I’m intrigued by the amount of discussion regarding how the economy is going to impact HCM technology spend in the coming months. SystematicHR weighed in with a post this week. Here are a few snipets from my perspective:
- When a software vendor is spending to grow at any cost, this kind of economy is certain to put a damper on things. Much of that startup investment is ultimately wasted (trust me, I was around in during the dotcom boom!). So when we hear about cuts that sound draconian, it can be misleading about the broader market.
- Organizations that are reasonably healthy will still be making technology investments. It’s going to be about the HR leader’s ability to sell their mission — not about a total lack of funding.
- Not one of us has a clue about how bad it’s going to get, and the media (in all of its Web 2.0 forms) adds considerable ‘noise’ to the discussion. Let’s face it — none of us have encountered this kind of economic climate and I’m hoping it’s the last time for me.
- And I’ve said this before — organizations that find a way to make investments in this economy will have a significant advantage in the recovery.
I am sticking to my belief that great products will still be bought in this economy, and this cycle will be hard on the weak. It’s all a matter of degree.
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Larry,
Great post and I agree 100%. We had a discussion thread on the Facebook Group Human Resource (HR) Vendors (http://groups.to/humanresourcevendors/) that discussed the same topic that you might enjoy. See it here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/topic.php?uid=54490610002&topic=6971
Larry,
Those who do find a way to take advantage of investments during this time will have all the more leverage when things to turn around. Patrick Bryne, CEO of Overstock.com once said when asked about capitalizing on the dotcom bust, “If you’re not going to kick them when they’re down, when are ya gonna kick em?” Well you don’t necessarily need to be so harsh, it is important to take advantage and in an HR setting to find those who are highly qualified to fill certain positions.
I’m curious, in more detail how do you think that HR leaders can better “sell their mission” as you stated in the post?
In my experience, HR leaders don’t know how to do that because they’ve either never had to or haven’t seen the need to. It’s the combination of the right message (facts, ROI, commitment) and the communication skills to sell it. And no criticism of most HR leaders — but that’s just not a skill that I have found to be mature among the folks I’ve worked with in the past 20 years.