SAP SuccessFactors: leadership in talent management and reach in HR operations

The people management segment was the fastest-growing segment in the global ERP market in 2023, with an increase of 14% year-on-year according to Gartner. [1]

This is not just a sign of growth. It reflects a demand that has been accumulating for years without a sufficient response: organizations need to manage their teams in a way that their current systems do not allow them.

SAP SuccessFactors is the leading system in this market. With a presence in more than 200 countries and recognized as a reference in the Gartner Quadrant for HCM Cloud, it covers the strategic talent cycle in depth. [2]

But there is a significant gap between what SuccessFactors solves well and what a company needs when its workforce has an operational component: shifts, guards, seasonality or field staff. It is precisely in this gap that demand continues to grow.

What is SAP SuccessFactors and in what context does it work best

SuccessFactors is a cloud HCM (Human Capital Management) suite that covers the entire talent management cycle: recruitment and selection, onboarding, performance management and objectives, compensation and benefits, training and development, succession planning and workforce analytics. [2]

It integrates with SAP S/4HANA and other ERPs to allow payroll and position data to flow between systems without duplication.

Your ideal use case is an organization with office profiles or knowledge: a financial institution, an insurance company with a complex management structure, a technology company or a professional services firm. In that context, SuccessFactors is a robust solution that justifies both its cost and its implementation complexity.

The characteristics that differentiate it from mid-range solutions are clear: end-to-end functional coverage of the employee cycle, advanced analytical capabilities with Workforce Analytics and AI, native integration with the SAP ecosystem, and support for multiple laws simultaneously. [3]

For a multinational with a presence in several countries, these capabilities are not optional: they are critical.

The point where it stops covering the operation

The problem isn't in what SuccessFactors does, but in what it doesn't cover when the template has an operating component. And in Spain, most medium-sized companies in key sectors — health, hospitality, manufacturing, retail or logistics — have a significant part of their team in that profile.

Shift management with the logic of a sectoral agreement

SuccessFactors includes workforce planning modules. But “workforce planning”, in its context, means talent gap analysis, medium-term projections and succession planning.

It does not mean assigning the shifts for the following week in compliance with the restrictions of the collective agreement, guaranteeing minimum coverage in the Emergency Department according to the category of medical personnel or managing the rotations of a production line with different operator profiles.

This difference—between strategic planning and operational shift planning—is one of the most common gaps in organizations that have SuccessFactors in place.

In sectors such as hospitality, where labor costs represent between 30% and 40% of revenues [4], scheduling is critical to profitability. And yet, SuccessFactors doesn't natively cover operational shift planning in environments with high variability, such as a hotel with seasonal staff and multiple types of contracts.

Mandatory time registration and the reality of operational templates

In Spain, time registration has been mandatory since 2019 for all companies. [5] In theory, SuccessFactors can cover this requirement. In practice, its presence control module is not well adapted to the reality of an operational workforce: workers who sign up at different points in a facility, professional categories with specific time rules according to agreement, or the variable treatment of overtime depending on the day.

The result is that many companies with SuccessFactors in place continue to manage the time control of their operating workforce with spreadsheets or with specific tools (such as NetTime, SoftControl or Factorial) that are not integrated with the system.

Payroll data flows between systems. The actual hours worked data, on the other hand, is still manual.

Contingent contracts, ETT staff and seasonality

In sectors with high seasonality — hospitality, leisure, logistics or agriculture — a significant part of the workforce is made up of short-term contracts, ETT or campaign personnel.

SuccessFactors manages the fixed employee cycle well with a long time horizon: recruitment, integration, development and retention. But it responds worse to the cycle of a seasonal worker who enters for a summer campaign, works three months and leaves: onboarding must be completed in hours, not weeks; documentation must be minimal; and access to tools, immediate.

This profile—common in sectors such as hospitality or seasonal leisure—is not what SuccessFactors is designed to cover. And that is reflected both in the operational onboarding times and in the experience of the temporary worker.

The employee portal that doesn't use the operational template

SuccessFactors has an employee portal. It is web, has a mobile app and covers basic needs: payroll consultation, vacation request, access to the employee file. For an office profile that works with a computer, it is functional.

For a nursing assistant who wants to see their weekend shift before leaving the hospital, for a waiter who wants to change a shift with a colleague, for a factory worker who needs to report an incident from the production line, the SuccessFactors portal is not designed for that interaction. It is too complex, too oriented to formal administrative processes and too little oriented to the immediate operation that the plant worker needs.

How this problem is being solved in practice

A real case that illustrates this approach

You may know the case of Groupe SOS, a French organization with more than 20,000 employees in social, health and integration services.

