Andrew McCarthy
Vice President, Market Strategy
Ultimate Software
Looking back to the 1950s, the technology available for calculating payroll was as archaic as the 29,000-pound UNIVAC computer General Electric purchased for that purpose in 1954. In the succeeding 58 years, computing has made enormous strides. By the 1980s, we had 'personal' computers. And now, in the 2000s, computers have become essentially ubiquitous.
Super-slim laptops. Smart phones. Today, we can travel the world and our workforce data remains at our fingertips—never more than a click away.
Hand in hand with that processing power has come the consumer Internet, arguably the most important innovation of our generation. The Consumer Web fundamentally moved us from an engineering and calculation-centered computing model to a person-centered model.
Consider this: when a person goes to Amazon.com, 100 percent of the experience is designed to help them achieve their personal objectives. But typical business software has been slower to evolve. Contrast the consumer experience with sites like Amazon.com, Google, and iTunes, to that of the typical employee experience in business software, which usually consists of screens of open fields asking to be filled in because the system needs data from you.
The smartest businesses understand that a successful transaction is everything, and that the most important data provided by the customer is their own expression—through the search terms they use, their navigation through the store, and their actual purchasing habits—of what they want and need. We think a people management solution should work the same way.
We’ve come a long way in making people management processes more effective and efficient. Fast forward to what we offer customers today: one unified solution for payroll, HR, and talent management conveniently delivered in the cloud.
But we have our sights on moving beyond more efficient processes to even greater people-centric benefits like more personal user experience and employee engagement, collaboration, and development.
Ultimate has always taken advantage of new technology and we pride ourselves on our ability to deal with the most complex payroll and administrative HCM issues simply and easily. That will never change. But we can do both: take care of the administration of the business—and move it to background—while bringing the needs and experience of individual users to the foreground.
So in addition to continuing our investments in cloud infrastructure and the deepest SaaS HCM suite in the industry, we’re also designing, redesigning and developing new applications that treat people like people, not just sources of data or assets on a balance sheet. We want to make 2012 the year that business software finally puts people first.
I can’t wait to share our progress with you.
Andrew
Vice President, Market Strategy
Ultimate Software
Looking back to the 1950s, the technology available for calculating payroll was as archaic as the 29,000-pound UNIVAC computer General Electric purchased for that purpose in 1954. In the succeeding 58 years, computing has made enormous strides. By the 1980s, we had 'personal' computers. And now, in the 2000s, computers have become essentially ubiquitous.
Super-slim laptops. Smart phones. Today, we can travel the world and our workforce data remains at our fingertips—never more than a click away.
Hand in hand with that processing power has come the consumer Internet, arguably the most important innovation of our generation. The Consumer Web fundamentally moved us from an engineering and calculation-centered computing model to a person-centered model.
Consider this: when a person goes to Amazon.com, 100 percent of the experience is designed to help them achieve their personal objectives. But typical business software has been slower to evolve. Contrast the consumer experience with sites like Amazon.com, Google, and iTunes, to that of the typical employee experience in business software, which usually consists of screens of open fields asking to be filled in because the system needs data from you.
The smartest businesses understand that a successful transaction is everything, and that the most important data provided by the customer is their own expression—through the search terms they use, their navigation through the store, and their actual purchasing habits—of what they want and need. We think a people management solution should work the same way.
We’ve come a long way in making people management processes more effective and efficient. Fast forward to what we offer customers today: one unified solution for payroll, HR, and talent management conveniently delivered in the cloud.
But we have our sights on moving beyond more efficient processes to even greater people-centric benefits like more personal user experience and employee engagement, collaboration, and development.
Ultimate has always taken advantage of new technology and we pride ourselves on our ability to deal with the most complex payroll and administrative HCM issues simply and easily. That will never change. But we can do both: take care of the administration of the business—and move it to background—while bringing the needs and experience of individual users to the foreground.
So in addition to continuing our investments in cloud infrastructure and the deepest SaaS HCM suite in the industry, we’re also designing, redesigning and developing new applications that treat people like people, not just sources of data or assets on a balance sheet. We want to make 2012 the year that business software finally puts people first.
I can’t wait to share our progress with you.
Andrew
