Enterprise management platforms based on cloud are becoming the new trend in the world of business, with vendors like Workday offering solutions and consultants like CloudRock being ready to support users in their digital transformation.
As ERP users know, in legacy systems the separation and manual control of each department in an organization has always been normal, be it finance, HR or order-to-cash. However, in a globalized economy, especially in the case of multinational companies, businesses cannot afford to be held down by legacy system delays and manual processes.
This is why tech vendors are tailoring their solutions to cloud alongside building single data platforms to address the issue of disparate data handling across business operations. In other words, enterprise management platforms based on cloud are becoming the new trend in the world of business, with vendors like Workday offering solutions and consultants like CloudRock being ready to support users in their digital transformation.
Specifically, the benefits of single data platforms were discussed at the CloudRock webinar, “Power of the Platform: Bringing People and Money Together for Multinationals,” in which Workday and CloudRock experts offered their insights on the topic.
Difference between conventional and single platform data management
As explained by David Adams, business transformation specialist in financials at Workday, historically, businesses have faced challenges in data management for finance and people technology because these departments were built for different purposes: HR needs to keep a record of people in the organization and finance has to create financial statements. With the growing demand for better and more efficient technology that could minimize inaccuracies and save time for the team, many companies began integrating multiple new applications into the system, seeing it as the only solution to the problem.
“That becomes very inflexible, it becomes difficult to change, it creates a very disparate user experience and is expensive to maintain as well,” Adams said.
“[…] So, in today’s world, if we think about the data, […] data is becoming even more critical, and if we have these multiple technologies across people and finance, it becomes very difficult to start to make the most of those emerging technologies.”
So, trying to untie the knot that integration of multiple applications creates, Workday developed an Enterprise Management Cloud that fulfills “core requirements in a single application” with a single security and business process model.
Considering that businesses are continuously changing and expanding today, with employees joining or moving within an organization or companies scaling into new locations, important aspects such as security business processes are “updated persuasively”.
Adams added: “As we’re working off a single source of transactions and a single set of data that’s not being moved around between different applications, it means we can start benefiting from those emerging technologies and build those into the core platform.”
What’s in it for you?
Wyatt Edge-Morgan, Workday financials practice lead at CloudRock, explained that the deployment of a single platform for Human Capital Management (HCM) and Financial Management Systems (FMS) can significantly improve users’ experience. Specifically, having salary information, financial transaction approvals, project reports or cost center reports all in one place means that you have a joined-up experience for the workers, removing the inconvenience and inconsistency of using two different systems.
Additionally, from an application maintenance perspective, having a single platform makes it easier for workers who support FMS and HCM systems to give them the ability to align both with a “dynamic security framework” that automatically takes into account job changes, staff holidays or workforce reorganizations so that the business process is automatically updated as those things change.
According to Edge-Morgan, the final crucial benefit is on the IT side. One of the biggest advantages of combining FMS and HCM in a single platform is the avoidance of what he calls “the pain in the architecture,” which is the need to build complex integrations between systems that very often are not designed to work together.
“I’ve worked with a number of clients in the past who’ve had a best-of-breed technology approach, implementing one system for procurement, one system for financials and one system for HCM, and the integration overhead, maintenance overhead and building those is a huge [effort],” Edge-Morgan shared.
He added: “Honestly, I’m firmly of the opinion that any incremental gain from having best of breed systems is far, far outweighed by the additional cost and pain and psychological discomfort of having to manage those integrations.
“I’d easily give away ten or 15 percent of the functional advantage of best-of-breed systems to avoid having to patch together multiple systems that, as I said, are often not designed to work together.”
Streamlining your HCM and FMS management
As the insights from the CloudRock webinar have shown, Workday Enterprise Management Cloud offers benefits that can significantly improve both user experience and application maintenance in the management of HCM and FMS. However, trying to find the best way that would apply to each business case can be tricky, which is why Workday partners like CloudRock can offer advisory, delivery and optimization support that can be tailored to your specific needs and challenges.
In today’s world of global unpredictability and geopolitical uncertainty, it is crucial for businesses to have systems in place that can help bring all of the data together in an accessible and easy-to-use format. By deploying solutions like Workday Enterprise Management Cloud with the help and expertise of partners like CloudRock, you can take that first step to establishing security and consistency across your ever-evolving and growing systems.
