The next big shift is data-driven decision-making

Adam Miller is the founder and CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand. Since starting the company in 1999, Miller has led Cornerstone through nearly 14 years of consecutive growth. In this Big Interview, we talk to Adam about his journey of being at the helm of one of the world’s leading Software-as-a-Service companies and the state of the HR technology market.

You have your degree in finance and travelled the world for two years. How did you end up starting a business in the HR space?

I started the company in 1999 with the belief that we could help people realize their potential and contribute to educating the world. And because of my travels, I realized that our mission didn’t only apply to the U.S., but to the whole world. People across the globe desire to have a better life for themselves and their children, and often the best way to do that is through education.

We didn’t really set out to be a talent management company. When we started, the focus was on online education. However, the clients with whom we were designing the product needed training to be based on how people were performing, which meant they needed the ability to assess performance. Some needed training to be based on the requirements for a particular job or industry, which required onboarding functionality. And clients also wanted the ability to leverage their executive programs for those people who are most likely to be their successors, which meant they needed the tools to identify who those high potential employees were. Pretty quickly, we moved from offering just learning and development to offering a full suite of talent management tools. We found that most businesses are doing various talent management functions in silos. But, the reality is that people think and act holistically and therefore need to be managed holistically. Hence, there is a need for organizations to have a unified view of talent management and to think about every aspect of how they are hiring, developing, managing and engaging their people.

What are the major trends in technology, especially HR technology, that you have seen emerge in the last couple of years?

The first trend would be the enterprise shift from on-premise computing to cloud computing. The second would be the advent of the smartphone. Mobile computing not only became popular, but it has already surpassed wired computing. Now, there are more mobile devices than desktops. In places like India, there has been no comparison between the amount of internet activity happening on phones vs. PCs. This has led to changing behaviors and expectations. Over the past few years, people have become used to elegantly designed software in their personal lives-technology that looks good,is easy to use and doesn’t require user manuals. However, when they used devices for work, most enterprise software and technology seemed out of date or obsolete by comparison. This has triggered a major transformation in enterprise software, from something that companies force people to use to do their jobs, to something that employee are adopting and using in the same way they are using consumer applications.

The third major trend impacting HR technology is Big Data. It’s the next big wave in computing. Because of Cloud computing and mobile, we have ended up with an enormous amount of data. Now, with new database clustering and machine learning technologies, we have the ability to gain insight – and drive decision making – from this data. And when you apply machine learning to Big Data, you end up with interesting outcomes that can help companies predict the future.

When you see the readiness of Indian companies when it comes to adopting technology vis-à-vis U.S., how do you see that?

In some ways, the Indian market has leap-frogged the U.S. market in terms of tech adoption. For example, use of mobile phones and smartphones in India seems much higher than in the U.S. In India, there is also a very clear emphasis from early elementary education on Math, Science and Technology, whereas in the U.S. there is an enormous challenge in getting young people interested in STEM. Hence, in India, you have a generation of people being prepared to take technology jobs in a market that is becoming more and more technological. In the U.S., we are not seeing this same generation of people rising up with the background of these technological skills to take up engineering jobs.

What kind of impact is technology having on skills of HR professionals?

While most people are becoming more comfortable with technology, it has become even more essential for HR professionals to be proficient in modern technologies. The HR function has been using technology for some time now, as businesses shifted from manual to automated people management processes. Today, most recruiting is happening by leveraging Cloud computing, as is performance management and learning & development. We will continue to see these types of technological shifts in all aspects of the HR function, especially with the emergence of Big Data and mobile in talent management.

What advice would you give to the upcoming entrepreneurs in the HR technology space?

To be a good entrepreneur is not just about having an idea. To succeed, you have to have passion and persistence, and you have to be able to persuade people to come along with you on the journey. You need the passion because every entrepreneurial journey is a roller-coaster. You have to be passionate to be able to deal with the downturns. You need to be persistent because it often takes longer than you think it will when you start your entrepreneurial journey. So you have to be willing to keep trying. And you need the power of persuasion because you need to get people to give you money, time and, in some cases, to give you their career and trust. That’s a challenge. Having these three skills are incredibly important for any entrepreneur.

If you are looking to make a quick buck, then you are likely to make bad decisions, not build the organization to last. It is critical to take the time to nurture and grow the organization for success in the long-term. When building a company to last, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind. First and foremost is that organizational culture matters. You either have a culture by accident or a culture by design. Culture is what keeps organizations, especially smaller businesses, cohesive. Designing a culture proactively was a priority for our company early on, and it is something that we continuously work on to ensure that, as we grow globally, we maintain that culture across the entire organization. The second is focus. It is often hard as an entrepreneur to see opportunities all around you and decide where to focus your efforts. But if you are not focused, and this applies to a new company, unit or even department, you are not going to be successful at any of these opportunities that you see in front of you. And third, you need to infuse the passion you have for your venture into everyone around you.

Going forward, how do you see the HR technology market developing?

The HR technology market as a whole is growing dramatically. We believe there are globally 400 million potential seats in cloud-based talent management. Today, the industry has filled only 75 million seats. So, there is tremendous room for growth. HR technology can be used in any industry and in any region, and not just for corporations but for governments, schools, universities and non-profits – all of whom have people to manage. The next big shift really is data-driven decision-making and the shift from tools that manage processes and engagement to data-driven technologies that will help organizations and HR leaders to make more informed decisions, such as where to recruit, whom to hire, what career path an employee should have, what training should a person take, or what is the right way to reward people. So, machine learning and big data are really going to transform the way HR technology works over the next few years.