Renew HR — HR transformation, electrified.

Packaged Solutions Make Happy Customers: Happy Customers Make Successful Partners

When Sabya Mitra founded SAP partner Renew HR in 2016, he knew he wanted to focus the business on SMB clients and on cloud solutions since the two seemed a perfect match.

“I always thought the large enterprises have the money to get the best solutions they want, but because they didn’t have the resources to get a world-class solution, SMBs always needed to sacrifice. Cloud helped them reach there; it has leveled the playing field,” Mitra said.

The problem was that while SMBs could do cloud, they didn’t necessarily flock to SAP at the time, which was seen by many smaller companies as too expensive and too big. Renew HR executives studied competitive HR solutions, not only the technologies but also how those companies went to market. They surmised that to compete with SAP SuccessFactors’ competitors, they would need something that was cost-effective, quick to implement, and solved problems that SMBs were facing. Packaged solutions fit the bill.

“For the last three years, we were telling companies that they could go with the world-class SAP SuccessFactors software with an affordable budget. We found a way to bundle the cost of the application, implementation, and scope into a package that could go live in 8 to 10 weeks. Initially, they didn’t believe us, but we did it,” Mitra said. “We put everything in front of them and told them they wouldn’t have to pay for anything that was not right in front of them during the sales cycle.”

Initially, customers were hesitant to believe him, feeding off the perception of SAP being an enterprise-only software company. But Renew HR’s strategy combined with its ability to understand customer needs helped the company build several packaged solutions to bring to market. Today, Renew HR has four branded SAP qualified partner-packaged solutions.

“We tell them what we can do for them now—and what we can do for them when they grow to 1,000+ employees in the future. Our solutions and approach allow them to start where they want to start and then expand,” Mitra said. “We tell them that they’re using the same software that an American Airlines or Microsoft is using. You also have the same bells and whistles that they have. But building off a cloud platform allows us to make it more affordable.”

One prospect might want to start with SAP SuccessFactors Performance and Goals, while another wants to start with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central. The key, Mitra said, is to achieve one goal at a time, in small chunks that are easier for a customer to consume. “They may not have a 360-degree Performance appraisal now, but next year they can. If they need more as they grow, we tell them this is what it’s going to cost. That visibility and predictability is extremely valuable to a growing business.”

Customers Don’t Like Surprises

The worst thing a partner can do is to not tell the whole truth to a customer, Mitra said. Eventually, the truth comes out, and you are likely to lose either their respect or the trust you’ve built with the customer, or worse, the customer itself, he said.

“We try to keep it simple. We tell people exactly what they will get, the time it takes, and the cost associated with it,” he said.

That straightforward approach has translated to more wins, but also quicker close rates, Mitra said. “One example, we only had two calls. On the first, we presented the solution. On the second, we did a demo, negotiated the cost and arrived at a number,” he said.

“If you get to a third or fourth round, you’ve lost the deal. They’re talking to someone else. You have to make sure they see a complete picture in the first meeting—how much it costs, how much time you’ll spend on it, how much time they’ll spend on it, what type of resources that they will need.”

In a traditional sales cycle, you would do discovery and analysis and then customers wouldn’t get back to you for a month or two. The faster you can answer all their questions, the less likely they are comparing your solution to other software vendors or trying to match a price, Mitra said.

“We don’t want to compete on price. We want to compete on value. If you tell them they’re getting a solution that they can still use when they get to 500 or 1,000+ employees, that’s great news for them.”

Packaged solutions have helped open SMB doors to SAP, but they’ve also helped open technology-enabled HR transformation doors to SMBs, Mitra said.

“They could never afford a complete HR solution back in the day. And enterprise-grade software? Out of the question,” Mitra said. “The market is challenging. But if we do it well, we can penetrate that market. We have done everything we can to help the SMB customers achieve their HR transformation goals. I’m of the belief that if you try to understand their problem and pain points and come out with a solution which helps them in a short period of time, you make your customers happy and then you are happy. Packaged solutions make us happy.”

For a complete list of SAP Qualified Partner Packaged Solutions please visit SAP Partner Package Finder.

Overview

Sabya Mitra

How do we define a small and midsize business (SMB)?

It is crucial that before we start our exploration of HR on cloud and its applicability for SMBs, we first have a common understanding of what we consider a small and midsize business (SMB).

Gartner defines SMBs by the number of employees and the amount of annual revenue they have. The attribute used most often is the organization’s employees. Small businesses are usually defined as organizations with fewer than 100 employees, while midsize enterprises are those having 100 to 999 employees. The second most popular attribute used to define the SMB market is annual revenue. Small business is usually defined as organizations with less than $50 million in annual revenue; a midsize enterprise is defined as organizations that make more than $50 million but less than $1 billion in annual revenue.

Do SMBs face similar HR challenges as large enterprises?

SMB enterprises have different types of HR and HRIS challenges compared to large enterprises. This is due to their size, lack of resources (number and types of resources, turnover), the skill set of resources, and above all, the lack of budget.

