SAP Acquires SuccessFactors

SAP’s acquisition of SuccessFactors combines the powerful assets of each company – including world-class cloud expertise, software applications and go-to-market capabilities – to create a global cloud leader with an end-to-end offering of cloud and on-premise solutions for managing business processes.

Read the Press Release: SAP's Offer for SuccessFactors, Inc. Shares is Successful (PDF)

SAP and SuccessFactors Accelerate Unified Product Direction

HCM is gaining focus in the market as companies realize that nurturing top talent and fostering a united community of employees is critical to being a best-run business. SAP and SuccessFactors are now combining the SuccessFactors Business Execution (BizX) Suite with SAP solutions to provide the most comprehensive, innovative HCM offerings to benefit existing and prospective customers.
Read the Press Release: SAP and SuccessFactors Accelerate Unified Product Direction (PDF)
Read the Frequently Asked Questions: SAP and SuccessFactors HCM Product Direction FAQ

What Industry Influencers Are Saying About SuccessFactors & SAP…

"The SAP and SuccessFactors product strategy is a bold and aggressive move to build a next-generation, end-to-end
talent and HR management solution. The new product strategy has the potential to bring great value to existing
SAP and SuccessFactors customers."
          - Josh Bersin, President and CEO, Bersin & Associates

"I'm quite impressed with the amount of planning that the combined SuccessFactors and SAP teams have done and
the clarity and collegiality with which they are starting on Day 1. There is an impressive amount of HCM
business/product/technology/operations talent across both teams and I am very encouraged about what this level of
collaboration may mean for all of their customers."
          - Naomi Bloom, Managing Partner, Bloom & Wallace

Bloomberg Video: SAP's Acceleration Into The Cloud

Watch Bill McDermott, SAP AG, Co-CEO and Lars Dalgaard discuss the value of SAP's
acceleration into the Cloud with the acquisition of SF.

Lars Dalgaard's Letter To Our Customers

We are thrilled to announce the SuccessFactors tender offer closed today. SAP and SuccessFactors are now officially one team!

SuccessFactors will remain an independent company and we have a tremendous opportunity to leverage the SAP resources to accelerate SuccessFactors’ business. We’ll now be able to deliver innovations in 1-2 years that were originally on our 10 year roadmap. This is an opportunity of a lifetime! We will continue to build our partner ecosystem, increase our implementation scalability and build the strongest customer service organization in the market. This is huge! Together, there is no doubt in my mind that SuccessFactors and SAP will delight our customers and build the most beautiful products in the industry.

Read the full letter here (PDF)

SAP & SuccessFactors HCM Product Direction
Frequently Asked Questions

Will I see any changes when I log in to SuccessFactors?
No. You’ll continue to log in to the same system and everything will be set up the same once you’re logged in. SuccessFactors will keep its planned product release dates and we’ll continue to communicate with you about updates before they happen.

Will SuccessFactors have the same maintenance, service and support offerings as SAP?
Over the course of the next months, SuccessFactors and SAP will work together to align and harmonize their maintenance and service offerings to provide the best cloud support offerings in the industry. We will evaluate opportunities to leverage SAP resources over time to offer improved levels of support where appropriate, as well as a single channel for support for joint customers.

Can customers submit messages/cases for SuccessFactors products via the SAP message channels (SAP Service Marketplace / SAP Solution Manager)?
Customers will continue to submit messages/cases via the existing support channels as documented in their contracts with SuccessFactors or SAP, respectively. In the future, SAP and SuccessFactors intend to align and harmonize the support infrastructure, systems and tools, so that customers can submit messages/cases via the same channel.

Who will be responsible for supporting SuccessFactors’ customers after the deal closes?
The existing SuccessFactors Customer Success team will continue to help resolve any customer issues related to the SuccessFactors product portfolio.

Who should I contact for support?
As a SuccessFactors customer, the SuccessFactors Customer Success team will continue to provide support:

• SuccessFactors Customer Portal
• Telephone contact information

SAP customers should continue to contact SAP support:

• Built-in support for SAP Business ByDesign, SAP Sales OnDemand and SAP Travel OnDemand
• SAP Support Portal for all other products

What is your overall strategy in the HCM market?
The combination of SAP and SuccessFactors allows us to offer our customers the most comprehensive, end-to-end HCM portfolio available today -- from strategic planning to talent management, from employee administration to workforce analytics, from time & attendance to payroll processing around the world, across all consumption models; running in the cloud or on premise, and on any device.

What are the primary go-to-market solutions in HCM for the combined companies?
SuccessFactors’ cloud offerings for Performance & Goal Management, Succession, Compensation, Learning, Recruiting, and Workforce Planning will be offered as primary go-to-market talent solutions. For core HR administration, we offer Employee Central for customers that want a cloud-based solution and SAP Business Suite for customers preferring an on-premise solution. For Workforce Analytics, we offer SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics and Workforce Planning while leveraging SAP Business Objects and its market-leading business intelligence capabilities.

What is your strategy to integrate SAP and SuccessFactors products?
SAP and SuccessFactors have many common customers who use both solutions. These customers have been running systems side by side and the integrations between products are proven.
However, in order to provide even better value for customers who want to leverage the market leading solutions from both SAP and SuccessFactors, we plan to build and deliver tightly coupled standard integration packages between the two platforms, considering multiple integration requirements:

• Cloud-based Talent, Recruiting, Learning and Social solutions, and Workforce Planning and Analytics solutions from SuccessFactors
• On-premise Core HR data
• One way and bi-directional data flows

I am a customer of Oracle / Peoplesoft.  Will SuccessFactors solutions continue working well with my ERP / HR system, or will I be required to use SAP solutions?
SuccessFactors was built on the notion of being agnostic and working with all solutions within our customer ecosystem, to deliver the best experience possible to all our customers.   This is core to our values and it is not going to change

I’m interested in a cloud-based Core HR solution. Why should I consider Employee Central?
We are witnessing a shift of Core HR from on-premise to cloud-based deployment. For SAP and SuccessFactors to maximize its addressable HCM market, it requires a market leading Core HR cloud solution. Employee Central is that go-forward cloud solution. To meet these needs, we will substantially accelerate the roadmap for Employee Central, injecting the 25+ years of experience SAP has in the Core HR market into it. Employee Central is a next generation core HR system that was built for business execution, around the following principles:

• Business first – we have built an easy to use and highly configurable system that allows companies to adjust rapidly to the dynamic pace of business today.
• Designed for everyone – Employee Central is built with ease of use (toy-like experience) and collaboration as foundational elements. We enable self-service at all levels, and deliver a rich experience on mobile apps through BizX Mobile.
• Turning HR decisions into business decisions - Truly driving business execution requires the ability to correlate your employee/talent data with relevant business data collected from other systems like your financials, operations and/or CRM systems. Employee Central offers a comprehensive suite of workforce analytics capabilities that do just that, to help you turn HR decisions into business decisions.

I’m using SuccessFactors solutions today. Will I be forced to move to any SAP solutions?
No. There are no plans to move SuccessFactors customers to any SAP solutions whether on-demand or on-premise.

I’m not an SAP ERP/HCM customer. Are there integration toolkits for SuccessFactors with other leading HR and payroll vendors?
Yes, SuccessFactors offers several choices for integrating to other core HR and payroll solutions. SuccessFactors has payroll partnerships with Ceridian, Meta4 and Patersons. We will also continue to support integration with other core HR systems.

I’m a SuccessFactors customer today. Can I run SAP core in the cloud linked to SuccessFactors?
The SAP Core HR solutions do not currently run in the cloud, although many partners offer Application Management Services and hosting options to manage such an implementation.