They built with no-code tools a complete system for staff scheduling, attendance control and invoicing, with approval workflows adapted by region. [6]

They chose this path over solutions such as Retool because of cost and compared to traditional development because of speed. The system coexists with your ERP and HR platform without replacing either of them: it covers exactly the operational layer that existing systems did not solve.

This is precisely the type of challenge we address with our clients.

72% of organizations that adopt no-code tools build solutions of this type in less than three months [9], with savings of up to 70% compared to traditional development or customization of the HCM system.

The question to ask the HR Director

SuccessFactors is a good investment for what it was designed to do: managing talent from knowledge profiles in complex organizations.

The question that any HR director should ask before extending its use to the operational workforce is straightforward: how many people in the organization actually use the SuccessFactors portal and how many are still managing shifts, vacations and incidents outside the system?

The gap between SuccessFactors and the daily operations of plant personnel is not an implementation problem. It's a design limitation: SuccessFactors was built to manage strategic talent, not to coordinate the next week's shifts in a production plant or in a hospital environment. [8]

That gap can't be closed by customizing SuccessFactors. It is solved by incorporating a specific operational tool, integrated with the system, that allows payroll data to flow correctly without duplication or new information silos.

Bibliographic references

Methodological note: all statistics have been verified in the original sources before inclusion. The numerical citations in superscript [N] refer to the APA references listed below.

[1] Gartner. (2023). Market Share: Enterprise Resource Planning, Worldwide, 2023. Gartner Research, Doc. #5467895. https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/5467895 — The HCM (Human Capital Management) segment was the fastest growing segment in the global ERP market in 2023, with a 14% year-on-year increase. SAP, Workday, Oracle, UKG and Sage led the market.

[2] IBM. (2024). What is SAP SuccessFactors? IBM Think. https://www.ibm.com/es-es/think/topics/sap-successfactors — SAPSuccessFactors is a cloud-based HCM suite with end-to-end employee lifecycle coverage: recruitment, onboarding, performance management, compensation, training and succession.

[3] I3S Consulting. (2025). Talent management software: SAP SuccessFactors. https://www.i3s.es/blog/software-de-gestion-de-talento-conoce-sap-successfactors/ — SuccessFactors versus mid-range solutions: end-to-end functional coverage, advanced analytical capability (WorkforceAnalytics + IA), integration with SAP and third-party ERP without additional developments, global multi-legislation adaptability.

[4] GrandView Research. (2024). Healthcare ERP Market Size, Share & TrendsAnalysis Report, 2030. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/healthcare-erp-market-report — Hospitality labor costs represent between 30% and 40% of revenues. The management of healthcare and hospitality staff requires specific scheduling tools that standard HCM modules do not cover.

[5] Skello Spain. (2026). Control of hours worked with Excel: complete guide 2026. https://www.skello.es/blog/calcular-sus-horas-de-trabajo-mediante-una-tabla-guia-completa-modelo-para-descargar-2025 — In Spain, time recording is mandatory since Royal Decree-Law 8/2019 for all companies. Many medium-sized companies continue to fulfill this obligation with spreadsheets due to the lack of tools adapted to their shifts.

[6] Code.store. (2024). Convicts Follow-up ERP with Xano & WeWeb (GroupESOS case). https://code.store/case/sos-groupe — Groupe SOS (France, 20,000+ employees) built with WeWeb and Xano a complete scheduling, assistance and invoicing system with regional approval workflows, choosing this solution over Retool due to cost and traditional overdevelopment due to speed.

[7] MuleSoft/ Deloitte Digital/Vanson Bourne. (2024). Connectivity Benchmark Report 2024. https://www.deloitte.com/za/en/services/consulting/perspectives/2024-connectivity-benchmark-report.html — 81% of IT leaders say that data silos block their digital transformation initiatives. The integration between HCM and operational ERP systems is one of the most common integration frictions.

[8] Deloitte & TUM School of Management. (2024). The Future of ERP: A Study on the Challenges and Opportunities of ERP Systems by 2030. https://image.marketing.deloitte.de/lib/fe31117075640474771d75/m/1/147c324b-c7f5-4884-b3f7-06cf12247406.pdf — 57% of respondents believe that process automation (RPA) will be significantly relevant to ERP in 2030. HR operational gaps are the most frequently cited.

[9] Hostinger. (2025). 26 No-code and Low-code Trends for 2025. https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/low-code-trends — 72% of organizations that have adopted no-code tools build applications in less than three months. The savings in development costs compared to traditional development are 70% (Forrester).

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