VentanaMonitor™

Summary
Managing the full potential of the workforce is a critical strategic step for finance and operations management. Softscape, a longstanding provider of human resources management systems (HRMSs), has released Apex 2006, which offers major enhancements for enterprises. This suite of workforce and human capital management (HCM) delivers broad capabilities ranging from tactical HR to strategic talent management. Ventana Research believes the time has come for organizations to reassess their workforce processes and supporting applications; in considering their choice of strategic provider of applications going forward, they should consider Softscape.

Assessment
Softscape has released Apex 2006, a major upgrade that brings new and enhanced capabilities to its application suite. With a ten-year track record of providing human resources and talent management applications, Softscape now has bolstered its suite with new capabilities such as workforce analytics, compensation and learning management, employee profiling and advanced configuration management. Few other suppliers in this market have such breadth of product features throughout the employee life cycle.

Corporate demand for more and better information about the workforce has pushed Softscape to bring out sophisticated new analysis and reporting capabilities that simplify the tasks of managing and improving the workforce. These capabilities in Apex 2006 are critical components for ensuring that human capital is focused on optimal business outcomes. The suite offers more sophistication and depth of analysis than many competing products. Ventana Research invites organizations to compare the analytics and reporting capabilities of their existing applications with those of potential new providers: This critical component is overlooked too often.

Organizations will need to ensure that an investment in any application suite can be customized and extended to add complementary capabilities as needed. Softscape CMX provides a toolkit that enables users to customize menus, forms and the appearance of applications along with providing templates that can be modified as well. Because new investment in applications typically is the largest cost of implementation, Ventana Research recommends that organizations fully evaluate how effectively and how simply competing packages perform this function. Softscape has made adoption simple as well by offering three different approaches to purchasing Apex 2006: bought for use on premises, licensed or rented as a service on demand.

Market Impact
Softscape's introduction of Apex 2006 will put more pressure on large enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers Oracle and SAP by providing similar plus additional capabilities, available for purchasing, licensing or rental in an on demand-software-as-a-service model. To succeed, though, Softscape will need to continue to grow its established customer base and further demonstrate broad deployment of both the HR and talent management modules of its application suite.

Recommendation
Investing in your most valuable asset — people — has become a requirement for increasing the value of your business in the marketplace. Softscape Apex 2006 is an innovative step forward for the industry. Ventana Research recommends that organizations looking to simplify and consolidate their talent and HR management applications consider this suite of products, which can help them improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their human capital-related processes.

About Ventana Research
Ventana Research is the leading Performance Management research and advisory services firm. By providing expert insight and detailed guidance, Ventana Research helps clients operate their companies more efficiently and effectively. These business improvements are delivered through a top-down approach that connects people, process, information and technology. What makes Ventana Research different from other analyst firms is a focus on Performance Management for finance, operations and IT. This focus, plus research as a foundation and reach into a community of over two million corporate executives through extensive media partnerships, allows Ventana Research to deliver a high-value, low-risk method for achieving optimal business performance. To learn how Ventana Research Performance Management workshops, assessments and advisory services can impact your bottom line, visit www.ventanaresearch.com.

© 2006 Ventana Research