Reaching the Apex of Human Capital Management

VentanaMonitor™

Adopting workforce management processes that deliver efficiency and performance improvements is a critical step towards meeting executive and operational management expectations. Softscape, with over a decade of experience in the HR market, has released Softscape Apex, a solutions suite providing a common platform for optimizing the performance and reducing the cost of managing and servicing employees. Softscape’s introduction of new workforce management applications for collaboration, analytics, and planning bolsters their suite to meet the majority of any organization’s requirements. Ventana Research believes the combination of Softscape’s Apex release and their software as a service approach will help them deliver a low cost, simple approach to improve workforce efficiency and performance.

Assessment
The imperative for workforce performance and process improvement has now become top-of-mind in organizations that wish to leverage human capital for a competitive advantage. Many organizations have not defined and synchronized workforce processes into a common process and systems framework. This critical focus on employees is required to drive optimal results for the operational performance management executive mandate.

Softscape, a hosted solution — or ”software as service” — provider with over a decade of experience, has come to market with a new human capital management solution suite, Softscape Apex, that integrates the administrative and performance aspects of managing your employees and overall workforce. Softscape is not new to providing these solutions: over 1.7 million of their customers’ employees across the globe are already using their applications.

Their new human capital solution suite, Softscape Apex, delivers workforce process management for key phases of the workforce lifecycle, including recruitment, hiring, benefits, compensation, learning, and development. In addition, the solution delivers capabilities for workforce analysis, collaboration, and planning. The workforce process management component is connected to a common talent and position identity profile. This release provides increased functionality and also delivers critical management and performance improvement applications, including Workforce Analytics, Workforce Planning, Workforce Collaboration and a core HR Management solution. Ventana Research believes that an employee process and workforce performance approach will provide organizations with the best leverage of their human capital.

Market Impact
The market for solutions that include workforce automation and workforce performance continues to consolidate and challenge the traditional ERP and HRMS approaches. Leveraging the “software as a service” or hosted approach — compared to an on-premise or install-it model — has provided Softscape continued growth and success. While the market consolidates, there are only a handful of providers, including Softscape, that are aggressively looking to lead the market in workforce management and compete against on-premise HRMS providers Lawson, Oracle, and SAP. Ventana Research believes Softscape is well positioned for success with a strong customer base, mature organization, and its new solution, Softscape Apex. Softscape is poised to assist organizations in the automation and performance aspects of human capital management.

Recommendation
Organizations looking for a simpler approach to managing their human capital efficiently should examine Softscape. The new solution suite from Softscape addresses critical issues with existing HRMS providers who have not aligned their applications into a simplified and on-demand approach to workforce process and performance. Softscape’s software as a service model saves time and costs compared to on-premise HRMS approaches. Softscape has provided industry leadership over the last 10 years, with over a million of their customers’ employees already online, enabling organizations to leverage their human capital in an efficient and effective manner. Ventana Research believes the on-demand and pay-as-you-need approach is becoming the new model for workforce management solutions.

Mark Smith is CEO & Senior Vice President of Research at Ventana Research.

Ventana Research is the preeminent research and advisory services firm helping our clients maximize stakeholder value with Performance Management throughout their organizations. Putting research in a business and IT context we provide insight and education on the best practices, methodologies and technologies that enable our clients to leverage assets to understand, optimize, and align strategies and processes to meet their goals and objectives.