UNIFIED TALENT MANAGEMENTUNIFIED TALENT MANAGEMENT

THE CORNERSTONE DIFFERENCE

UNIFIED TALENT MANAGEMENT

In a market that has markedly shifted over the last few years towards large,

generalist ERP suites and mixed delivery models, it has become quite clear

that Cornerstone OnDemand is truly different. Different by design. Different

by delivery.

Cornerstone OnDemand is the leading best-of-breed, organically grown Talent Management

solution on the market today - not a distant ancestor of a clunky ERP system that was built to

do something other than manage, measure and retain your people. Since 1999, Cornerstone’s

software has been delivered via the cloud and has impacted end-users throughout the

employee lifecycle.

The lumbering ERP companies have taken to offering talent management solutions that

have been cobbled together from mergers and acquisitions of the last few years. They are

“reconciling their software portfolios” and patching it all together with ‘middleware’ and ‘custom

integrations’. Some of us believe that these labels are really just cosmetics that give the

appearance of modernization and the look of a true cloud application. Do not be fooled.

Executives and HR technology managers will learn from this whitepaper what the difference and

benefits between having a truly organic and unified suite of talent management applications is

versus a costly integrated piece-by-pieced system that is just labeled ‘cloud’.

INTRODUCTION

Lots of analysts speculate that this market will become dominated by the ERP providers. Not true. I firmly believe this market is far too big and moving far too fast for the ERP providers to dominate. Yes, we all want our talent management tools integrated into our other core HR systems - but the “space” is moving too fast for ERP vendors to keep up. Not only are there 200+ LMS vendors today, but we predict an explosion of new tools for social recruiting, sourcing, analytics, real-time engagement and feedback, and social recognition. These HR software categories will all eventually “converge” into the talent management system, keeping the market exciting and alive.

JOSH BERSIN

UNIFIED TALENT MANAGEMENT

THE STATE OF THE TALENT MANAGEMENT INDUSTRYMoving to the CloudTraditionally, enterprise software has been installed and run on servers on the physical premises

of the buyer. That was the way that software was bought and sold in the 1980s and 1990s, for the

most part. However in recent years, companies worldwide have been switching to cloud-based

software. This is especially true in the talent management and HR technology industry, in which a

majority of companies have switched to using software-as-a-service (SaaS) or some combination

of SaaS and on-premise solutions. This growing demand for cloud solutions is putting pressure

on software vendors to not only innovate their products faster, but also to switch their business

and deployment models. As a result, in a rush to add new capabilities to their solutions, many

vendors have scrambled to acquire new technologies rather than take the time to develop these

in-house. And sometimes that approach makes sense, but it almost always comes at a price.

Racing to ConsolidateThis vendor race to add new features and solutions to existing

product portfolios has led to massive consolidation in the HR

technology market in the past few years. The consolidation of

the industry has had profound implications on the usability and

flexibility of the products vendors offer. Acquired applications are

often only lightly integrated into the vendor’s legacy applications.

After all, it is very challenging to take an acquired company and

successfully and elegantly merge both its product set and existing

corporate culture into an existing organization.

The problem is that buyers are too often left with disparate user experiences and data models

that do not provide easy access to needed information, making it difficult to roll out new

applications and programs consistently across the entire organization. Integrating software is

hard work and sometimes it simply doesn’t work. Too often the merged product presents the

buyer with inconsistent user interfaces and reporting functionalities, and generates challenges

to user adoption.

40%

of companies are only considering cloud-based

solutions for their new HRMS

UNIFIED TALENT MANAGEMENT

UNIFIED MATTERS:THE CORNERSTONE DIFFERENCEOne Comprehensive SuiteIf integrating two software solutions under the same platform is a difficult process, you can

imagine that patching together a collection of old and new software tools, offered via old and

new delivery models (hosted, private cloud, hybrid cloud, SaaS, behind-the-firewall, etc.) is

downright scary. And not just for the company trying to do it – the buyer of such systems faces

a range of challenges too. Often times, even after the solutions have been integrated (what the

big software companies sometimes refer to as “portfolio reconciliation” – you don’t want to be

part of that, do you?), the final product is composed of a hodgepodge of different user interfaces

spread out in separate databases, negatively affecting the end-user experience and limiting both

the functionality and flexibility of the product. It’s just the nature of the beast. You can’t cram it all

together and expect it to be pretty.

