A complete and comprehensive integrations strategy is fundamental to the overall success of a firm’s global HCM strategy. Organizations have consistently embraced the mantra of establishing “one source of master data.” The challenge of ensuring that one core system of record feeds to critical company applications such as payroll, time, benefits and finance systems is inherently complex — making this goal elusive. In this article, I will suggest eight crucial integration considerations for companies preparing to take on this challenge.
1) Integration components should run in parallel.
The integrations portion of the overall project needs to run in parallel with the global, core HCM solution. Organizations that design their core HCM application without critically considering integration requirements typically need to rework the solution at a later stage in the project. This is a costly and inefficient approach.
2) Use HCM applications with standard integrations to third-party solutions.
Many of the state-of-the-art, cloud HCM applications will have designed standard integration templates which will facilitate the flow of data from the source HCM system to the target system such as a payroll or benefits provider.
3) An experienced implementation partner is vital.
Organizations must be assured that the implementation provider has the requisite skills and experience to design these integrations. Customers should conduct thorough research on these partners and request multiple customer references.
4) Invest in global third-party applications.
It is cost beneficial and resources efficient for organizations to invest in global payroll, time and benefits solutions. The number of integrations required if individual countries have different external applications will be excessive and make the task of streamlining HCM processes throughout the company a greater challenge.
5) Invest in the most up to date version of third-party applications.
Maintenance of the integration points will become troublesome if the company has a legacy version of a payroll, time, benefits or finance product. Global HCM applications will almost always integrate more successfully with a newer version of the product.
6) Get feedback from project stakeholders.
The principal HCM technical lead at customer level needs to coordinate with integration experts in his or her own company as well as the implementation provider to understand how to incorporate third-party requirements into the global HCM solution. Lack of communication between the HCM lead and customer integrations may result in duplication of efforts in the configuration of the system.
7) Establish a viable support strategy.
For global organizations, the amount of data that is part of the integration process is enormous. It is imperative that companies can call upon a partner for support post implementation that has the skillset to troubleshoot any integration issues. Preferably, this would be the partner who successfully built the integration as they will have core knowledge of the implementation.
8) Choose a viable middleware solution.
The middleware application an organization will utilise to assist in the integrations will prove to be a very significant decision. The middleware solutions which may have been optimal for on-premise HCM integrations may not perfectly fit the cloud model. Project stakeholders should research success stories and be guided by experienced implementation partners.
Conclusion
Organizations must take a holistic approach to integration considerations with global HCM solutions. The entire design of a global core HCM solution should be planned with an optimal, cost-effective integrations approach in the mind of all pertinent stakeholders.