Dekko at SuccessFactors Partners Ensuring a Robust Delivery

At the recently concluded SAP Insider conference in Nice, I moderated a panel with SAP and CEOs from leading SuccessFactors implementation partners to discuss what is top on their CEO’s agenda to ensure a robust service delivery organization for SuccessFactors implementations.

We had an excellent dialogue not only amongst the panelists but also SAP mentors, other partners, SAP product management and customers that were in the audience.

The panelists included:

Sharon Newton

Jan Van der Steen

Paul Vidler

Jim Newman

Special thanks to Joachim Foerderer (SAP Product Management), Martin Gillet (SAP Mentor), Amy Grubb (Founder & CEO of Cloud Consulting Partners) and Teresa Helt (SuccessFactors customer) for participating from the audience and all my industry peers and friends that made time to attend the panel. For those who missed it, we had the entire Panel Discussion recorded and is available to watch below.

The panelists were presented with 6 challenge questions and here’s what they had to say.

1. What is the most critical concern that you hear from customers migrating to the cloud?
   1. Role of IT in the future cloud organization and the transition required for the business to support the cloud solution
   2. There is a paradigm shift
      

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2. The SuccessFactors HCM suite in undergoing rapid innovation which can be challenging to keep pace with from a delivery perspective. How do you tackle that challenge?
   1. Watch out the customer community and engage with customers who have implemented the solutions
   2. There is a paradigm shift in how the innovation in technology can support the business
   3. Keeping pace with the quarterly releases is critical, plan implementation with what is generally available in the current release
   4. SuccessFactors customer community is highly vibrant and make sure you participate in it
   5. Keep up with the customers on their needs
      

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3. The iterative project methodology can be novel and sometimes a concern for on-premise customers. Can you share some examples where you handled this concern successfully?
   1. Important to partner with the customer to ensure that the SuccessFactors methodology will work well for them
   2. As a customer you have the choice to work with your partner and use what works for you as the most relevant project methodology as one size does not fit all
      

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4. There is a lot of dialogue happening around certification of SuccessFactors consultants. What are your views on this subject?
   1. You do need certified consultants, however experience is key and just taking a test does not make you a capable consultant. There was a lot of good dialogue amongst SAP and partners on this subject, make sure to check out the video recording for the scoop
      

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5. What are your views if a customer would like to engage more than one partner for their SuccessFactors implementations?
   1. It can work well but there is a definite responsibility from the customer’s end to ensure that the right combination of partners is engaged
   2. Implementation partners have strategic relationships with each other that can also help customers leverage the best available skills
      

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6. What is the guiding principle for the delivery services in your organization and how do you ensure continual improvement in this dynamic cloud landscape where change is the only constant?
   1. Ensure that the HRIS in the cloud that you are building for the customer is holistically integrated both from a data and process perspective
   2. Don’t try to implement everything at the same time
   3. Help customers take a step back and assess what their immediate and long term goals are in terms of the future direction of the organization
   4. Make sure your service delivery organization is having the right dialogue with the customer as the solution is being built
   5. Develop long term partnerships with the customer

Throughout the discussion there was a universal theme that stood out in SuccessFactors implementation partners striving to offer a connected, holistic and integrated solution with the innovations being made available by the SuccessFactors HCM suite.