Seeking Advice on Automating HR and Accounts Functions Across Multiple Offices: Can It Be Done in One Solution?

Dear HR Professionals,

I work in the Market Research (MR) Industry, with our head office located in Delhi and other offices spread across India. Our company's primary focus is managing numerous projects that involve various team members working across different branches. For example, a project for one of our clients, Maruti, is currently underway, involving surveys and research activities in cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bangalore.

The management of our company is interested in automating several functions. They have tasked me with automating the following functions along with their objectives. I am seeking advice on whether these functions can be integrated into a single online solution. If possible, please recommend some reputable vendors. Additionally, I would like information on whether this integrated solution would be web-based through a homepage on the internet or if software needs to be downloaded onto employees' systems nationwide.

Accounts Department

This department handles a significant amount of paperwork, payments, billing across different branches, etc.

Objective: To streamline the billing process to eliminate paperwork, couriering of bills and invoices, misplacement of bills, and to maintain accurate records and tracking of budgets for various projects. The goal is to enable different branches to raise bills online, and the Accounts Department can allocate advance payments with proper tracking, timeliness, and record-keeping.

HRIS

The aim is to automate HR functions, primarily focusing on an online Performance Appraisal System. Given that employees work on project-based studies, tracking their performance based on project-specific evaluations throughout the year is crucial.

Business Software

I am also seeking an integrated online solution for tracking different projects managed by various employees, monitoring project progress, identifying pending tasks, managing budgets and timelines, tracking delays or early completions by employees, and post-project evaluation. The system should allow post-project analysis of project performance and individual employee contributions, including a detailed breakdown of personnel involved in each project.

Interested vendors can contact me at [Email Removed For Privacy Reasons].

I appreciate your prompt feedback and valuable insights.

Looking forward to your responses.

Industry-Best Solution for Automation Needs

The industry-best solution for the needs you mentioned above is SAP. It provides your required functionality and much more. It is scalable, customizable, and can be integrated with vendors/clients (if they use SAP). They have ironed out numerous previous GUI and user accessibility problems.

However, SAP is not cheap. Nonetheless, it will get your job done, which in itself will save on efficiency costs, remove current process and procedural redundancies, and accelerate the integration of future automated functions.

If SAP isn't acceptable to your organization, then I suppose the solution will be a motley crew of independent vendors, with each providing a certain proportion of your requirement. While some vendors will be better than others, you will need to build stringent and almost unilateral contractual elements regarding quality, delivery criteria, service, upgrades, maintenance, etc. Why? Because with multiple vendors playing in your organization's IT space, it will be difficult to identify who is responsible when the chips are down—and fall they will.

Having a single vendor (although that, in itself, comes with significant challenges) at least provides a degree of assurance that liability cannot be redirected or ignored by the vendor.

I realize I didn't answer your question by suggesting vendors, but I'll leave that for those knowledgeable to do that. I have provided a couple of ideas that I advise my clients when they contemplate automating functions, processes, and procedures.

I hope this adds value to your deliberations!

Best,

Thanks for your valuable inputs. As per my understanding through your text, it seems that I have two options: either to go with SAP or with individual vendors who can provide integrated online solutions catering to the specific requirement. The third option is we can opt for a vendor who can build this one customized integrated solution that caters to all requirements mentioned. I wanted to know your opinion on this. I can refer all these three options to the Management and then can go further accordingly.

Also, if we go with SAP, what exactly do we need to do? Are there any vendors available in the market who provide customized SAP services? Please keep posting your valuable inputs. It can help us a lot to make the right decision.

Regards

You've rightly summed up the essence of my previous post.

Re: Your 3rd Vendor

Effectively, you're looking at recreating customized ERP functionality on a budget. I agree with this suggestion. The reason I didn't suggest it earlier is the same reason I suggested considering SAP (or equivalent) rather than going for a custom in-house solution.

My aversion to this approach is based almost entirely on the enormous challenge it poses for the client (in this case, your organization) from the first step. That first step would be to hire a highly skilled ERP Business Consultant who can gather every organizational requirement, map them thoroughly, identify cross-functional and cross-departmental relationships and dependencies, and then create a robust information and data architecture.

This is a highly specialized task, and while there are many IT professionals who claim to do that, the very real risk of using any of them is that while they are good at what they do technically, over 99% of them do not and cannot understand business. So, hiring those individuals is like licensing the tail to wag the dog!

As you can appreciate, if the very first step in creating an in-house solution from the ground up is fraught with serious risk, those steps that follow will depend entirely on how competently this consultant has done their job. For most organizations, when they realize that their solution is not even close to their requirements, it's almost always too late. The system wireframe would have been developed, and turning the clock back is either contractually impossible or financially debilitating. This is the primary reason why the bulk of organizations suffer in silence with systems that don't even meet 50% of their core requirements. Why do I know this? Because I've managed and implemented multi-million dollar IT and ERP projects in Sydney. So, what you're getting from me is an insider's view.

If one thinks that this risk only arises from freelancers or smaller to medium IT service providers, the truth is it gets even worse with the big companies (I don't want to name them here for obvious reasons). Why? Because first, their rigid operating structure demands that at least 75% of the time (post contract signing), the client only deals with the junior consultant. Second, if during this process the client wishes to communicate with those who signed the contract (partner or equivalent), the process of escalation can be as frustrating as that in a government department. Third, their fees are almost always double (at minimum) of their lesser organized counterparts.

With the smaller companies, there is a far higher likelihood of the client speaking directly with the owner, which definitely has its advantages.

I am oversimplifying what in reality is truly a very complex and messy situation. Did you know that 73% of IT systems built in-house never see the light of day? Why? Well, we can meet over a coffee or beer and talk about that.

This is why I am suggesting an existing ERP that has done the bulk of the hard work. Yes, they do cost money, but at least you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Even with an ERP solution, I seriously urge you to hire a project manager who will represent your organization's best interests to the vendor. You don't want to be taken for a ride without being completely aware of, and conversant with, downline risks and potential integration issues. While this project manager will cost you money, believe me, the right one will save you tons of heartache and potential issues.

Hope this helps you!

Kind regards,

If I go with an existing ERP solution or SAP, please correct me if I am wrong. We need to purchase it through a number of licenses and renew year after year, etc. Each additional license would require paying extra costs. If it's like that, can you please give me an idea of its approximate cost - for SAP and any other ERP?