It is that time of year again when our attention starts to turn to our fall activities. The kids return to school, the fall selling season starts, football is getting started and the SAP SuccessConnect 2016 conference is upon us. This week, business executives, HR leaders, technologists, partners and software leaders will all converge on Las Vegas for SuccessConnect 2016. Some attend the conference to have great conversations and network, others to learn the latest product information and some to see the big emerging themes. What better time to provide a pre-conference overview and take a look at what the hot topics will be and how they align with HR technology trends.
Many of the leaders in the HR consulting space and HR technology space are writing about new and disruptive technologies that are re-shaping the market for HR software. Common emerging or disruptive topics includes areas such as:
- Consumer like experiences with HR software
- The rise of mobile applications
- New data and analytics to support the HR professionals
- Broad adoption of cloud HR platforms
- Focus on the end user experience
- New emerging categories eg. Culture Management
So how do these trends map to some of the topics and breakouts at Success Connect? Which trend seems to have most mindshare? While not very scientific I took a quick look at the agenda builder to see which areas seemed to have the most sessions. The data and analytics sessions by far outnumber all the other hot HR technology topics. There are plenty of sessions that focus on HR efficiency, HR operations and HR self-service but in the new disruptive technology topics “Analytics” is the winner! There are very interesting customer sessions that talk about data used for analytics, leveraging workforce analytics and key insights for driving business. These types of sessions are complimented by numerous breakouts on other analytics topics such as “Shape Informed Decisions Using Analytics in HCM Solutions and SAP S/4HANA Cloud shaping informed decisions using Analytics”.
Only time will tell whether “Analytics” is the key winner for this year. But on the surface it appears to be the hot topic with the most sessions. For most organizations they have the data but need to develop a deeper understanding on how to use it. The conference is also supported by an impressive list of key note speakers including Magic Johnson and Arianna Huffington. Arianna is discussing diversity in the workplace and covering why leadership, innovation and disruption are all keys to a successful leadership. This certainly highlights the impending disruption in the HR industry and shows that it is not just about the technology but also about leadership and innovation.
See you there!
