Key Takeaways from Gartner’s 2017 Magic Quadrant for Cloud HCM Suites for Midmarket and Large Enterprises

Source: Gartner Inc.

Gartner Inc., the world’s leading research and advisory company, has released their 2017 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) Suites for midmarket and large enterprises. Application leaders in work environments with over 1,000 employees and emerging global needs that are pursuing a cloud HCM strategy should use the research in this magic quadrant report to help identify vendors in the space.

In the 2017 magic quadrant for HCM suites, Gartner evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of 11 vendors that it considers most significant in the HCM market and provides readers with a graph (the Magic Quadrant) plotting the vendors based on their ability to execute and their completeness of vision. That graph is divided into four quadrants: niche players, challengers, visionaries, and leaders. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications.

The vendors featured in the report include, in alphabetical order: ADP, Ceridian, Infor, Kronos, Meta4, Oracle, Ramco Systems, SAP, Talentia Software, Ultimate Software and Workday.

Here at Solutions Review, we’ve read the report, available here, and pulled a few of the most important takeaways:

What Does an HCM Suite Consist of?

HCM suites enable core HR, payroll, talent and workforce management, and HR service delivery processes. Gartner defines cloud HCM suites as platforms that deliver functionality in order to help organizations attract, develop, engage, retain and manage their workforces. These solutions support a variety of HCM capabilities including:

• HR administrative functions: includes core HR, benefits and payroll administration.
• HR service delivery: includes direct access to policy and procedure guidance for employees and managers.
• Talent management applications: Includes recruiting, onboarding, perfomance management, compensation planning, career and succession planning, learning and development and workforce planning.
• Workforce management: includes absence management, time capture, time and attendance evaluation, task/activities tracking, budgeting and forecasting, and scheduling.

Cloud HCM suites have entered the market from many different directions, emerging via native development, acquisition or expansion into a suite offering from their roots in admin HR, workforce management or talent management.

Four Vendors Lead the Pack

The Leaders quadrant in the report is scarce this year with Workday, Ultimate Software, Oracle and SAP in close competition for the top spot. As mentioned previously, Gartner assesses a cloud HCM suite vendor’s Ability to Execute by evaluating the products, technologies, services and operations that enable it to be competitive, efficient and effective in the market, and to positively impact revenue, client satisfaction and retention, and general market reputation.

The company assesses the Completeness of Vision of cloud HCM suite vendors by evaluating their ability to successfully articulate their perspectives on current and future market direction, to anticipate customer needs and to meet competitive forces.

Cloud HCM Market Overview

As many vendors still have large on-premises installed bases that need to make decisions on how they will upgrade their HCM technology, Gartner expects that continued interest in cloud HCM suite solutions will drive considerable market activity for at least the next three to five years.

According to the report, by 2020, 30 percent of global midmarket and large enterprises will have invested in a cloud-deployed HCM suite for administrative HR and talent management, but will still need to source 20 percent to 30 percent of their HCM requirements via point solutions.

Read the full 2017 Magic Quadrant for Cloud HCM Suites for Midmarket and Large Enterprises.

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