According to IT market researcher IDC, the top five suppliers of HR systems in the UK today are Northgate, SAP, Midland HR, Oracle and PeopleSoft.

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1 Software - All systems go (Jan 06) 01/01/06 At first glance it isn't always easy to distinguish between one HR system or systems provider and another. Sally Flood looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the biggest four in the market. At their best, software packages can relieve much of the HR department's administrative burden by automating routine processes such as holiday requests and providing companies with a single set of data on their employees. But it doesn't have to end there. Most can also be extended with modules to manage a variety of more sophisticated and value-adding processes, from online recruitment to e-learning and staff self-service. According to IT market researcher IDC, the top five suppliers of HR systems in the UK today are Northgate, SAP, Midland HR, Oracle and PeopleSoft. This will soon be reduced to four when Oracle begins to merge with PeopleSoft in But how do organisations go about choosing the best HR package for their business? 'It's not easy to be a customer today,' admits Bo Lykkegaard, an industry analyst with IDC. 'The top five vendors offer broadly the same features, and it isn't always easy to differentiate between them.' One piece of advice is to be very clear about what you need before meeting potential suppliers. 'Decide what process you're looking to drive, what information you want to capture, and what you will do with that information,' advises Allan Boroughs, a partner with HR consulting and systems integration group Orion Partners. 'You should then have a good list of requirements to show any supplier.' Also consider whether a vendor has experience in your particular market, and whether a product can be customised to meet your particular payroll processes and HR quirks. 'For example, SAP has a strong presence in retail and banking, but Midland perhaps has more experience in local government,' says Boroughs. 'When you look at the sorts of organisations HR systems providers have worked with, though, SAP is very strong in large enterprises, while Midland has traditionally been strongest in the mid-market.' To help readers choose a system that meets their organisation's specific needs, Human Resources highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the UK's biggest suppliers. CASE STUDY: CALYON Project: Integration of two dedicated HR systems and separate databases that existed premerger with the new company's financial system Provider: Oracle Benefits: Time saved through the automation of previously manual tasks; and the ability to produce reports, for example, on absence, not available under the old systems Calyon is a corporate and investment bank formed by the merger of two French banks in It employs 18,000 people in 60 countries.

2 Following the merger, the bank decided to look for a new, company-wide HR platform. Although both banks had dedicated HR systems in place, Calyon wanted an e-hr solution that would integrate with the company's new financial systems, explains Nigel Carter, the bank's director of group HR. 'We had a lot of legacy systems and two competing HR database systems, plus a new Oracle financial system.' Calyon chose Oracle, because it appeared to offer far more functionality than competing products in the same price bracket. Calyon has an Oracle 11i database module and additional HR-specific modules including compensation, absence management, recruitment and self-service. The bank's own IT staff worked with a team of specialist consultants, Symatrix, to help install the Oracle package, completing the development necessary to customise and integrate the Oracle HR suite with other software packages running in the business. The rollout took over 12 months - much of this time was taken up moving employee data from the two legacy systems into the new database. Integrating this data and ensuring errors weren't introduced to the new system was extremely challenging, says Carter. 'Because we're a new company, we had lots of new appointments, new job titles and lots of other changes,' he explains. 'It was time-consuming making sure that they were all accurately reflected in the new system.' Using an integrated ERP suite such as Oracle will ultimately save time, however, by allowing Calyon to automate many HR processes that used to be performed manually. For example, when a new employee joined the bank, they used to fill out a paper form which would be sent to payroll and HR administrators, who would enter the information into two separate spreadsheets. With Oracle HR, information can be entered by the employee and automatically distributed to the relevant HR and payroll teams. Workflow features in the software ensure that once information has been processed by one department, it is updated and automatically sent to the next person. Oracle has also proved to be highly flexible, says Carter. 'For example, we have an employee share scheme and the data on that was kept in spreadsheets until very recently. But then we realised we could do it in Oracle even though there isn't a specific module.' Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the system is its reporting capability, Carter believes. The bank is now able to quickly generate reports on absence management, for example, that were not possible under the old system. Where Carter would like to see some improvement is in the support the bank has received from Oracle itself. 'If there is a big problem, and there have been one or two, we do have to get in touch with Oracle,' says Carter. 'Sometimes, the response is great, but at other times it's not that quick. Overall, I'd say it has been reasonable.' NORTHGATE HR Product: ResourceLink Clients: University of East Anglia, include Mencap, Brunel University, Cumbria County Council Strengths: Ease of implementation - claims HR can install the system itself Weaknesses: Its functionality is unlikely to meet all the needs of a large or highly distributed company ResourceLink is an integrated HR and payroll system with various add-on modules such as e- recruitment, training and expense management. As an integrated product, data can be used across all Northgate modules. Northgate is particularly strong in the public sector, which accounts for around 60% of its customers, says Chris Britton, the company's head of product strategy. One of the reasons for this is that the company has sector-specific content which can be incorporated to meet the more unusual needs of employers such as universities or local authorities.

