BearingPoint uses Oracle BPM for Employment Management Offering
by Alison Weiss, August 2007
The cost of employee turnover is an unnecessary drag on large organizations. Oracle strategic partner BearingPoint has released a new on-boarding and off-boarding diagnostic offering to automate and streamline employee processing— increasing the productivity of the human resources department, reducing costs and speeding the return on investment in an enterprise Human Capital Management IT system.
Inefficient onboarding processes—the pre- and post-hiring activities required to effectively transition new personnel into an organization— extend the time it takes a new employee to become productive. Firms waste millions of dollars every year with manual processes to onboard new hires, such as e-mailing and managing paperwork.
Besides losing productivity, poorly managed onboarding can cause firms to have problems with employee retention. According to an August 2006 study by the Aberdeen Group, an estimated 90 percent of employees decide whether to remain at an organization within six months of being hired. If the onboarding process doesn't go smoothly, employees are more likely to exit an organization. In addition, the study revealed that 71 percent of companies still manage critical onboarding processes with little or no strategic planning.
Gretchen Alarcon, Oracle Vice President of HCM Product Strategy, says, "Although onboarding has not been a top priority for organizations in the past, today it is a prime opportunity to gain a competitive advantage."
Off-boarding—or the processes of terminating an employee—also has significant impact on an organization. Costs associated with the return of valuable company assets wear at profit margins. Improper management and termination of building access raises security concerns for exiting personnel. Lost intellectual capital and other sensitive data can also lead to significant problems.
The BearingPoint on-boarding and off-boarding diagnostic offering—based on Oracle Business Process Management—coordinates with a variety of business functions including payroll, HRMS/Talent Management, IT, finance, facilities management, procurement and security. The diagnostic provides a conceptual design demonstrating how Oracle Fusion Middleware can connect different applications within HR, link external providers, and orchestrate the entire process within the organization.
Dan Staley, Managing Director, Global Oracle HCM Leader for BearingPoint, contends that lack of automation in onboarding is a key issue for organizations. By automating onboarding processes, employees can be productive from day one, saving time and money. The new solution can help promote automation by creating a baseline of current activities and uncovering process inefficiencies. With this information, BeringPoint can build a process model and deployment roadmap, define the required SOA governance and architecture, and ultimately develop the ROI/business case for customers. Staley
BearingPoint has had an extremely positive response to the on-boarding and off-boarding Diagnostic Offering. Staley says, "Our clients have been very eager to address their onboarding and offboarding challenges. We've received very good acceptance rates from people we've talked to so far." He attributes part of the positive reception to BearingPoint's long-standing relationship with Oracle. Staley says, "We see real value partnering with Oracle, a long time market leader in the HCM space."
