“Digital Darwinism is unkind to those who wait”

The focus is moving from products to experiences, services to outcomes. Organizations are evolving and moving to serve the requirements of people – consumers, candidates and employees – by leveraging technological advances that make it possible to build capabilities from the people perspective and from the enterprise or functional perspective. Holger Mueller, VP & Principal Analyst of Constellation Research in one of his keynotes during the Cornerstone Converge India 2017, shares what business leaders need to focus on in an era when digital disruption is affecting talent management and HR technology:

Digital winners-take-all. Companies leading in the digital business model take 69.8% of market share and 77.1% of profits. Since the year 2000, 52+% of the Fortune 500 Firms have been wiped out and the average lifespan of a company has come down from 75 years in 1957 to 10 years in 2013. The new formula for the future enterprise — Identify how fast can your people learn? How fast you can adapt to new technology? — and keep the speed of the enterprise to adapt, faster than the rate of change.

Don’t Skate where the puck is; skate where it will be. Today, the business ecosystem is moving to an inflection point and in the future, technology capabilities will be the most important drivers for capturing business opportunities. Investing in the digital presence and leading digital transformation of the businesses will be the primary goals of organizations.

Next Gen Application architecture. What will be the next gen HCM solution? From incredible scale that comes from technology as data becomes less inexpensive to the quantum computing that is revolutionizing how technology runs and AI enabled solutions that are revolutionizing employee self -services and enterprise service as we know it, the next set of HCM solutions will drive modern platforms forward for employees and employers alike.

Drivers for HR Acceleration. Holger shared 9 areas that will be the main drivers for accelerating the HR function. The core foundation will be Business & User centricity — relevancy for the customer and the business, and enabling employees to generate higher business impact.

As a talent leader, look for vendors who can help you stay ahead. It is critical for organizations to understand that the rate of change of technology is faster than the business rate of change. Holger reflected on the criticality of organizations to incorporate emerging technologies into their products to remain relevant and solve business challenges. AI and Machine Learning have changed the way software is developed — legacy systems only work when the user “shows up”, but next generation software will work even when the user doesn’t “show up”.

HR has moved from paper to technology and is empowering itself and the organizations to make better decisions and better people leaders. The next stage now will be to make “people better” as Holger calls it “People Software” – people are built from people perspective, and not from enterprise or HR function perspective.

(Excerpts from Analyst Keynote Session by Holger Mueller, Constellation Research at Cornerstone Converge India 2017 where People Matters was Knowledge Partner.)