Organizations like ours certainly understand and appreciate the promise of new HR technology. We already depend on good data, and we value tools that can help us improve and leverage that data to help us take advantage of best practices for recruiting, engaging and managing a global workforce efficiently. But before we commit to new HR technology, we must understand the return on investment (ROI) for such a sizeable investment which, for an organization of our size, can run into the millions of dollars.
When we began to consider moving to a Human Capital Management (HCM) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution at Ferguson Enterprises (a leading plumbing distributor with more than 23,000 employees) our first step was to build a case for the investment. For us, the case for new HCM SaaS technology was born out of three primary goals: 1) avoiding costly upgrades and the drain of ongoing maintenance on scarce IT resources, 2) increasing self-service adoption to reduce administrative burden and 3) improving access to data and analytics for better decision-making.
First, we wanted to avoid a costly upgrade to our heavily customized human resource management system (HRMS). We were facing lots of ongoing maintenance associated with customizations, and we needed to redeploy our resources to do other, more valuable work that supported the business. We also wanted to shift the attention of our HR staff away from processing transactions to focus instead on using data to drive better decisions and help our associates and their families. Additionally, with mobile technology offered by the SaaS solutions, we are certain we would save time and eliminate frustration for our managers in the field.
With the help of ISG, we were able to build a business case that included the benefits of high-quality tools for data analysis and reporting. Based on the new tools available, we estimate it will take about 10 percent of the time it previously took to produce and distribute data important to our managers. And, with analytics embedded within HR processes, our managers will be able to make better decisions. These benefits—along with many others—helped us maximize our ROI and prepare our organization to make the most of new technology.
Learn more in our ISG white paper, HR Goes Digital: Building a Winning Business case for HCM SaaS.
