ADP offers a full cloud-based HCM suite that includes Talent Management, Benefits, Workforce Management, HR BPO, Big Data Analytics and Strategic Services. They do this globally in 112 countries, offer services in 27 languages and operate 15 service centers around the world with a new Center of Excellence in Prague.
ADP Strategic Pillars
ADP’s overall goal is to provide their clients with comprehensive, flexible and innovative global solutions. Their focus is on the following:
- Grow a complete suite of cloud-based HCM solutions
- Invest to grow and scale their market leading HR BPO solutions by leveraging their platforms and processes
- Leverage their global presence to offer clients HCM solutions where they do business
ADP Cloud-based HCM solutions by the numbers
- Payroll: 39M people paid worldwide, $1.7T moved across ADP, $5B loaded to ALINE Card by ADP® and 10M People across the globe use MyADP to check their pay stub
- HR and Talent Management: 80% upmarket clients utilize ADP HR, 9,000 Clients with performance, 5,500 recruiting and 115,000 Jobs filled by ADP RPO
- Benefits: 28,000 benefits administration clients (they believe that makes them the largest benefits administration provider in the USA), 15M people enrolled in benefits in FY16, 10M 1095-C forms mailed, 63,000 retirement services clients
- Workforce Management: 55,000 clients for WFM, 49 countries live [O1] and a new Center of Excellence in Prague, 12M clients served where 60% are using ADP mobile
- HR BPO: 24,000 BPO clients, 4.5M employees served, double digit Compound Annual Growth Rate for more than 5 years
- Investing Global Presence: 39M people paid worldwide, 15 service centers across the globe, service in 27 languages, serve 112 countries
- Strategic Services: This is what ADP believes is their differentiator. 1,550 client engagements in FY16, 48 Vantage clients fully leveraging The Hackett Group, 25,000 ACA reporting clients, 33,000 Eye on Washington subscribers.
Moving Forward
ADP is evolving their offerings with a focus on the following:
- Going even bigger on Big Data: While many vendors are now focused on this, it is important to note that ADP has been doing big data for 10 years (National Employment Report) since 2006. The Vitality Index expands on key labor market indicators which will help businesses make informed decisions. The ADP DataCloud is designed to bring insight from ADP’s 30M person database to its customers. In addition, Data as a Service extends opportunities to deliver insight to other businesses inside of a business other than HR. One example that was given was the ability to speak to retailers about average income in a certain area, unemployment rates etc. to help them determine where to open next.
- Building the Largest HCM Ecosystem: The ADP Marketplace was created less than 2 years ago as a way to enable its customers to extend the capabilities of the cloud solution. ADP provides an open connection through API’s to give clients access to other solutions, therefore their system is very open. With the Marketplace, a customer can have best of breed add-ons for just about anything they need like a particular performance management package or recruiting add-on etc. It has been growing substantially and now has 162 apps available, 900 partners in pipeline, 500% growth in site visits, and 750 App subscriptions making it easier for clients to connect with the solutions that they need. One example is Flock which does benefit administration. Even though ADP does a large business in benefits administration, they don’t force their customers to use their in-house solution if something is better suited to their needs. Flexibility is key and it appears that ADP gets this.
- Engaging the Workforce: In an effort to drive employee adoption, a number of new key capabilities have been developed in the form of apps called @adp.coach. The key to these is that they are frictionless, meaning they are easy to use and require no implementation or training. Secondly they are end-user orientated, meaning they have been designed to engage employees, guide managers, and improve teams. Thirdly they are discovery driven as they have been developed with the disciplines of Design Thinking and Behavioral Economics. And lastly they were internally tested by ADP employees during the incubation period to ensure they provide true value.
So let’s look at what they have done about user experience
ADP has made a huge investment in improving their user experience, MyADP. They started by engaging 1,800 end users in a number of research studies to determine their pain points and then went to work to reinvent the experience. Hundreds of new features and product enhancements have been made, mobility solutions have been enhanced and new dashboards have been created based on end user requirements to save workers, managers, and practitioners time. One such example is the newly developed Pay Date Change. In the past, if a client wanted to do this it would be a manual process where a request would have to be made to ADP for a manual change. If a client had more than one payroll to change, the time to complete just got longer and longer. Now they have created that ability inside their software where with a simple drag and drop the client can instantly change as many payrolls as they like on their own in a matter of seconds.
The results have been significant according to their post survey results:
- 4.5 stars for iOS and Android for Mobile
- 80% Thumbs Up on myADP from employers and managers
- 80% reduction in call volume for large tech client after rollout
So how have they done?
