidate where it makes fiscal sense, but adding more systems in the cloud will actually make it easier for companies like SAP, Oracle, and their competition to build separate platforms for different functions and then streamline them through a single interface that can gather and present data according to the action a customer wants to take. — Geoff Whiting