Cornerstone provides a completely different way

of thinking about this. Ours is a unified suite that

eliminates costly upgrades, complex hybrid delivery

models, and messy integrations.

Cornerstone is not a Frankenstein patchwork of old software systems; it’s simply one

comprehensive talent management system delivery only one way, via the Cloud. It provides

a consistent user interface with single sign-on that does not require users to switch between

multiple systems, enabling organizations to manage the full employee lifecycle in one reliable

technology and gain a global view into the competencies and skills of their talent.

All within a single platform, users can perform key employee management functions including

recruiting, training and development, performance management, succession management,

compensation, and workforce collaboration. Only such a fully unified platform can deliver

consistent processes, visibility, greater usability, and supply a holistic view of the organization.

Scary Legacy Software Vendor Term:

“portfolio reconciliation”(you don’t want to be part of that, do you?)

UNIFIED TALENT MANAGEMENT

One Consistent User InterfaceIntegrated solutions often have disparate user interfaces that change from module to module.

Major disconnects between the interfaces for different devices and applications require users to

learn new ways to interact with the product as they switch from one application to another. Users

tend to apply rules they learn elsewhere; therefore, with inconsistent interfaces, users can easily

get confused as to how to complete certain functions.

Cornerstone addresses these adoption challenges with a single, consistent user interface.

If you’re doing one thing in performance management, doing a similar thing in the learning

management system will seem awfully familiar. Creating consistency in layout and design

facilitates efficiency as users feel more comfortable and are able to transfer knowledge and skills

learned from one part of the product to other parts. For end users, a consistent interface not

only offers a major productivity boost, but also reduces the learning curve and amount of training

needed for employees to use the product effectively.

One Upgrade and Maintenance PathGenerally, integration forges a dependency between applications,

producing a rigid architecture that is difficult to modify and maintain.

Applications built on different platforms require multiple upgrade

and maintenance paths, which can have profound implications for

the flexibility and scalability of the product. Within an integrated

system, changes and upgrades made in one application often

require modifications to the other applications.

With Cornerstone, all customers are all on one release and one code base. This singularity

allows Cornerstone to move as fast as business and technological innovations occur, which

allows organizations to take advantage of new features much faster than the traditional upgrade

process – increasing their business agility and scalability. As other talent management vendors

are burdened with complicated integrations and rush to catch up with migration paths and hybrid

approaches, Cornerstone continues to move forward and innovate.

One Data Model While it is important for data to flow seamlessly from application to application, often times with

acquired technology the data is housed in separate databases – fragmenting and segregating

valuable enterprise data into different cloud and data silos. Without integration, organizations are

forced to manually enter data into multiple applications – a process that is both ineffective and

error-prone. As a result, managers are left without the visibility, agility and flexibility they need to

make critical business decisions.

With Cornerstone,all customers are all onone release

andone code base

UNIFIED TALENT MANAGEMENT

Cornerstone provides reporting and analytics all in one place, delivering a comprehensive view

into the whole talent picture and enabling managers to access relevant workforce insights when

and where they need it. With its unified platform, Cornerstone eliminates the need for complex

data integrations between applications. Data does not reside in an array of different databases

and systems, so all data is seamlessly shared between the different modules. Reports are not

only consistent, easy to build, and simple to use, but also available through any access point

throughout the suite.

With all employee data unified in one platform and database, organizations have visibility into all

aspects of their workforce, enabling them to advance from just reporting numbers to analyzing

the data and proving value back to the business. Having data an organization needs at the point

of decision reduces administrative time, allowing organizations to make faster and more informed

business decisions.

Pure SaaS

As more and more organizations embrace cloud computing,

SaaS has emerged as the preferred model for technology

today. Vendors who have made their name selling on-premise

software are now looking to add SaaS solutions to their portfolio.