Most SMBs would have started off being very small. They would have picked various off-the-shelf, disjointed software along their journey. Hence it becomes a real challenge for these organizations to determine the right HR software to run HR and talent management processes.

These organizations need an HR system that is best in class, easy to implement, flexible, and able to grow with the organization — and we should add affordable and easy-to-maintain to the mix as well. Unlike other ERPs, where you have various solutions for different sizes of organizations, HR on cloud (SAP SuccessFactors) fits a small organization with 50 employees as easily as it would a large organization with more than 200k employees.

A growing presence in the SMB HR-on-cloud market

Although SAP is known as the provider of ERP systems that cater to vast global enterprises, SAP SuccessFactors is making its presence felt in the crowded SMB HR-on-cloud market as well.

SuccessFactors has been around for more than 15 years in the talent management space. SAP acquired the software in 2011, and since then it has become the fastest-growing cloud product within SAP’s wide range of cloud products and services. As of today, it has 6500+ customers across the globe.

According to SAP, SMBs make up 80% of the company’s customer base. That is also the place in the market that offers the most greenfield opportunities and is growing rapidly compared to the large enterprise space. SAP is committed to packaging and pricing SAP SuccessFactors to suit the SMB market. Finally, with SAP SuccessFactors, SAP proves that there is undoubtedly an HR system that is the right one for every organization.

10 reasons SAP SuccessFactors is the best HR-on-cloud software for SMBs

In the earlier part of the blog, we discussed the market situation and where SAP SuccessFactors falls in the scheme of things. But as an SMB customer, all you would like to know is how this can help you, how much time it will take to implement, how much training is required, the flexibility of the tool, support, cost, and other such aspects. Below are the compelling reasons to consider SAP SuccessFactors for your business.

Size Does Matter

In 2017, SAP’s revenue amounted to about 23.5 billion euros — a significantly large amount compared to its competitors in the SMB marketplace. Why does that matter? It matters because SAP has significant leverage over its HR-on-cloud competitors in regard to the R&D dollars invested in SAP SuccessFactors products. They can do so not only because they have more revenue but also because they sell the same software for the large enterprise market. So as an SMB enterprise, you are taking advantage of this investment coming your way at a fraction of the cost.

Today you may or may not care about the underlying technology. Still, as you grow, it becomes increasingly important that the underlying technology is stable, safe, reliable, and scalable. One such example is the use of the in-memory database HANA in SAP SuccessFactors — the same database used by multi-billion-dollar organizations to run their entire business globally. So upfront, you know you are in safe hands. SAP’s purchases like Fieldglass and Concur enhance the ability for your organization to grow in the future and still use these products seamlessly within the SAP ecosystem. Another aspect worth highlighting is the embedded HR analytics: SAP Analytics Cloud is an enterprise-grade analytics tool capable of business intelligence, business planning, and predictive analytics, available to you for reporting purposes.

Global Presence and Compliance

In today’s business climate, rapid change is inevitable. Throughout various business changes and globalization, organizations are constantly under pressure to be compliant. When we talk about HR compliance, there are four main key areas: Payroll, Benefits, Risk & Safety, and Recruiting.

The regulatory landscape has changed, with an increasing number of workforce laws, regulations, and agency rules applying to labor forces around the globe. SAP has issued a significant number of regulatory changes across the more than 90 countries it actively monitors. Having tracked directly related core-HR legal changes throughout the world, SAP has seen a 22% increase over the last four years. These changes span wage-and-hour regulations, a multitude of reporting requirements, and anti-discrimination and union laws and amendments.

This surge in regulation has surpassed the ability of most SMB organizations to track, manage, and comply using their existing resources. The cost of non-compliance is too high a price for an organization’s reputation and finances. Hence you need an HR-on-cloud system that comes fully compliant out of the box. SAP SuccessFactors’ out-of-the-box solution complies with existing regulations as well as international laws like GDPR and Turkey’s data protection law, helping SMB organizations save cost and mitigate the risk of non-compliance.

Flexibility – Start Anywhere, Go Everywhere

What SMBs most want is not a lot of features and functionalities but a way to grow their business by leveraging new capabilities while minimizing risk. The mantra here is that digital HR transformation doesn’t happen in a day but occurs at the organization’s own pace and ability. So there is no ripping and replacing of existing software and infrastructure or retraining of staff, but rather the replacement of what is needed, when it is needed. You are the boss, and it is your call. This is one significant difference between SAP SuccessFactors and its competitors: SuccessFactors allows you to start anywhere (where there is an immediate need) and go everywhere (grow with the business).

SAP SuccessFactors’ phenomenal growth has been primarily spurred because it has a set of comprehensive tools that appeal to a broad set of HR functions from hire to retire, and because of its ability to address the HR needs of a variety of industries within the same software. This distinguishes SAP SuccessFactors from competitors that focus on one HR function like Core HR or Talent Acquisition. A large number of partners are also adding various extensions to the standard product, including apps readily available in the SAP App Center for purchase, with out-of-the-box integration with the core SAP SuccessFactors product.