There were the big announcements on stage at SuccessConnect, including keynote demonstrations of how SAP® themselves are using mobile and analytics and experience data to create “HXM”. But that’s not where the conference stopped, there were plenty of roadmap sessions, customer success stories, and the partner showcase that rounded out “everything you wanted to know about SAP® SuccessFactors® but never thought to ask.”The reality of SuccessConnect is that new products are largely delivered via collaboration with customers, partners and SAP.io’s investments in startup innovation.

That makes this event jam packed with innovation—most SuccessConnect attendees I spoke with agree that two days is not enough time to soak up all the content at the event. Here are some of the little talks I had with attendees and presenters:

  1. Employee Central Payroll is the payroll product of the immediate future. There are no imminent plans at all to roll out what SAP has been innovating behind the scenes as a “Next Gen” payroll solution. The ideas that are coming together around a next generation of payroll do sometimes have a way of making it into the currently available payroll product. For example…
  2. Payroll to fit all size companies with minimized risk and reduced costs was introduced as Rizing Payroll, A Rizing Solution. This offering makes Employee Central Payroll accessible to small and medium enterprises and is an excellent turnkey solution for large enterprises who have smaller locations or acquired companies for whom a payroll solution is needed.
  3. Compensation integration with Employee Central was a hot topic of discussion. Wyndham Resorts’ Allison Capra emphasized the importance of high-quality data originating in EC for the management of Compensation Planning and the value of collaborating with a trusted partner.
  4. In Recruiting, the candidate experience remains imperative to corporations. Hallmark presented their approach to the traditional challenges of background checks. A custom-built self-disclosure process, designed in collaboration with partner, Rizing HCM, reduced costs from $60,000 to $9,000 annually and reduced the time for candidates to start work.
  5. The voice of the customer is the distinguishing feature of SAP product development. Customers always have options to influence the roadmap. Karen Satchell of Johns Hopkins shared their experiences in being part of the product advisory processes at SAP SuccessFactors. If you don’t know how to have your voice heard at SAP, ask me. I’ll point you in the right direction.
  6. Why care about SAP Cloud Platform? Because this is where much of customizations and unique solutions are taking place. In the extensibility roadmap presentation, we learned how an airline leveraged extensibility to meet a custom need for seniority date calculations and a retail manufacturer crafted a performance process to promote their unique culture.
  7. Onboarding 2.0 – which includes Cross-Boarding and Off-Boarding – will be generally available in Q4 2019. Because the changes represent significant improvements, it is important to stay informed. The roadmap presentation provided links to webinars, feature comparisons and demos.
  8. A fully integrated human resources experience is everything. This topic came across loud and clear in the Keynotes and SAP’s announcement of “HXM – Human Experience Management” which focuses on the integration of the SAP SuccessFactors modules into one user experience and the inclusion of Qualtrics experience data with operational data. To understand what’s ahead for all of us, watch the keynote with demonstrations of solutions already in use at SAP.

Most presentations can be found on the SuccessConnect event presentations page. Take a look and let us know what you think.