How to successfully transition to HR BPO

Designing the retained organization from a technology perspective

Article

In this article, Gianni Giacomelli, SAP BPO’s Head of Strategy & Marketing, discusses how the retained organization is designed from a technology perspective.

Business processes are delivered by combining workflow, the right people, and the appropriate technology. These three elements, designed to work together, ensure effective service delivery.

With regard to technology, three types of decisions need to be made by answering the following questions: "Whose technology is it? Who drives and who owns the configuration? How to integrate seamlessly what stays in and what goes out?"

Whoever owns the technology can redeploy it—at least theoretically. He must recognize that process requires certain parties to have access to specific functionalities and/or data; otherwise, service delivery will break down.

When the client drives the configuration, it is possible to dictate to the provider, at least to some degree, how the service will be run. This is often the case for process that impacts the client’s employees, a common occurrence in Human Resources (HR).

Regardless of the ownership of the technology and its configuration, there is still a need for the process to function seamlessly end-to-end. The service provider needs to act as the client’s extended enterprise.