3 The company prides itself on its speed of implementation, and believes this gives it the edge over its biggest competitor - Oracle. 'We've designed the product so you don't need IT knowledge for the customisation,' says Britton. 'It's possible for the people who do the HR job to install the software themselves.' It does, however, have its critics. Some say that its functionality is unlikely to meet all the needs of a large or highly distributed company. Recently Northgate has turned its attention to the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market, with a new version of ResourceLink, called Streamlined Edition, that focuses purely on payroll without any of the extra modules found in its parent product. For 2006 it is looking to extend its self-service features to offer more control over employee data, and a new KPI reporting tool. Further ahead, it is planning to introduce more Human Capital Management (HCM) modules. SAP Product: ERP; mysap ERP to be released later this year Clients: Barclays, HBOS, include Inland Revenue Strengths: Ability to cope with the needs of large organisations Weaknesses: Cumbersome implementation process; lingering reputation for going over time and budget SAP has always had a reputation for being a particularly cumbersome and complex piece of software - in recent years, some companies have revealed that their SAP rollouts have gone unexpectedly over time and budget. However, this reputation doesn't necessarily reflect reality, argues Mark O'Dowd, a solution principal with SAP. 'I think that there is always a lot of business change around any ERP implementation, and there can be problems - but they are usually project management and process change problems, not connected with the software,' he says. Certainly, customers including Barclays, HBOS and the Inland Revenue have successfully rolled out SAP HR systems. Today, 9,000 customers use the system globally, and its technology is responsible for handling the HR needs of some 50 million staff within those customer sites. The latest SAP product, mysap ERP, is already being used by 150 customers, and will be released to the market later in the year. The key features, the company claims, will be improved self-service features and a new HR interaction centre, which will enable companies to create contact centres for HR services. Another new development is the release of Mendocino - a joint development between SAP and Microsoft. Mendocino allows users to access SAP HR functions through Microsoft front-office applications, such as Outlook or Excel. 'For example, it means you can put in a holiday request from your Office calendar, or book time against a particular order number,' explains O'Dowd. MIDLAND HR Product: Trent HR Clients: Severn Trent Water and include University of East London Strength: Best suited to organisations of 250+ employees; offers all the usual HR modules as a single fully-integrated product Weaknesses: Not as flexible as larger packages offered by its competitors

4 Midland HR is one of the longest-established HR system providers in the UK market, with a history of providing some of the first electronic payroll solutions. Today, the company's Trent HR package is one of the best-selling in local government and education. Current customers include Severn Trent Water and the University of East London. Personnel and legislation adviser Neil Tonks claims that what makes Midland HR's offering different from the competition is that it is a completely new product. 'Many HR products on the market are extensions of older ones designed to do totally different things,' he explains. Trent offers all the usual HR modules, but as a single, fully-integrated product with no interfaces required to add new modules or move data from one place to another. Midland is strongest in the medium-sized market, with most customers having 250+ employees. The company also sells to small businesses, using a managed service model. Although the product is reputed not to be as flexible as larger packages from the likes of Oracle and PeopleSoft, Trent is available in a number of configurations designed to meet the needs of different sectors. For 2006, Midland's priority is improving its human capital management functions. This is in response to customer demand for better proof of value from HR departments, says Tonks. In addition, Trent now includes pre-built links into popular business intelligence products from Cognos and Business Objects. ORACLE UK Product: Oracle 11i Clients: National Health Service, include British Airways, Lloyds TSB Strengths: Breadth of offering - extended modules, such as learning management, recruitment and reporting Weaknesses: Lack of flexibility - will only run on an Oracle database According to IDC, Oracle 11i is currently the world's most popular HR software application - a position that has been strengthened by the company's recent acquisition of PeopleSoft. However, the two companies will maintain separate HR systems for a couple of years, according to Vince Smallhorne, head of workforce excellence with Oracle UK. That means customers of Oracle 11i will be able to upgrade to the latest version of its database and software this year. Oracle currently has around 415 customers in the UK, ranging from the NHS to British Airways and Lloyds TSB. Although its usual customers are typically large enterprises, the company is beginning to focus more aggressively on the mid-market. The key strength of its technology is the breadth of its offering, claims Smallhorne. As far as HR and payroll is concerned, it is the extended modules such as learning management, time and labour and reporting that differentiates 11i. But unlike the other top vendors, Oracle HR will only run on an Oracle database which, critics argue, limits flexibility. From 2008, Oracle HR will begin its merger process, as part of the Fusion project. PeopleSoft used to be Oracle's biggest competitor in the HR market, with around 200 UK customers including Dixons, M&S and Unilever. The next release of PeopleSoft, version 9.0, will be the last before the product is merged in 2008 into Oracle's ERP platform. 'The aim is to keep the best features of PeopleSoft's HR product,' says Smallhorne. 'Customers tell us that they really like the look and feel of it, as well as its usability.'

5 CASE STUDY: J D WETHERSPOON Project: Replacement of a series of different outdated payroll systems with an integrated HR and payroll service Supplier: Northgate Benefits: Less chance of error now that everything is generated from a single database; additional functionality with self-service and recruitment modules makes it more of a business system When pub chain J D Wetherspoon had to replace an outdated payroll system, the company chose Northgate's ResourceLink to run its new HR and payroll services. The decision was based not only on the cost of Northgate's offering, but also the fact that the product is integrated, says Wetherspoons' payroll and training systems administrator Sarah Flood. 'We have a lot of part-time and weekly paid employees in different locations, so having integrated HR and payroll is a real bonus,' she explains. With an integrated system, there is also considerably less room for error, and all reports are generated from a single database. 'Before ResourceLink we had a lot of different systems with duplicated or inaccurate data,' she adds. The pub chain chose ResourceLink almost five years ago, and at that time, there was much less choice of products on the market, Flood says. It looked first at SAP but the company was a very new entrant in the HR market at that time, whereas Northgate had a strong track record and lots of customer references. 'We wanted something strong on payroll, so Northgate was the best option,' she adds. Since Wetherspoons first rolled out ResourceLink, the functionality of the product has improved enormously, says Flood. In particular, the company values the new self-service and web recruitment modules. 'The product is now more in line with our business practices,' she explains. 'Rather than just routine HR processes, it's much more of a business system.' Having a good relationship with the provider is key, she says. 'Having worked with us for such a long time, Northgate knows our business processes and understands our strategic aims.' Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Human Resources 01/01/06