How should 'Employee Engagement' not be.

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140407153928-131079-why-the-concept-of-employee-engagement-has-to-change?trk=eml-ced-b-art-M-0&midToken=AQFB-NtOzfveDQ&ut=01g4KIF2MMh6c1&_mSplash=1

Talent management strategy at Infosys in a time of crisis

http://profit.ndtv.com/news/corporates/article-infosys-eyes-b-school-graduates-entry-level-engineers-to-boost-sales-margins-383109?pfrom=home-otherstories

Must Read. How Healthcare.gov was rescued

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2166770-1,00.html

Mistakes they made

 1. Keeping IT out of policy decisions.
 2. Not planning for control
 3. No steering committee/ tech managership - everyones work became no one's work.
 4. Poor load-ignorant, architecture
 5. I love Dickerson's rules.
 6. Poor, poor testing.

A First Look at Oracle HCM Fusion - part 1

So I had my first test drive on Oracle Fusion. Version 7. HCM today.
What is the segmentation and positioning of this product at this point in time - 2/10/2014 ?

Fusion is cloud-based , for the most part of its sales. The hardware cost of Fusion alone could be upto a million $. That rules out on-premise implementations for the most of us till Oracle corp does something about it. Which means only cloud versions are saleable immediately.  (And hola, by a rich coincidence , look at the slew of cloud products that Oracle has released at HCM world today !!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/oracle/2014/02/05/oracle-ups-its-hr-cloud-game-at-hcm-world/  )

However multiple factors are to be considered before we make up our minds about cloud vs on-premise and ERP vs bolt-on solutions :

1) Multi-Tenancy Issues : Security issues can be rampant for a shared database on the cloud. This is largely because they used shared schemas for different and multiple enterprises and businesses. They dont have a unique schema for every business. If users know the name of a schema (eg. APPS) and know the components of their schema and know that others could be having their data also on the same database can they get serendipitiously access to such data ? DBA's have been able to restrict access to specific schemas too along with VPN based and application login based access to data but it maybe too hard to restrict access to just one business group or enterprise within the schema.

2) Application issues - how much do existing ERP and non ERP applications support  a multi-tenancy model even if their databases become fancy enough to support multi tenancy? For eg...Taleo cannot meaningfully carry a full fledged, integrated core HR system for a multi national corporation. It can support a recruitment organization at this point. So despite its cloud and bolt-on application success  it may not be a single stop ERP. PeopleSoft, EBiz suite, JD Edwards all can support multi-org, shared service models but will possibly falter on the multi-tenancy issue. For those clients who will be satisfied with whatever security that hosted, cloud based service providers give, along with the 'coexistence' option, plug in applications like Taleo may do the job, especially for its low cost rather than a full blown ERP purchase.
Not many people know that Oracle has a 'Oracle Business Accelerators' program that deployed a powerful core HR suite pretty rapidly like the cloud application. Yet it could not take-off in the face of cloud applications . Why ? Was it because its application and database was simply not geared for virtualization and the underlying security issues ?

3) Scope : Oracle Fusion has great scope. I like many of the best practices built into the application. It has a great, robust architecture, 3 tiered which can support cloud and on-premise deployments, and deals with many application issues succesfully.
It does not have some of the rigid data integrity issues that Ebiz has. It has let go of some of the painful issues in Peoplesoft. And it has its own identity . It can manage a multi-org based, multi-tenant based setup.
However it doesnt have all the modules expected of a ERP at this point. Its hardware requirement is not affordable by everyone at this point. Hence its cloud version, aka the cheaper version, and bolt on modules which are cloud ready such as Compensation management, Performance Management and Payroll, are the ones that can be bought and used by new customers immediately. Of course this suite is going to grow and we will see much more of this competing with Ebiz and People Soft shortly. And a strategy for On-premise deployment too.

So the challenge for Oracle sales & delivery folks is to get new and old customers ( and the entire support and partner bite into the cloud solution ( and make it work), make it co-exist with other systems of customers while re-branding the on-premise solution . I believe these are the issues that the tech world is going to be occupied with over the next 3-4 years. More to come....

Taleo vs oracle business accelerators

Why did taleo succeed where oracle business accelerators program failed ? After all both deal with rapid implementation. Does mere lower upfront cost and rapid implementation alone cause taleo to succeed or is there something more than that ?