Explore the next decade of HR SaaS.
Author | Wu Jingjing
Editor | Zhao Jian
In 2010, Beisen , which has been in the Internet human resources evaluation business for ten years, resolutely decided to transform and start working on HR SaaS. Ji Weiguo, co-founder and CEO of
Beisen, judged at the time that the traditional e-HR local deployment software may soon be replaced by cloud-based HR SaaS software. The SaaS model has incomparable advantages of low cost, fast returns, agile iteration and on-demand customization. The phased mission of e-HR software is about to end.
But what should HR SaaS do?
At that time, the market generally recognized the "single-point entry" approach, and a product only provided one main function. Because for startups, human and financial resources are limited and they need to "concentrate their efforts to accomplish major tasks", most SaaS startups also follow this principle.
But Ji Weiguo has his own ideas. After deciding on the cloud transformation strategy, Beisen began to do the opposite and proposed the " integrated " strategy, and the product functions extended from evaluation to selection, use, nurturing, and retention.
At that time, this was a path of high and low. "When we started to do integrated HR SaaS in 2010, no one believed we could do it, and few people could understand what we wanted to do," Ji Weiguo told "Jiazi Light Year".
Time comes to 2022, and HR SaaS has become another scene.
The integration proposed by Beisen ten years ago is becoming the common practice of more and more HR SaaS manufacturers. Manufacturers are no longer satisfied with providing single-module products. They are diversified to extend based on the original advantageous product modules to cover the needs of corporate customers in multiple human resource management links. This is the case for foreign major manufacturers Workday and SAP, and the same is true for domestic Moka, Yilu, etc., which focus on single-product tracks.
Now, almost no one has discussed whether integration is correct or not, and instead how to achieve integration as soon as possible.
As the first HR SaaS manufacturer in China to implement the integration strategy, Beisen has also stepped on many pitfalls and may turn from a pioneer into a martyr if he is not careful.
In the process of continuous trial and error, Beisen made decisions that seem to be forward-looking at the moment in three key stages - in terms of direction, formulated a long-term strategy for HR SaaS integration in 2010, chose to turn to the medium and large customer market in 2012, and firmly adhered to the technical route of the PaaS platform in 2014.
Twelve years later, the startup has become a leading company in the HR SaaS track and has entered a new stage of preparing to go public. IDC data shows that from 2016 to 2021, Beisen was ranked first in China's HR SaaS market share for six consecutive years.
What led Beisen through the last decade of SaaS and made the right choice in the critical path controversy? With this question in mind, this time, "Jiazi Light Year" interviewed Beisen founder Ji Weiguo, trying to explore the changes and unchanging development of the HR SaaS industry in the eyes of this company.
1. The ultimate evolution of integration: Integration of business and people
When talking about the question "what remains unchanged in the development of Beisen SaaS after the transformation of more than ten years", Ji Weiguo answered without hesitation: "Integration".
In the past decade, enterprise users who use human resources software have often encountered this situation: purchase different product modules from different suppliers, and then invest a lot of technical resources to integrate them together but fail to meet expectations:
1) can only do basic organization personnel integration, there are a large number of business breakpoints in the scenario, and there are a lot of losses;
2) data is retained in different products, and "people"-centered data analysis cannot be established;
3) products of different suppliers have different design logic and poor employee experience. This makes corporate users very eager to have integrated products to solve the dilemma. In this stage, Beisen integration's practical idea is product integration, mainly to meet the various needs scenarios of the human resources department.After
, Beisen spent nearly seven years to complete the construction of the main business of integrated products. The business scope covers multiple modules such as recruitment, evaluation, core human resources, performance, succession, etc., and can provide customers with a complete set of solutions covering the entire life cycle of employees.
Picture from prospectus
Ji Weiguo compared integration to a tree: "The first step is to build the backbone and main branches, which is equivalent to Beisen's early stage of product integration. After the main branches are completed, it reaches the second step, and build smaller branches and leaves around the backbone."
So, starting from 2021, Beisen started the second key stage of exploration on the road to integrated practice - business human integration.
In Ji Weiguo's view, this is the ultimate direction that integrated HR SaaS must go. Unlike previous products that are committed to product integration from the perspective of HR, the integration of industry and people is looking for an integrated practice path to integrate human resource management with corporate strategy and business success from the perspective of enterprise management .
This is also the new demand for digital tools for enterprise users under the current macro context. - cost reduction and efficiency improvement has become the core issue of every company, and refined human resources management has become a necessity. Enterprises need to use HR SaaS tools to help organizations and management operate efficiently to achieve business goals and enhance competitiveness.
