People Are The Only Appreciating Assets In An Organisation

The concept of ‘organisational workforce’ is undergoing radical changes as companies offshore and outsource, and deal with an extended enterprise that spans the globe. In addition, companies are welcoming a new generation of employees who seek not simply a job but an ‘experience’ on the whole.

In an exclusive interview with Biztech2.0, Gaurav Mehra, managing director, Saba Software India, explains that in a world where pretty much every company deploys the same ERP systems, the same manufacturing processes and other similar technologies, the only differentiator that really matters is the people within the organisation.

Why do you believe that people are an appreciating asset to the organisation?

Unlike assets that depreciate in value over time, people are the only assets in a business that appreciate as you invest in them. Some examples will make this clear. Take Fifth Third Bank for instance, which invested in a people management system to train employees on new products and services as well as increase cross-selling opportunities. According to David Palm, vice president and director of education and career development at Fifth Third, “We expect to help improve our cross-sell ratios. Simply stated, if each employee sells one more credit card due to the skills acquired through training, we can more than pay for our [people management system] investments.”

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Or take the case of Sweden’s leading bank, Swedbank, which sought to improve the service skills of its customer-facing staff to ensure that the company remain the number one financial institution for customer satisfaction. Says Staffan Ivarsson, deputy director of Swedbank human resources: “This initiative was created to support Swedbank’s fundamental belief that the skills, motivation and satisfaction of its employees are instrumental drivers of value for customers.” Fifty percent of the value of the bank’s customer satisfaction index is directly connected to what customers think of the bank’s competence.

What are the major pain points faced by the management concerning people management?

With a workforce shortage that will exceed 15 million skilled workers globally by 2010, developing and retaining the best people is harder than ever. Only those organisations that take a highly disciplined, strategic approach to aligning, developing, managing and rewarding their people will excel. Increased global competition requires that an organisation remains dynamic, which means the skills and knowledge of its employees must be dynamic enough to respond to fast-moving market trends. As such, business leaders are realising that their future success depends on developing and retaining talent that is aligned with corporate strategy.

What are the factors that can help a CIO better manage people?

Given how critical people are to business success, it’s surprising that truly integrated people management systems have just begun to arrive on the scene. HRMS vendors have focused on automating the transactions of the HR department, but the elements that are needed to effectively manage an organisation’s talent, performance reviews, goal setting, workforce planning, talent acquisition, compensation management, learning and development management, succession planning, compliance management, to date have largely existed in home-grown implementations, spreadsheets or paper forms within the four walls of the HR department.

Moving into the future, the people processes and technology that we need to look at will have a systematic framework and a unified solution for meeting an organisation’s talent management needs. By embracing a unified platform that incorporates learning, performance and talent, and which integrates into existing HRMS systems, CIOs are able to consolidate multiple systems to gain system-wide efficiencies. With a unified approach to people processes, HR teams are also able to have a single access point that enables visibility into the profiles of employees, which will enable them to assess their current state as well as plan for the future needs of the organisation. Line managers, whether in sales, services channel management or on the shop floor, find that they can use the same systems to get real-time feedback on the people they manage within and beyond the organisation.

According to you, what is lacking in the Indian scenario?

As we look at the Indian market, we see a clear need for integrated people management systems like Saba’s in the IT/ITES, BFSI, and pharmaceutical verticals. Leading companies in these sectors already have the understanding and vision to appreciate such systems, and many have active plans to deploy such systems.

The one thing that does stick out – specifically in the Indian marketplace as opposed to our experience in the US and EMEA – is the current belief within a number of Indian organisations that somehow the in-house HRMS will solve their problems because they seem to have some of the same functionality as Saba or other people management products. In the US and elsewhere, companies have attempted this, failed miserably, and now look for comprehensive people management systems like ours. My guess is that in over 90% of our deployments, our customer already has an HRMS from Oracle, Peoplesoft or SAP deployed. Yet, they invest in deploying our solutions globally.

We think that Indian customers, either because they haven’t had HRMS systems in operation for as long a time as some other countries, or because they haven’t had to suffer the pain that comes with bits-and-pieces solutions these vendors offer, are easily misled into thinking those systems can meet their needs. This seems to be the most significant piece of market education that Saba has to work on in the Indian market.

What products/services from Saba address this issue?

Saba provides integrated solutions for people management across learning, collaboration, performance, compensation and talent management, enabling customers to align, develop, manage and reward their people. The company offers the industry’s leading unified people management platform, Saba Enterprise, which makes learning, performance and talent management faster, easier, and more effective for individual employees and organisations.

In people management, Saba has proven its technology and service capabilities through some very successful implementations at large, global enterprises such as Deloitte, HP, and IBM, which are using the most extensible and scalable product architecture in the business.

How is Saba planning to serve Indian enterprises with its services?

Saba is a global company with a worldwide base of customers and operations spanning five continents. We have a local presence, including sales and support offices, in all key markets in which we operate, including India. Our products are available in 23 languages, and are deployed in over 150 countries. In India, we have offices in both Mumbai and Pune, with sales, servicing and support capabilities.

In this market we are following a two-pronged strategy. We are working directly to service the needs of our global customers that either have large pools of users in India, or have the Saba system running out of their India back office in support of their global deployment. We are also working directly with a handful of large, strategic Indian companies in the IT and BFSI sectors.

However, we primarily intend to address the broad Indian market through a partner-led strategy. We are partnering with companies that will not be mere resellers of our software but would bring substantial additional capabilities to the table that would help us address the specific needs of Indian organisations. We already work with HCL and IBM around the world, and we are leveraging our relationship with Sify to create fast-start, easy-to-deploy solutions for Indian customers.