NGA Goes on a Crash-Diet to Survive in the As-a-Service Economy

We have witnessed countless situations in which clients have been crippled by outdated HR technology platforms that fail to provide adequate or easily accessible employee and payroll data to stakeholders within an organization. This is partly a failure to write off legacy and partly a failure to take a collaborative approach in step with clients’ needs.

Our research highlights the need for collaborative engagement between supplier and provider, and the move away from legacy platforms. To underscore its importance, HfS includes legacy write off and engagement as ideals of the As-a-Service Economy.

HfS recently attended NGA’s UK analyst event in Bristol, UK. The event coincided with the opening of NGA’s Innovation Center. This new innovation center houses NGA’s ResourceLink engineers as well as the support team for the ResourceLink platform.

A key theme of the event was NGA’s streamlining of operations to revive the service provider’s lagging profitability. This streamlining includes the typical consolidation of an organization’s cost base, achieved through the closure of delivery locations (60 centers consolidated to 7), reducing less profitable offerings (reducing its HR consulting practice from 1,200 to 500 consultants over the last five years). But it also focused on more fundamental changes in the way it services its client base. For example, by making more use of its own HR platform, ResourceLink, NGA’s proprietary cloud, or on-premises, HR and payroll platform. Previously, NGA collaborated with larger clients to create a bespoke ResourceLink platform for these individual clients. This not only significantly increased the cost and time to deploy the solution into organizations but also placed huge strain on the NGA developers who designed updates. NGA now only customizes the user interface and branding for clients without altering the fundamental structure of the platform. For UK clients, this design work is carried out in the new Bristol innovation center.

The key priorities for NGA in 2016 include:

• World-class delivery: The company is looking to incorporate an increasing amount of Lean Six Sigma methodologies and RPA within its processes. NGA has also rolled out its “Standards Bible”—a process manual that aims to deliver consistency in service delivery across the organization.
• Technology platforms: NGA has improved the mobile functionality of its ResourceLink platform—and will continue on that path. The company will also aim to build on its service support of leading third-party HCM platforms, such as SuccessFactors and Workday, by including support for Oracle. It will do this on a reactive basis rather than as an implementation partner like it did with SuccessFactors and Workday.
• Developing partnerships: The company is looking at developing new payroll “partners” to increase the number of payroll connectors it can deliver on.
• Growth and expansion in new markets and segments: NGA is looking to increase its mid-market presence in the UK, US, Oceania and Western Europe. Asia is not yet a primary focus.

Clearly, NGA is shifting the focus of its service provision to reflect the As-a-Service ideals by writing off legacy through the implementation of its own ResourceLink platform and partnerships with SuccessFactors and Workday, as well as building more collaborative engagements through its ongoing client relationships. The company has throttled back its collaboration with clients by removing full customization of ResourceLink but it is still using client feedback to enrich the platform. These streamlining implementations have so far boosted the company’s profitability, which was a key concern for management. Now it has to demonstrate that these actions will continue to deliver improved outcomes for both its customers and shareholders.