But previous human resources software could not meet this type of demand. Many HR software was positioned at the beginning of design as a tool used by the HR department to improve work efficiency, and did not consider the human resources scenarios of non-HR roles. In actual work, non-HR roles such as business managers undertake a lot of human resources work, but lack the necessary digital tools. Therefore, enterprises need HR software that is closer to the front-line business role to turn organizational management into visual capillary networks to revitalize talent efficiency.
business manpower integration is thus born. In the practice of business manpower integration, the business department has become the core user and assumes the main responsibility of "selecting and cultivating" talents. At this point, some functions of human resources have gradually moved from the backstage to the front stage, responding to changes in the external environment with agile human resources policy .
For example, a well-known domestic IT integrator faces huge business uncertainty under the epidemic. How to balance business growth, rapid response to the external environment, and human-effectiveness profit business goals has become a business key. However, the traditional human resources structure, staffing and allocation are based on years and cannot adapt to the rapid changes in business under the epidemic.
In order to solve this problem, they first asked to push real-time human resources analysis data, especially human efficiency, recruitment and other data to the BU president's desktop, so that the BU can keep abreast of the dynamic status of the personnel at any time. Secondly, the management rights of human efficiency and organization are delegated to the BU, so that each BU can flexibly recruit and allocate personnel based on the progress of its business to maintain the best match between organization and business during the epidemic.
In this way, each BU can adopt agile and flexible human resources policies to respond based on the progress of the business.
The requirements are simple, but the logic behind it is that human resources functions are moved forward and to business. Ji Weiguo told "Jiazi Light Year": "The essence of business-people integration is to help business departments achieve business success. In this process, HR SaaS has become a productivity tool for business managers HRBP and employees, and is a powerful tool to help them implement business and achieve business success."
2. How to implement business-people integration?
Business human resources integration is the last public for the implementation of human resources digitalization, and it is also the place where product skills are most tested. Therefore, after the general direction is set, how to implement the integration of business and people step by step in practice has become a problem that Beisen continues to overcome.
Beisen chose a two-step practical path: role scenarioization and talent digitalization go hand in hand.
Among them, role scenarioization refers to incorporating business managers of non-human resources roles into the human resources management scenario . Currently, Beisen has designed scene functions around 12 major roles, including CEO, business manager, production line manager, store manager, employee, HRBP, etc., and has launched three workbenches for business manager, store manager and HRBP in the iTalentX6.0 version released in the fall of 2022, and launched two cockpits for CEO/executives, so that non-human resources roles have their own productivity tools in the human resource management scenario.
Taking the retail chain industry store manager's business function as an example, Beisen iTalentX6.0 specially creates a store manager's workbench for this purpose. Through the aggregation of functions such as human management, recruitment, store scheduling, store support, and human efficiency data, it helps store managers handle manpower work efficiently, thereby focusing more on business and performance growth.
It is worth mentioning that the role-scenario product design of the workbench and cockpit is a brand new All in one attempt by Beisen. Among them, Beisen focuses on important non-HR business roles and concentrates their respective relevance links on one interface. Users can click in to see the dynamic development of various related personal resource links. For example, through the CEO data cockpit, the boss can obtain all-round and multi-angle data intelligence from the five business dimensions of organizational efficiency , organizational evaluation, human resources planning, total personnel, and talent map, so as to make development decisions.
The second step of digitization of talents faces three major problems:
1) data governance is difficult, and it is extremely difficult to unify the full amount of data about people scattered in various systems and gather together.
2) It is difficult to implement the tag system. How to establish a capability-based tag system and implement the tag on everyone?
3) Complex multi-dimensional search difficulties, such as: twice consecutive performance appraisals are B+Beijing members + Party members + have experience of the top 500+ graduation + high potential. How to achieve such search?
In order to solve these problems, this year, Beisen launched a new talent digital product -Digital talents:
- Relying on Beisen's product integration and PaaS platform, it realizes the integration of full data;
- relies on Beisen's talent technology to establish a systematic tag system based on job model;
- relies on Beisen's AI platform to implement intelligent tags for talent data;
- rely on Beisen's distributed index technology to realize multi-dimensional accurate talent search.
At this point, Beisen has achieved the full implementation of talent digitalization, allowing the company's CEO, CHO and senior executives to You can conduct accurate talent search anytime and anywhere, and comprehensively understand talents through panoramic talent files. This way, you can quickly search and allocate talents within the group, quickly respond to business changes through the deployment of talents, win market opportunities, and ultimately drive business success.
