The modern workforce requires an intuitive, easy to-use HR solution to be their most efficient. With SAP® ERP® HCM, you log in to an application
installed on your computer, and you need to know specifics such as transaction codes, Infotype numbers, and much more in order to navigate the system. With SAP SuccessFactors solutions, you log in with your Internet browser, which offers a familiar user experience and makes it easier to upskill new employees.

Everyone has expectations of self-service and mobile access to their data, and they expect it to be as easy and convenient as their personal products and apps. With SAP ERP HCM, self service is possible but requires an additional license, and there is no native mobile functionality or an app.
With SAP SuccessFactors solutions, self-service and mobile functionality are included. SAP has partnered with Apple® and Google to make our mobile apps available on the Apple App Store and Google Play™ store. This allows your
employees easy and convenient access to HR information.

Loading data into a system is a very common task (in mass hiring, acquisitions, mergers, and so on), and needs to be easy for end users. With SAP ERP HCM, it is typically a technical task to load data into the system using standard functionality, Transaction LSMW. Most organizations, however, have created custom ABAP programs to load data. This requires a programmer and typically weeks of development, especially for custom infotypes. With SAP SuccessFactors solutions, a standard admin center tool allows quick and easy
importing of information such as employee data. This includes the ability to download a template from the system. The template is automatically kept up to date, so if you add a custom field, it will also be added to this template.

Approving and keeping track of approvals is extremely important in HR. With SAP ERP HCM, the workflow task requires a highly specialized resource that understands it. Because the workflow framework is built for the entire enterprise and not HR, it has a lot of powerful options that HR does not necessarily need. In SAP SuccessFactors solutions, the approval and tracking process is an admin center activity, with a simplified user interface for creating workflows. You can develop and use dynamic roles that you can adapt on the basis of the employee data being updated. You can easily add “CC” roles and notifications to workflow contributors to keep people in the loop of certain approvals and processes, without them needing to explicitly provide approval.

Employees need to be able to see who people are in your organization. This includes departments, reporting relationships, contact information, and much more. With SAP ERP HCM, although there are add-ons to help with organizational charts, they are not intuitive to use. SAP SuccessFactors solutions offer an organizational chart that allows people to easily navigate and see who’s who. You gain org charts, which give you a bigger look at your organization, including positions that may not have an associated employee. A company structure overview allows HR to view the organization when looking at a department, division, or business unit. Lastly, you can use a standard org chart available in the Apple and Android apps for SAP SuccessFactors solutions.

Organizations need to stay on top of the latest innovations in order to remain competitive in today’s evolving job market. However, keeping
SAP ERP HCM up-to-date has meant that a technical resource needs to apply system
updates and then a technical configuration resource has to activate functionality. SAP SuccessFactors solutions are always up-to-date. This means you don’t get left behind, unable to take advantage of new functionality. In
addition, administrators can use the upgrade center, which allows you to choose and implement functionality at the pace that best fits your organization.

Organizations need to store data on employee records beyond that which is specific to them and to their industry. SAP ERP HCM typically requires a technical programmer to store custom data in the system, and in many cases, it can be a week or more of development to have the fields available on the infotype. With SAP SuccessFactors solutions, you can create custom fields on standard objects in minutes with our Configure Object Definitions admin center activity. It includes a full standard framework, including API visibility. When you need more than standard extensibility, you can also use SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) to build your own technology and product.

It is of the utmost importance to keep HR data secure, and make sure that employees see only data that they require for their job. With SAP ERP
HCM, the security framework is very flexible but extremely technical in nature, especially for HR data. There is an entire five-day course that teaches authorizations in SAP ERP HCM and typically requires a special resource who understands it. With the SAP SuccessFactors solutions, you set up the authorizations with role-based permissions (RBPs), which are intuitive and easier to work with. Simply explained, you use two main activities (Manage Permission Groups and Manage Permission Roles) to create groups (including dynamic groups) and assign authorizations that enable the groups to access the system. The layout is intuitive, with clear groupings and names. You can also take advantage of dynamic setup by position, so that employees’ authorizations can automatically be updated as they move around the organization.

The ability to take manual work out of the hands of employees by automating it is very important for HR. SAP ERP HCM provides a variety of
options for this, with the ability to use features, dynamic actions, user exits, and Business Add-Ins (BAdIs). However, automation is a technical task that could involve custom code–code that also needs to be maintained and tested during upgrades. The features cannot be date specific, and you are limited to query based on the structure of the feature. With SAP SuccessFactors solutions, you have the Configure Business Rules admin center activity to set up rules to simplify and automate data entry. This activity uses IF-THEN logic to let you do things such as defaulting values and triggering workflows or other items. You assign a rule to an object and have control over when and how it is triggered. The standard framework supports custom fields, and you can create logic for custom objects, which are automatically supported in upgrades.

A big task of HR is getting data into the system and exporting data to others who need it. With SAP ERP HCM, this very technical task almost always requires an ABAP programmer to create a custom program to get the data out of the system. It can take a developer weeks or months to create a program, and then it has to be monitored.
SAP SuccessFactors solutions have a standard tool for the integration center that provides a central place for integrations, allows the creation of inbound and outbound integration, as well as the ability to monitor integrations.It’s also important to have communication between modules, such as from recruiting to onboarding to core HR. Although SAP ERP HCM provides standard integration, it requires middleware (the SAP Cloud Integration service) to set up because it is not natively built this way.
SAP SuccessFactors solutions enable easier communication between modules. The SAP SuccessFactors suite offers innovative cloud solutions for core HR, time management, and payroll. Contact your SAP Partner for more information.