Plateau Systems, a leading provider of enterprise-class SaaS solutions for talent management, and Saugatuck Technology, a research and advisory firm focused on emerging IT markets, today announced the results of a survey of more than 200 human resource (HR) executives that showed that HR is quickly moving to SaaS and Cloud-based solutions to meet their key business challenges and as a means of closing the effectiveness gaps that currently exist between HR priorities and HR systems. Survey results also revealed that executives view support and implementation costs as the most important business considerations when selecting a SaaS or Cloud-based solution provider, underscoring their desire to see a larger focus on 'services' with SaaS solutions.
"It is clear from this research that HR is broadly adopting SaaS solutions to help them meet their business objectives," said Jeff Kristick, senior vice president of marketing at Plateau. "It is equally clear that not all SaaS solutions and vendors are created equal. We partnered with Saugatuck Technology to explore these issues, and found that not only is HR headed to the cloud, but also that, importantly, HR executives identify 'Service' -- a component they find to be lacking in many SaaS HR solutions -- as the most important consideration when evaluating SaaS solutions."
The survey was conducted between January and February 2010, and included 226 HR and IT executives and professionals. Seventy percent of survey respondents were employed by companies with more than 5,000 employees, with 35 percent of respondents reporting that they worked for companies with more than 10,000 employees. More than 65 percent of survey respondents were based in the United States, 17 percent were from continental Europe, and the remainder were from Asia.
According to survey data, respondents believe the following business challenges will have the greatest impact on their organization's human resources organization over the next two years: organizational change and transformation; addressing the skills gap; reducing overall labor costs; and leveraging technology to improve business performance. Unfortunately, survey data revealed that HR executives believe their current HR systems are falling short of helping them meet those goals, resulting in a significant "effectiveness gap" between HR priorities and the abilities of existing HR systems. The survey showed that the largest effectiveness gaps exist among the most important HR priorities, including those related to acquiring and retaining key talent (effectiveness gap of 26 percent), managing talent (effectiveness gap of 28 percent), and performance (effectiveness gap of 29 percent).
