As an influential HR leader, your function is central to business success. You’re shaping the culture, empowering the workforce, and driving the talent strategy that enables growth. Supporting your people strategy is your HR technology stack. The tech stack, as it is commonly referred to, is the collection of software and digital tools that powers your Human Capital Management (HCM) systems and also delivers essential insights for strategic HCM decisions.
Before You Renew, Reevaluate
The critical question HCM leaders must ask shifts from, ‘Is our HCM tech stack meeting our critical needs today?’ to, ‘Is our HCM technology scalable and ready for tomorrow’s organizational challenges?’ And that is why I recommend, before you renew, reevaluate. Reevaluate why your organization chose the applications it did, and what changes the organization has experienced. Is now the time to rethink those decisions?
Even the most stable, seemingly effective HCM technology solutions can breed hidden inefficiencies or cause you to miss out on game-changing innovations. Think of a strategic HR tech stack audit like a health screening for a competitive athlete. It’s not about reacting to an injury, but about proactively fine-tuning the entire system for peak performance. At HRchitect, we refer to this audit as a People, Process & Operations Assessment (PPOA). We work with your team to take a people and process approach to reviewing your HCM tech stack to understand what is currently working and what is not.
Whether you think you are generally happy with your current HCM technology or are feeling the organizational friction of an outdated application, this blog outlines why it’s imperative to be proactive and conduct a PPOA before you renew to ensure you’re maximizing your investment.
Catalysts for an HCM Strategic Technology Audit
While a regular cadence of reviews is best practice, certain moments provide a natural and compelling reason to perform a deep-dive HCM tech stack audit.
- Major Business Evolution: Events like rapid scaling, a merger or acquisition, or expansion into new markets fundamentally alter your operational needs. Changing operational needs is a perfect time to ensure your technology’s capabilities can support your company’s new scale and complexity.
- Shifting Workforce and Work Models: The rise of hybrid work, a heightened focus on the employee experience, and new demands for DEI analytics all require specific technological support. A thorough review ensures your applications are enhancing, not hindering, these modern work dynamics.
- The Pursuit of a Competitive Edge: In today’s intense competition for talent, the best technology can be a differentiator. Modern solutions offer superior candidate and employee experiences, provide managers with better data for coaching, and give leaders the insights needed to stay ahead of workforce trends.
The Key Checkpoint: Before You Renew That Contract
While these business changes can happen at any time, they all come into sharp focus during one predictable event that every HR leader has on their calendar: The vendor contract renewal. This renewal is the single most crucial moment to act on the strategic needs you’ve identified. Don’t let auto-renewal lock you into a solution that no longer serves you. The lead-up to your second or third renewal is a particularly golden opportunity. By this point:
- The Honeymoon is Over: You have several years of real-world experience with the platform. You know its true strengths and, more importantly, its weaknesses and limitations.
- Your Business has Changed: The strategic goals you had three to five years ago have likely evolved. Your company has grown, and your workforce’s needs have shifted.
- The Market has Evolved: The HR technology market is incredibly dynamic. New, more innovative, and potentially more cost-effective solutions have almost certainly emerged since you last shopped around.
Reevaluating before you renew gives you tremendous leverage. It allows you to negotiate better terms with your current vendor or make a confident, well-researched decision to switch to a vendor that better aligns with your future.
Conducting a Meaningful Assessment
A thorough HR tech stack audit involves looking inward at your organization’s needs and outward at the market. The PPOA process takes into consideration:
People
- Gather Stakeholder Intelligence: Conduct targeted interviews and surveys with stakeholders. Gather information from the people performing the work or using the data, from executives to new hires. The results of these interviews and surveys allow you to document their experience and needs (met and unmet), with the current solution.
Process
- Map Your Processes: Identify and document key workflow inefficiencies and successes. Where does the current technology create friction for employees, managers, or your HR team?
Operations
- Define Future-State Requirements: Based on your business strategy, create a clear scorecard of what the ideal solution must deliver. Review your requirements in terms of operational functionality, user experience, and analytics.
Navigating this internal discovery, let alone the external vendor landscape, is a significant undertaking. Our experts have a proven process to walk you through this complex undertaking.
Your Advantage in a Complex Market: Partnering with an HR Technology Expert
Navigating the dense and dynamic HCM technology market is a high-stakes, resource-intensive endeavor. Partnering with an HRchitect expert HCM consultant becomes a strategic advantage, helping you move from a good position to a great one.
Our expert consultants are your dedicated guides for optimization and future-proofing your HCM investment.
They bring value that far outweighs the investment, including the following:
A Clear Reflection on Your Current State
Before you can look outward, you need a deep, objective understanding of what is and isn’t working internally. We provide a structured framework for this crucial first step, helping you assess your current state and evaluate your HCM software’s true fit against your business needs. Our team knows which questions to ask stakeholders, how to uncover hidden process inefficiencies. We lead your team to develop a clear scorecard that provides a data-backed foundation for key decisions.
Insider Market Intelligence, Not Just Data
Our HCM strategic consultants have deep, nuanced knowledge of the HCM vendor landscape. An understanding that includes knowing the innovative disruptors that are currently challenging the established giants. They understand the real-world performance behind the marketing façade and have insight into future product roadmaps. Our accumulated knowledge saves your team hours of sifting through biased sales pitches.
Avoid Costly Missteps with Unbiased Guidance
We are vendor-agnostic partners, and our consultants’ only goal is to find the right solution for your specific needs and budget. They will help you avoid “shiny object syndrome” and prevent a costly wrong decision driven by a persuasive salesperson or internal bias. They provide clear, unbiased truth focused on your business needs.
Get to the Right Decision, Faster
We don’t just offer advice; we provide a structured, proven methodology. Outputs from our proven methods include:
- Crafting a tailored Request for Proposal (RFP)
- Managing vendor demos
- Developing objective scoring criteria
Our HCM consultants lead your team by managing the entire process, allowing you to fast-track your timeline and ensure the evaluation is far more thorough than an internal team, pulled in multiple directions, could ever achieve.
Maximizing Value & Mitigating Risk in Contract Negotiations
Our consultants, as your expert partner, bring a critical advantage to the negotiation table. With deep knowledge of actual application costs and significant purchasing power from a high volume of deals, a consultant can secure favorable pricing and terms. Beyond the initial price, the real risk of self-negotiation lies in what can be missed. Clients who manage their contract negotiations can find that their final agreements are missing key elements. This could ultimately end up costing them more than they anticipated. An expert consultant focuses on protecting your long-term interests by ensuring that service-level agreements (SLAs), support tiers, and payment terms are clearly defined to your advantage.
The Bottom Line: Make a Confident, Future-Proof Decision
Regularly evaluating your HR technology is a strategic imperative. But the tech stack audit is a detailed, high-stakes project. By leveraging HRchitect as an expert partner, you transform a daunting and resource-draining task into a strategic and confident process. Ultimately, you move beyond simply buying software and toward making a lasting strategic investment that will power your company’s growth for years to come. And create a lifetime partnership with HRchitect as an added benefit.
Contact us to get more details on the People, Process, and Operations Assessment that will give you the information you need to make the right decisions.
Reach out now, before you renew that contract!
About the Author
Renee Gross is a Senior Strategic Services consultant at HRchitect. Renee spends time researching HCM technology trends to stay current with the latest industry developments. She shares this knowledge with clients and organizations, also providing interviews, writing and speaking engagements. She joined HRchitect in 2021 and brings over 5 years of Human Resources practitioner experience to her role.
To learn more about Renee’s background, please visit her profile on LinkedIn.
