Today, integrated or “unified” talent management solutions, referred to as talent management suites, are the most rapidly growing area within human capital management (HCM) software, replacing the proliferation of disparate siloed applications that led to those first three issues.[2] But how can HR represent the value proposition to their executives to get the funding to replace the old standalone products or add new talent management applications to their mix?

1. Getting Down to Business in Talent Management:
The Case for a Unified Solution
July 24, 2014, Katherine Jones - Register here
to join us on August 7th at 1:00pm ET to learn
the key steps in creating a compelling business
case for talent suite acquisition.
Issue #1: Too much to manage. HR
professionals are literally (well, figuratively)
surrounded by too many separate applications
to manage them well or economically. (Bersin
by Deloitte research shows that 1/3 of larger
companies have over 10 HCM solutions to juggle
– a 15% increase since the prior year.[1])
Issue #2: CHROs are often unable to answer the
talent questions their executives ask. Because
data about the workforce may be scattered
across disparate platforms, analytics is difficult,
and reporting often inaccurate.
Source: Bersin by Deloitte, 2014.
Issue #3: While HR departments report misgivings around their employees’ engagement and the ability to address attrition of key
talent, they may not have the consumer-grade workforce-facing technologies in place to support these issues.
And Issue #4: How do we create the business case for integrating all our disparate solutions to address these other issues?
Today, integrated or “unified” talent management solutions, referred to as talent management suites, are the most rapidly growing
area within human capital management (HCM) software, replacing the proliferation of disparate siloed applications that led to
those first three issues.[2] But how can HR represent the value proposition to their executives to get the funding to replace the old
standalone products or add new talent management applications to their mix?
While there is a great similarity across businesses, sometimes buyers need to consider how to articulate the value of integration to
their executives. There are steps to be followed, as shown in the chevron below:

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And there are potholes to be avoided: common “gottcha’s” that impede successful results. These can include lack of alignment
with corporate goals, lack of a corporate sponsor who believes in your issue and the proposed solution, or the inability to
articulate clearly the business benefits if you get what you are asking for.
In an upcoming web seminar entitled “Getting to Yes: Creating a Business Case for a Talent Management Suite,” we will
review the key areas to address and the stumbling blocks to avoid in creating the business case to drive investment decisions
for unified talent software architecture.
Register here to join me on August 7th at 1:00pm ET to learn the key steps in creating a compelling business case
for talent suite acquisition.
[1] Investments in Human Capital Management Systems 2014: What Technology Users Have and What They Will Buy in the Year Ahead by Dr. Katherine Jones, Bersin by Deloitte 2014.
[2] Talent Optimization for the Global Workforce: The Market for Talent Management Systems 2014 by Dr. Katherine Jones, Bersin by Deloitte 2014.