A leading domestic dairy industry company, due to the impact of the epidemic and the complex and changing external business environment, it faces management challenges in high-complex organizations and diversified businesses. How to fully consider the employment needs of the company at different stages of business development, identify strategic talents, and promote Talent sharing and mobility, stimulating organizational vitality, and accelerating talent growth have become top priority.
For this reason, they decided to upgrade talent resource management digitally, open up the supply chain of internal and external talents, and realize the talent-driven strategy. By launching the [NIU-TALENTS Smart Talent System], the company's LOVE+ talent standard is realized, and the full process standard application from leadership 360 evaluation, to talent inventory, to talent development, and to talent selection is implemented, greatly improving the standardization and professionalization of talent management.On the one hand, the talent label system is systematically implemented, which includes 6 categories and 22 details, and accurately identify talents; on the other hand, talent search can be carried out according to comprehensive dimensions such as "ability + experience + potential + performance", showing a panoramic talent file, and the talent search efficiency is increased by more than 150%. Talent PK is supported according to talent standards, providing the greatest convenience for HR and managers to quickly find adaptable talents in the entire group.
Through talent digital tools, the company finally initially realized dynamic short-term talent planning, the flexibility of talent inventory standards has been improved, and talent supply and talent allocation within the enterprise have also become more efficient. This not only improves the service efficiency of HR, but also improves the experience of employees, managers and HR professional users.
Beisen business human integration model
At this point, with the implementation of the two-step strategy of scenario-based and talent-digitization of Beisen, this new integrated practice of industry and personnel can not only truly connect data from all links of human resources, empower corporate organization management decisions, but also give more decision-making power to the business and the frontline, improving the agility and flexibility of the organization in an uncertain environment and economic downward cycle.
3. Why can Beisen do it?
The HR SaaS track where Beisen is located is one of the most growth potential sub-tracks in China.
IT data shows that from 2010 to the present, capital has invested more than 150 billion yuan in the SaaS field, one-tenth of which falls into the digital human resources scenario of HR SaaS segment. A report released by IDC shows that the size of China's HR SaaS market reached US$500 million in 2021, and increased by 39.1% year-on-year, higher than the overall SaaS market growth rate in China.
For such a market, integration has become a consensus on the development path of all HR SaaS companies. Various manufacturers have also begun to carry out related product planning, which can not only sell more abundant products to old customers, but also have one more way to commercialize. In addition to the product action of
, the competition in the track is fierce, and new entrants are still increasing. This year, Feishu launched a human resources suite that integrates Feishu personnel, Feishu OKR, Feishu recruitment, Feishu performance and other products, which has attracted widespread attention from the market. Investors are also increasing their investments. This year, companies such as Salary and Salary and Shebao Technology have successively obtained investments of 100 million yuan.
In this case, how should Beisen deal with this increasingly competitive situation?
Ji Weiguo believes that Beisen's first-mover advantage has always existed, and it is difficult for other companies to surpass it in the short term. "At present, some of the competition in the market is mainly competition for single products. For example, Feishu's entry will put pressure on manufacturers that make single modules. However, as an integrated manufacturer, the leading advantage means that has accumulated several years of more years of product polishing, scene insight, and technology research and development than peers. These are barriers that are difficult to overcome with money and poaching in a few years in the short term."
In Ji Weiguo's view, the PaaS platform has always been one of Beisen's advantages over domestic HR SaaS manufacturers. But the essence is not how technical difficulty is, but that it requires scenario-based construction of customers' HR business scenarios to ultimately support customers' actual use. "Before 2016, nearly 300 engineers in Beisen did PaaS. These R&D personnel further unified the highly abstract business architecture of business scenarios with high availability and high scalability technical architectures, and continuously polished the PaaS platform. This polishing process often takes three to five years to achieve great success. This is the real technical barrier. If you want to do integrated applications, you must first build a PaaS base. If you want to do PaaS, no one can avoid this process of several years."
It is understood that Beisen Luban is the earliest HR aPaaS platform in China with the richest customer experience. It has the "zero code" configuration capability of out of the box, 's flexible and efficient "low code" development capability of , and the "full code" hosting capability of through open APIs. can prefabricate various scenario solutions and industry solutions for customers at the platform level.
These are the real strength and confidence hidden behind Beisen products.The company's latest achievements are that there are more than 6,000 medium and large enterprises, including 70% of the top 500 enterprises in China; every day, there are more than 150,000 HRs and 20 million corporate employees using iTalentX. It mainly covers industries such as the Internet, intelligent manufacturing, retail chain, finance, automobiles, real estate, central and state-owned enterprises.
This is Beisen’s practice and experience in the direction of integration over the past decade, and it is also a brand new path found in China’s HR SaaS localization exploration.