However, this growing use of SaaS and other cloud services

leads to new integration challenges as vendors have to integrate

these new SaaS solutions to their existing on-premise solutions.

Managing applications running both on-premise and in the

cloud is not easy. Without an effective integration strategy, SaaS

applications can create inefficiencies rather than make business

processes more effective.

Cornerstone was developed in the cloud since day one. Its pure SaaS architecture eliminates

the need for complicated integrations and hybrid solutions, offering several advantages over

traditional enterprise applications. Cloud computing removes the need for organizations to

deploy large infrastructure and to make upfront commitment of resources. This not only helps to

reduce IT costs, but also mitigates risk. SaaS applications are also low maintenance as it takes

minimal effort to execute and deploy and upgrades and maintenance are transparently and

automatically handled by the vendor.

Cornerstonewas developed

in the cloudsince

day one

UNIFIED TALENT MANAGEMENT

CASE IN POINT: HOW CORNERSTONE COMPARES

Hardware and software were not engineered to work

together. There are complex issues with customizations,

service packs, and version control. Not all systems are

created equal or modern enough to address modern

end-users. Disperse software and hardware shouldn’t be

lumped together with expensive database technologies.

HR teams should have the purchasing power to know

exactly what their employees need to succeed.

One comprehensive system that acts like one product is

the very best way to deliver and measure the impact of your

talent management technology on the workforce. With four

product releases a year, high-availability up-time, a secure

data model, Cornerstone’s unified model makes sense.

An integrated system is composed of multiple

components that must be carefully fitted

together to achieve the required functionality.

This implies running many different servers

and databases alongside some middleware

that ties the whole thing together.

• Custom Coding

• Multi Delivery Models

• Versioning

• Some Customization, Integration Projects

A unified system acts as ‘one’ seamless

system that shares data, object models,

people information and actions across

multiple applications/modules. This implies

running ‘one’ program that is experienced

wholly from one interface.

• One Object Model

• True Multi-Tenancy

• One Version

• Highly Configurable, Scalable

Integrated Unified

Unified

Fragmented

Secure

Complex

4 Releases

Many Releases

SAP and Oracle

Cornerstone OnDemand

UNIFIED TALENT MANAGEMENT

Unified Talent Management in Action: Kelly Services Case Study

Kelly Services is a leader in the temporary staffing industry, providing more than 530,000 skilled

temporary workers for employers around the world. Previously, Kelly Services used 18 different

Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS). When the company decided to replace its outdated,

on-premise Learning Management System and establish a new talent management organization,

its HR team realized it needed to transition from siloed learning and HR processes to a unified

talent management strategy.

The company employs 700,000 employees; serves 150,000 customers; and operates 2,300

offices in 26 countries. To better engage and empower both its own workforce and those of the

organization that it serves, Kelly Services sought a solution that had global capabilities, full suite

functionality, and improved the end user experience. Cornerstone’s Software-as-a-Service model

appealed to Kelly because of the cost savings and speed on implementation.

With Cornerstone, Kelly Services has been able to better enable and empower its employees

with its unified talent management strategy. The recruiting and onboarding modules have helped

the company increase retention and productivity among new hires – decreasing turnover from 15

percent to 3 percent over a two pilot program in a six-month period. Kelly’s online learning center

better enables employees by helping them identify relevant courses and action steps for further

development. Cornerstone Performance has given the company the infrastructure and processes

it needed to align company goals with employees’ career development needs. And the company

has increased its leadership pipeline by building the right bench strength with the help of

Cornerstone Succession. All of these things provide direct value to the business; within 11 months

of deployment, the company is on track to recoup costs in year one.

About Cornerstone OnDemand

Cornerstone OnDemand is a leader in cloud-based applications for talent management. The

company’s solutions help organizations recruit, train, manage and engage their employees,

empowering their people and increasing workforce productivity. Based in Santa Monica,

California, the company’s solutions are used by over 1,800 clients worldwide, spanning more

than 15.5 million users across 191 countries and 42 languages.

To learn more about Cornerstone, visit csod.com, twitter.com/CornerstoneInc

and facebook.com/CSODcommunity