Oracle HCM Cloud alternatives and competitors 2023 (2023)

We first deployed the employee center: It'sall the data related to the HR master data. We also embedded inside SuccessFactors all that is related to work permits because we have around seven countries in the Gulf area e.g. Oman, Qatar, and UAE. In terms of module,we care about the residency visa and labor card because it impacts the payment methods.

For our recruitment module, we also deployed this solutionand we tried to consolidate the recruitment process across all our branches, becauseeach branch has its own process. They can skip one step, but we defined it. We defined the rules in a unique way that caters to all ourbranches.

We also deployed the performance operator where we cleaned up all our job titles and assigned the correct competency in coordination with our HR directors. I did all of this inside the SuccessFactors system. Now, we are ready to go live once the top management decides to launch the performance operator. It can be the end of this year. If they're not yet ready for this system, the launch will be next year.

We also deployed the time management module for the leaves. It can be accrued or credited at the beginning of the year depending on each branch. We deployed this module to be able to track the vacation balance, sick leave balance, maternity leave, etc.

The last module we deployed is the talent and development module for setting the performance goal for each employee. We also defined the succession plan and development. We still need to identify our employees. We have 6,000 employees across all the geographies, but the platform is ready and configured.

This is only from the SuccessFactors side. From the payroll side, we deployed in UAE, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. IBM developed for us for Lebanon and Iraq because they are not standard.We also deployed it in India.These are the countries in our project scope.

From the HR side on which features were most valuable in this solution because I was responsible for the HR and payrollmodules. During the payroll in Meta4, I used to write an outside API to read the result of the payroll and dump it to another software: the accounting software. There is a GL posting that hits from GL after each payroll.

We set up this solution to automatically calculate the dry cost based on the employee's salary, the cost of the employee's and his family's visas,the medical insurance, life insurance, etc. We calculate the dry cost by discipline and by employee category or job level so that the calculations reflect on the project module. When the employee fills in the timesheet, his hourly rate reflects immediately from this intermediate calculation.

These two features are automatic.

The process for long modules needs to be improved, because compared to how it's done with a competitor (Meta4), the competitor's process was simpler.

I am satisfied with SuccessFactors,at least 85% satisfied. As for additional features that could be included in the next release,I developed a portal for life insurance. I asked for the medical insurance, but they did it for me in the HCM side, from the payroll side. It would be nice to have it in SuccessFactors because some branches, countries, or companiesmay need this info in case they want to go up to the cost of the employee, andusually any insurance cost is part of your employee cost as well.

In the HR module, yes this solution is stable.It has been three months since we ran the payroll from SuccessFactors. We are not facing any softwareissues. We are facing issues with a change mind of our users in some branches, but not in all the branches.

The initial setup of this solutionis hybrid. I don't know if it's complex because I'm not a technical person to judge, but I can tell it's hybrid. We have a cloud solution which is SuccessFactors, and we have an on-premise payroll.

SAP has an integration module called HCI that IBM helped build between these two separate solutions, one being on cloud and one beingon-premises.

I evaluated Meta4 and was able to use it for three years.

We also evaluated four software. One of them was Microsoft, but from day one, they didn't arrive and they didn't come to the demo, so it was out from day one during the vendor assessment session. We also compared Oracle, SAP, and Deltek.

We did a comparison matrix on the various requirements that we asked for from the three vendors and we evaluated those three and we compared the scores. Other modules were also compared in their scope like the project module, CRM, and finance. The highest marks went to SAP.We did the comparison mathematically.

I was in the blueprint phase since 2019, then during 2020, we did the implementation with IBM systems integrator. I was the lead on the HR modules but as functional lead, not as technical, because I played double roles. The role from my company's side is to give all the business requirements and do the testing with the IBM team. Being in the subleader role, I need to give them the requirements in their terminology because I didn't work before on SuccessFactors. I wasn't a user. I was learning while providing all the requirements, and testing.

During 2020 up to mid 2021, in August, we went live. Allow me to highlight that we went live for eight countries in scope for the Payroll HCM, and also went live for more than 12 countries in terms of SuccessFactors employee data.I am now supporting our company's HR users.

It's on cloud and I don't have access to the cloudto know which version. I need to go back to shared document.I don't have it in front of me.I think it was the most recent version becauseto be frank, even during the UAT (user acceptance testing), they stopped us for a couple of days to upgrade. I think they installed the latest version on cloud.

We have defined four or five roles as the users of this solution. The HR manager who has access to everything and all the modules. The recruiter who only has access to the recruitment module. In terms of the employee data, we defined four roles. We defined the time administrator role who's responsible for checking the leaves and following up with the leaves.The line manager is the one who approves the leave for his employee, not HR, because he is the one who knows his team more and we have people onsite for the engineering company.

We also created the HR officer role who can help in filling information related tothe new hires, or the visas, or the CVs, but he doesn't have access to the salary data. Then, we created the HR admin, who can access the salary data on top of the previous role that I listed. The last role is the payroll manager who has access to a specific screen in SuccessFactors called One Time Payment, which usually hits the payroll in the other side. For this we planned it only for the top layer, or top role, which is the HR payroll manager. This is how we manage it.

Everything related to contract terms or money, it'sour IT director who deals with it.My section is under IT corporate services.I'm aware from the communication that we have professional licenses for some, while for some, we have theregular licenses. I know this because they keep on asking me to reduce my HR users who have professional licenses, while other users will have a different license. In terms of licensing costs, I don't have that info.

You'll discover during the implementation, during theexplore phase or the document preparation, that usually an implementer can only go by the book. He doesn't accept change, even when you are not sure about the explanation.

We worked with SAP India. SAPprepared the document for the solution while the implementer was IBM.Because the IBM team was very friendly, we were analyzing again thatmaybe we committed a mistake because there was a misunderstanding with SAP India and we want this requirement. They were open to revalidating the requirement. This is a very critical stage.

The last point which I faced in my country is that it's important to have mature HR users. What made this project hectic for mewas that the HR users themselves weren't matured enoughto do the testing themselves in their branches. You need to be present in each session. My recommendation for any other country or any other company is to havemature HR end users in case of multiple branches.

I'm rating this solution an eight. It's used worldwide and meets all our requirements.

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