Although customers are eager to move their Core HR applications to the cloud, some large customers may have difficulty transitioning to the cloud in one single implementation. This could be because of cultural, technical or legal reasons. Such customers fall into two broad categories.
The first category of customers have a subsidiary or region that wants to move to the cloud while the parent company is not so keen. Such customers can use the Side-by-Side HCM distributed deployment model where they move the subsidiary or region to the cloud for Core HR and keep the parent company on-premise for Core HR. In this scenario, all employees use talent management in the cloud.
The second category of customers have multiple Core HR implementations on-premise - sometimes up to eight on-premise implementations of SAP ERP HCM systems accumulated via acquisitions. Such customers want unified navigation, some standardization of global processes, and unified reporting - usually global head count reporting. Such customers can use the Side-by-Side HCM Consolidated deployment model. In this model customers connect their multiple SAP ERP HCM systems to Employee Central in the cloud and make Employee Central the unified navigation and reporting system for all employees. Employee Central may handle some global HR processes that are common for all employees.
Design Intent
It is important to note that the product teams have designed the Side-by-Side HCM deployment model as a step towards Full Cloud HCM deployment model where Employee Central becomes the only Core HR system for all employees. The design intent is not for customers to stay in the Side-by-Side HCM deployment model for a very long period.
Design Boundaries
It is important to note that the Side-by-Side HCM deployment model continues to evolve. It may not be the ideal solution for all customers. The nature of the deployment model requires additional attention, implementation time and software licensing compared to the Talent Hybrid and Full Cloud HCM deployment models. So, it is necessary to study customer requirements carefully and recommend this deployment model only if it solves a customer problem, reduces risk, and enables them to take a step towards the cloud.
Additional Resources
My colleagues led by Eva Woo, the solution marketing manager for Employee Central, have put together a white paper that you can read and share with customers.
My colleague Parvathy Sankar, the solution manager for the Side-by-Side HCM deployment model, has created a level 2 presentation on this topic.
I have posted and featured both documents in the internal jam group www.sappeoplecloudintegration.com (only for SAP and SuccessFactors employees) and in the partner Jam group www.sapcloudintegrationforpartners.com (invitation only Jam group for partners).
Chapter 5 in the book on Integrating SuccessFactors with SAP covers the topic of Side-by-Side HCM. It was written by a team led by my colleague from professional services, Vishnu Kandi. The book is available for pre-order from Amazon and SAP Press.
There is an integration guide for the Side-by-Side HCM deployment model available in the help.sap.com/hr_integration location.