ADP cloud solutions
- 530,000 clients worldwide supporting 30M employees
- 65,000 clients using HCM supporting 15M employees
- 5,100 upmarket clients using HCM supporting 8M employees
Workforce Now
Top Reasons ADP believes they Win With Workforce Now: Breadth and depth of functionality, Ease of deployment and time to value, Differentiated service experience, ADP DataCloud
- Add a new Workforce Now client every 2 hours
- 78% of clients now multi-module
- Supported 24,000 clients with 2015 ACA compliance
- 2,500 DataCloud clients
ADP Vantage HCM
Top Reasons ADP believe they win with Vantage HCM: Breadth/depth of HCM solution (particularly recruiting, TLM and benefits pillars), Differentiated service and implementation experience (expertise, insight and accountability), ADP DataCloud
- 498 clients have selected Vantage (up from approximately 200 only 12 months ago)
- Average client has grown to 4,000+ employee
- 80% of clients are multi-module
ADP Multinational Solutions - GlobalView HCM
Top Reasons ADP believe they win with GlobalView HCM: Simplicity: a single cloud platform across locations, Trust: can handle the most complex environments, Reach: the global footprint, Flexibility: adjusts to the client’s needs, Expertise: 2,500+ compliance experts outside the U.S.
- More than 1,400 multinational clients
- 3M+ employees served
- 112 countries now served
- Launched new user experience for ADP GlobalView HCM
Their customers speak
In this year's program, ADP included 4 client speakers whose stories helped demonstrate their technology innovation as well as highlight ADP’s commitment to service:
- Courtney Paynter of Simmons Foods outlined her experience in bringing ADP DataCloud’s Simplified Reporting to her organization
- Fiona Jonasson from IAC Group shared a view to her partnership with ADP in delivering a single solution to her organization with GlobalView HCM
- Robin Illingworth of Sempra Energy provided a view to their HR BPO journey
- Irma Long of Follett Corporation shared her ADP Vantage Recruiting Management journey, with a slide from Irma’s presentation outlining the value of the ADP partnership below:
And another thing – Big Data (DataCloud) Simplified Reporting, Predictive Analytics, Benchmarks and Pay Equity Insights
No matter what event I attend, the terms Big Data and Analytics are at forefront of the HCM solutions. Predictive Analytics is the desired state that everyone wants to get to but other insights out of larger data are also desired. The issue is that not everyone wants the same thing or is on the same level. ADP is working hard on that and has addressed a number of key issues with their approach:
1: As they have one of the biggest databases with payroll of over 30M employees, they can serve up all kinds of real time data. This not only cover things like compensation, flight risk by region and so much more, it also provides rich data to business leaders outside HR like the example that I listed earlier about helping retailers find the next best area to open a new location based on employment and compensation data.
2: The biggest problem is end user adoption due to the various skill sets available in each company. ADP addressed this head on with what they call Foundational to Advanced capabilities by introducing simplified reporting to predictive analytics (including things like benchmarking and other areas of real insight). I enjoyed hearing from one of their clients who arrived at her new company only to find that the HR team was operating out of filing cabinets. She was able to implement ADP analytics and said that because the tools were so intuitive, “Simple enough that my grandma could get the data out”, that their company saw immediate benefits. This is an outstanding result.
3: An area that has gathered a great deal of news coverage is pay and gender equity, and many HR executives lose countless hours of sleep worrying about their potential exposure yet they have no way to get true insight. Questions like “Do we have significant areas of gap around gender pay gaps, minority pay groups or age issues?” and “Are there opportunities to close these to avoid complex litigation?” can be answered with their Pay Equity Insights product.
Clearly they are serious about this area, and there is more coming with ADP’s data offerings as they have an active client advisory board to drive development decisions going forward so stay tuned.
Global payroll integrations are available for SAP, Oracle and Workday
Global payroll is a giant issue and ADP is addressing this with some of the largest providers. As they say, they are working hard to make sure the correct opportunities are available for every customer even if their preference is for a non ADP HRIS solution. I think that this is a good move for them as it will help solidify their position in the global payroll arena.
Cloud integration is complex when multiple vendors are involved. Clients are looking for end to end processes with a unified UX. Through their comprehensive integrations with SAP, Workday and Oracle, ADP is working to meet this challenge, providing a seamless integration from HR to payroll.
Conclusion
The product line and all of the numbers to back up their success are impressive but the really interesting point is that ADP has rightly positioned itself as a technology enabled service company that leverages their people to enable their customers to grow.
The reason ADP has done so well is their attention to detail around customer service, and really this is what buying cloud is all about. No longer are you buying licences and you are on your own, you are really part of a community that works together to shape the future of the technology as your input affects future releases.
I recall being at an event earlier this year when a prospect, realizing that I cover all of the main players, asked me if they should go with Vendor A vs Vendor B. My response was “How is your relationship with each one because at the end of the day a feature on one product will appear quickly on another. The way your vendor understands your business and how they work to add features to satisfy you and your community is of utmost importance when selecting a vendor (partner) moving forward”. She looked perplexed initially until she understood that you aren’t buying software, but you are entering into a partnership which is a really exciting way to look at it.
ADP, from what I saw, certainly gets the point of being a business partner rather than a technology provider, and has many exciting initiatives that allow the customer to run their business the best way they can without being stuck in a box. ADP has an excellent product suite on its own and has ensured that even if the client needs a number of different solutions to most effectively run their business, they have solutions to accommodate. That really is what a business partner is about.
