Navigating the territory of HR technology can be treacherous. There are a myriad of vendors and technology platforms each promising something more impressive than the last. Lucky for you we have an HR Tech compass to show us the way – HR Tech Fest speaker Tim Sackett.

One of the most common questions I get asked at conferences like HR Tech Fest is “should I go with Best of Breed or Single Vendor Suite HR technology?â€'

Unfortunately there is no quick answer to that question! I've been in the HR tech game for many years and I still don't have a magic response. To help you answer this question, here's what you need to know about Best of Breed and Single Vendor Suite HR technology, and how SaaS affects it all.

If we look at Best of Breed and Single Vendor Suite software, I'm not saying one is better than the other, what I'm saying is that there are advantages and disadvantages to both. One of the main advantages of Best of Breed is that it will outperform a Suite in terms of functionality. If you really break down the individual functions, a Best of Breed technology should be better. For example a standalone Applicant Tracking (ATS) should kick the butt of any ATS that a suite has.

The one thing I think that Suite has over Best of Breed is the ability to talk to each other much more efficiently because they were actually built and designed that way. Now, not all suites are that way. Some suites are kind of a merger acquisition suite, where they said “Hey, you're a great core HR. You're a great ATS. You're a great performance management. Let's all get together and we'll figure out a way for these systems to talk.â€'

Now I can hear you thinking “Oh, wait a minute, isn't it really important that my systems talk to each other, no matter where I'm at? If I'm running a company with 500 people or a company with 500,000, I need my systems to talk together.â€' They will. If you go with Best of Breed, they might not be perfectly talking to each other, but there will be ways they can do that, especially if they're open API.

The one thing I'll say is if you decide to go Best of Breed, you really have to dig in to their client base and who's using it. If you sit there and say, “Hey, I run X Software as an ATS and I want to go Y Software as a core HRâ€' and they say “Yeah no problem, we integrate all the time and those systems talk great to each other.â€' You'd be wise to ask to talk to a client they've already done that with so you know what you're getting into. Too often we don't do this which I think is a big mistake.

It's important to understand whether the HR technology is built from one system or as a continuous system. I like the analogy of the Tesla and the Chevy Volt. The Tesla is an electric car built from the ground up to be an electric car. Chevy took a gas powered Chevy Malibu and said, “How do we put an electric motor into a gas powered car and make it electric?â€'

So when you look at HR software, are you buying a Tesla, something that was built for that sole purpose? Or are you buying a Chevy Volt, something that was built from something else? It's important to understand this distinction because it will have an effect on the functionality and how systems work with each other.

The way Software as a Service (SaaS) is going as an industry is we're seeing tons and tons of more technology in the HR tech world being developed. It's actually really cool. If you're a small, medium-sized business (zero to 1,000 employees), you can actually have better technology than an enterprise-level 500,000 person company. This is because there's certain aspects of an enterprise level company that HR tech vendors have to comply with. So they're not going to necessarily be on that cutting edge of technology but as an SaaS user, you can be. So, SaaS has really changed the game from that standpoint.

You also no longer need your IT team involved. You should, right? You should have a great relationship with your IT folks and have them involved, but they don't have to be. SaaS software can be up and running in a week. Very little cost to implement, very little cost to get it up to speed, and it happens very quickly.

SaaS is also exposing one of the biggest lies you are being sold today from HR tech vendors: That the cost of changing your HR technology is prohibitive. Now, the enterprise level guys don't want you to know that because they still want you to be really, really scared, that if you try to change something, it's going to ruin your world, it's going to cost millions of dollars, and you're probably going to get fired. Because that fear keeps you with them, it keeps you that valued customer, and no longer is that the case with SaaS.

SaaS has also changed the game for pricing models for HR technology. It used to be that the suite enterprise systems were just this one-time giant cost. “It's going to cost you a million dollars, but don't worry because you're going to have this system for life and you're never going to want to change.â€' And that was fine but now even the big enterprise-level companies are trying to figure out ways to implement SaaS pricing because it gives them more flexibility.

While the SaaS model ends up being a lot less expensive, the flip side is you don't own it. Now, every SaaS person will tell you that you're going to own your data and if you decide to leave them, they'll just throw it into your new system. Don't just take that as a given – ask to speak to a client they've done that with. Find out what their true experience was before you jump in. This should part of your RFP process. You really have to dig into that kind of stuff to say, “Wait a minute, before I determine to go SaaS, I want to know how easy it is to move my data someplace else? And don't just tell me, show me.“

About the Author

Tim Sackett is a HR pro with over 20 years' experience. With a career perfectly split between recruiting and HR generalist roles – (also split between the HR vendor community and the corporate world) – he's seen the HR world from all angles of the boardroom table. You can check out all his other brilliant ideas over at www.timsackett.com or download his free eBook: The Ultimate HR Tech Buyers Guide.

Tim was a popular presenter at HR Tech Fest 2015.