In the increasingly febrile battleground of the cloud-based human capital management software market, a number of PeopleSoft customers have opted to stay with current owner, Oracle, in order to adopt its new Fusion system.
First of all, UBS, has selected the offering to help it manage its 65,000-strong workforce in 50 countries.
John Bradley, global head of HR at the banking and financial services group, said: “UBS needs an HCM solution that works globally and can help transform the way our HR organisation delivers services. We believe that Oracle Fusion HCM will significantly increase our HR core platform capability.”
The win is important to the vendor because, as a long-standing PeopleSoft user, UBS is exactly the kind of customer that it needs to keep on board.
As the PeopleSoft applications age and come up for renewal, the vendor is keen not to lose ground to rivals such as
Workday, which was founded by former PeopleSoft chief executive, Dave Duffield.
But using words that will undoubtedly warm the cockles of Oracle’s chief executive Larry Ellison’s heart, Michele Trogni, UBS’s group chief information officer, attested: “As a significant customer for many years, including the long-term use of Oracle’s PeopleSoft as our core HCM platform, we were looking for a next generation business-enabling solution that allows us to maintain our security and data protection, whilst reducing total cost of ownership.”
Even better for the vendor, she confirmed that UBS was also planning to deploy a number of other Fusion HCM modules such as global HR, business intelligence, performance management and talent management.
Centralising and standardising
Having said that, however, the purchase wasn’t a shoo-in. UBS evaluated a range of other Software-as-a-Service-based HCM offerings before opting for its current choice, which it described as a “strong fit due to its functionality and secure delivery”.
Meanwhile, another former PeopleSoft customer,
Elizabeth Arden, has also remained in the Oracle fold. Its aim is to centralise its historical and current international HR information, which was previously held in numerous disparate systems, in order to gain better visibility into it.
The global beauty products firm is also keen to automate and standardise its HR processes in order to comply more effectively with international reporting standards.
After reviewing the market, the company said that it decided to go with Oracle because of its global presence and the ease in which its system could be installed and customised.
Hoy Heise, Elizabeth Arden’s executive vice president and chief information officer, said: "The benefits of deploying Oracle Fusion HCM in the Oracle cloud enabled us to install a first-class HR system that can be accessed by our staff from anywhere in the world. And with regular upgrades, we know that we will remain current on our software and continue to benefit the business."
To date, the offering, which includes global HR, benefits, payroll interface, workforce compensation, performance management, goal management and talent review modules, has been rolled out to HR staff in Switzerland and the UK. The rest of the world is due to follow over the course of this year.
Lita Cunningham, the firm’s senior vice president of global HR, said: "Not only is it a great way of bringing the same HR functions to our entire global employee base, it has a lot of future potential as we work to further streamline processes and innovate our HR activities. We’re really excited about the self-service aspect and how simple it makes international reporting."
