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back to article SAP customers won't touch the fluffy stuff... so here's another on-prem HR data tool

SAP has revealed it is working on a new on-premises human capital management system, admitting that many of its customers are still not ready for the cloud. The German ERP giant had previously promised it would continue support for its existing on-premises solution, SAP ERP HCM, until 2025. But today SAP announced it was …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I have half a mind call my freelance colleagues to take over the update and maintenance of SAP HCM once SAP decide to pull the plug on it (would require 200+ people, I estimate). SAP was ahead of their time with SAPGui, experts prefer it, so why not just create a SAPGui client for tablets or even dedicated devices? Not everybody wants to go in the shroud, I mean cloud.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      SAP was ahead of their time with SAPGui, experts prefer it,

      In my experience running a large support services function, the SAP GUI is ONLY suitable for anorak wearing experts. Regular users and even functional specialists hated the thing.

      1 0 Reply
  2. Mike Dolan

    Marketing Shyte

    "solutions to accelerate their digital HR journeys"

    Can we add some more bleach to the gene pool please?

    2 0 Reply
  3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "SAP has revealed it is working on a new on-premises human capital management system, admitting that many of its customers are still not ready for the cloud."

    A more likely explanation is that the cloud isn't ready for GDPR, nor will it be. In the meantime, can whoever coined the phrase "human capital" be taken outside and quietly chloroformed?

    3 0 Reply
    1. a_yank_lurker
      Reply Icon

      @Doctor Syntax - 'In the meantime, can whoever coined the phrase "human capital" be taken outside and quietly chloroformed?'; only chloroformed how about being charged with crimes against humanity.

      1 0 Reply
      1. Wedgie
        Reply Icon

        In a number of respects the SAP cloud products are more attractive than on prem (in particular around encryption & security in general).

        It's a difficult one for SAP but one of their own making. Lots of their clients are happy with business suite & the usual add-ons. Tens of millions of people know how to use it (they may not like it but they do know it). Large customers are fully invested and have ecosystems supporting SAP. Cloudify it too much and lots of that value is lost. SAP are desperate to get hosting/support/config revenue off the SI's and into their pockets. From what I have seen customers are keen to migrate their workloads onto cloud but don't want the "reimagined innovation platform" type bollocks that SAP are peddling.

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      2. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        HCM...

        Oh, you mean Human Cattle Management?

        1 0 Reply
      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        @Yank. You clearly never met my old colleague from whom I got the phrase so maybe don't quite grasp what he meant by it.

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    2. Lysenko
      Reply Icon

      A more likely explanation is that the cloud isn't ready for GDPR, nor will it be. In the meantime, can whoever coined the phrase "human capital"

      If they were honest and said what they mean (Livestock Tracking) they could probably get around GDPR by claiming it is a Common Agricultural Policy requirement.

      3 0 Reply
  4. JP12

    Major Mistake

    In my opinion, SAP has made a major mistake with the announcement below and will ultimately regret this strategic direction.

    The bottom line is SAP has really struggled to convince their ~12,500 SAP HCM customers to move to SuccessFactors as the last provided info had ~600 out of the 2,000 SuccessFactors Employee Central customers coming from SAP HCM. Many of these customers want some assurances that SAP will continue to support SAP HCM further out than 2025 which could have easily been provided by getting agreement to move the entire Business Suite out to 2030. Instead, SAP has decided to introduce a new licensed offering called SAP HCM On-Premise for SAP S/4 HANA that will be built by 2023 and will be based on SAP HCM so they are counting on customers trusting SAP will deliver something five years from now, being willing to do an upgrade (always painful in SAP), signing up for a new license and all of this to get virtually the exact same functionality they have today and an extension of support until 2030.

    This will be a messaging nightmare for SAP, will confuse customers worldwide as explained multiple different ways depending on agenda of sales teams and partners and will be another thing competitors will use against SAP/SuccessFactors to win business

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  5. Dwarf

    Marketing dont understand customers

    "Not ready for the cloud" must not be confused with "don't want the cloud"

    2 0 Reply
  6. Rockets

    Maybe SAP clients aren't moving because SuccessFactors is a horrible product to use. I hated it when I had to use it at a company I worked at. Maybe it was our HR department's use of it but doing our yearly performance reviews & goal setting through it was not an experience I'd like to ever repeat, it was that bad.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      ****Factors

      My experience of SuccessFactors as both a report and a line manager is that it's awful, hence why it's known round here as ****Factors; one inserts an apt four letter word, the strength of which matches the level of fuckwittery that SF has managed to conjure up.

      1 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Either it was both our HR departments' use of it or neither of them. I'm inclined towards the latter.

      0 0 Reply
  7. arthoss

    Strategic importance

    As long as the armies use it, I can’t see the cloud being adopted. On premise will live for ever in some way. Maybe the new SAP HCM will be good who knows. Hana is good for services to SAPUI5 applications so I hope the conversion will really work (xpras and migration). I also hope that the license costs will not near the cloud prices, I think this is where the customers might hurt.

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  8. elip

    Just restating what others have already said. This has nothing to do with folks not being ready for the Cloud, and everything to do with how utterly terrible the SuccessFactors applications are (both to use and to support). If you only saw how they managed it all on the backend, you wouldn't believe it.

    1 0 Reply
  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here is a great comment thread on the article above.

    https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6356491043654942720

    0 1 Reply

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