Before buying any HR technological solution, one of the most important questions HR and business leaders need to ask themselves is that which channel of deployment would be suitable for them. The deployment preference of most of the users is spread across two options, On-premise and Cloud.  And it’s important to distinguish between the two to find out which is the one relevant to your organizational need. In fact, the State of HR transformation Study 2017 shows that channels are critical to technology satisfaction as well. While accessing the satisfaction level of users across, it was highlighted that in the APAC region, when it comes to technology adoption, on-premise deployment takes satisfaction levels to only 59 percent. On the other hand, the satisfaction levels of respondents using cloud deployment is as high as 69 percent. 

When satisfaction levels of the respondents are judged on various parameters of technology adoption, the study found that highly satisfied organizations tend to rate both On-Premise and Cloud platforms similarly. But when it comes to highly dissatisfied organizations, Cloud deployments score very low.

This is reflected further in the infographic below: 

Source: State of HR transformation Study 2017

There are a few questions that arise with these stats. Firstly, why respondents utilizing cloud deployment are more satisfied with the technology than the ones using on-premise? What are the pros and cons of these two options? And what aspects should be kept in mind while choosing a suitable and appropriate deployment channel?

In a recent interview with People Matters, Merle Chen, Chief Talent Officer of The Lo & Behold Group, shared some aspects of on-premise and public cloud solutions which can help decision leaders choose the one that suits their requirements. Here is what she said: 

“Generally, Cloud or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions are easier to activate with a shorter set-up time whereas building on-premise infrastructure may take longer.”

On-premise solutions tend to be a lot more expensive to design, build and maintain from the initial capital investment costs of hardware, network and backup systems to maintenance and upgrading of server infrastructure, firewall, security, backup and helpdesk resources.

However, depending on industry sector or geographical location, the company may have to abide by some regulatory requirements on how it uses and stores sensitive data. 

Merle Chen says that the decision rests on an evaluation of your requirements for data residency, confidentiality of data and the level of security that is appropriate for your business. For instance, if your company handles highly classified or sensitive data and maintaining the confidentiality of data is mission critical for your business, public cloud solutions may not be suitable. 

Apart from this, she talks about the consideration for scalability. She says, “As the company and its business grows, with cloud-based solutions, it is a relatively easy transition into the next bracket of its pay-as-you-go model.”

Cloud solutions are also more adaptable. With Cloud, version upgrades and customer support are usually managed by the vendor and included in the package as part of the ‘pay-as-you-go’ model. The version upgrades are made readily available and ‘pushed’ out to all clients.

It is safe to say that in the battle of on-premise vs. cloud, cloud platforms, with the ability to sustain both scale and pace of innovation will win in the coming years. The last State of HR transformation study reiterated the same and made few other predictions: 

• An increased differentiation between good vs. bad in the Cloud marketplace will be expected, and this would address current challenges of expectations mismatch and mis-sell by providers.
  
  
• Some of the existing legacy platforms will compete in the market with completely new ‘made for cloud’ platforms in the future.
  
  
• Both User Experience and Analytics will do better on Cloud Platforms because of single source data models.

These predictions were based on inputs collected from users of HR technology across APAC last year. This year with its latest State of HR Transformation Study 2018, Alight aims to throw more light on HR technology landscape in APAC region. Be a part of this learning journey and participate in Alight’s survey.  Click here to share your responses.

Image Credits: Pexels