How do you differentiate your product in a crowded market? HR platform idea.
Hello hackers,
I have an idea to launch a product in a big market but also with a lot of competition. I want to get into the HR space with a platform to cover the entire employee lifecycle (from sourcing candidates to offboarding). What I have seen is that the market is fragmented in a way that there are many tools for a narrow purpose. E.g. recruiting, onboarding, learning, etc. They all serve one step of the employee journey but there isn't really an all-in-one solution. While I believe companies are fine with multiple tools, I also believe some would prefer an all-in-one solution. I'm talking here about the SMB market (less than 1000 employees).
What do you think? Questions, suggestions, ideas to help me develop the idea further are much appreciated.
Thanks!
Working in HR for the past few years, I was thinking the exact same thing... but the segmentation you're talking about exists for a reason. One tool for all HR sub-functions would be quite inflexible and expensive. Companies prefer investing small amounts that is why they end up with several platforms...
Still the idea is very valid and would create substantial value. Have in mind though there are huge competitors (WorkDay, SuccessFactors) with unlimited resources covering the same need.
In any case, let me know how this goes.
Hey Igor,
thanks for answering to this old post.
That's what I thought too that the segmentation must exist for a reason. I think there is some space for this kind of product on the mid-market, sort of the market Hubspot has tackled in Marketing.
I have also noticed that most of the industry has been built around the employer but not really around the employee. That's why most core HR systems are poor in UX, you can easily see they only had their buyer (HR Manager) in mind.
My assumption is that in the next 5 years the value proposition for the employee is going to become mission critical, changing the role of HR from an administrative function to a strategic one. Technology is going to accelerate this through automation, eventually displacing typical HR managers. The role of HR in the future is going to be more of People Developers/Change agents rather than administration.
At some point I was thinking of a platform that would support the whole employee life cycle (recruitment, training, performance, benefits history of employee) from both ends employer’s and employees’… meaning that both entities would enjoy the benefits of the platform, each from his own perspective (employees: a profile with all HR related and not only info | employers: history of their employees and all in one IS) of course this constitutes a HUGE project, and very expensive for prospect clients who would probably prefer holding to their own/existing HR solutions.
Nevertheless the idea is awesome and in case you’ll ever start the project, you’ll have my full support (HR perspective & employee/candidate experience)