What makes a good SAP SuccessFactors implementation team? Skill and expertise is obviously important—represented by experience and certification. That’s not all there is to it— the “cultural fit” is vital for a unified group of consultants and project managers to strive toward the same goal and get the best possible customer outcome.
At Rizing HCM, our hiring of consultants is driven by our core values of entrepreneurship, performance, and excellence. We seek individuals who work hard, going over and above for the customer when needed. We want those who demonstrate accountability to their goals, and who are always striving for long term solutions with best practices.
Unified Culture = Customer Success
How does an implementation team unified and on the same page benefit the customer? Projects typically have multiple pillars, with different leads at the top. If those pillar leads aren’t aligned in their approach, that may cause confusion for a customer.
When the customer comes with their targets for an implementation, they shouldn’t have to repeat themselves to different leads. Those pillars should be naturally aligned, and part of an integrated transformation. One partner with one approach.
A cultural unity means that everyone on the team is working as one, towards efficient outcomes and striving to align with customer decisions. In this way, the customer and partner become the same team, resulting in an efficient delivery of the best possible solution for the customer.
Certification and Experience
When hiring senior consultants, it’s important for us to find those that are SuccessFactors Certified Professionals, who have the proven project experience and knowledge base. Of course, we also hire junior consultants who haven’t yet reached that level, but we work hard to ensure they are getting the right coaching, the right experience, and the right certifications before getting on customer projects.
Having certified consultants with real-word expertise drives customer success. They know the system, and they have a proven track record (SAP acknowledged) to lead business transformations in these business areas.
This is especially beneficial when it comes to industry experience. A consultant who has worked on a project in the Financial Services vertical, for example, will know the specific needs that industry requires in an HR solution.
Transformational Knowledge
There are two key aspects we are putting at the forefront of our recruitment practice when it comes to hiring leads and senior consultants: The HR Business advisory capabilities & the hybrid background.
The HR journey isn’t about implementing a module, it is about transforming how customers runs their business. It is imperative for our leads to have the business background in order to tackle customer discussions around their processes and shed light on the rationale for building off best practices, before discussing solution configuration.
For many organizations, hybrid is the name of the game for their enterprise technology stack. That means some systems are hosted in the cloud, while others are still on-premise. This is often a transitional phase on the way to full transformation.
That’s why we value that hybrid knowledge in employees—the experience of working with on-premise systems and cloud implementations. We want to meet the customer where they are and have the understanding of what they are going through in moving systems to the cloud—this aligns with SAP’s own Upgrade2Success methodology.
In the end, the key service an implementation partner provides is to be a trusted transformation expert, with the experience of moving from a current state to a targeted state. That is driven by industry knowledge, best practice knowledge, professional certifications, a hybrid background, and cultural unity. This is what we strive for with our hires across all of Rizing HCM, and any good system integrator should be doing the same.