Dive Brief:

• It's hard enough to get budget approval for an HR Tech upgrade, but to make it count, a company must be careful to choose the right vendor, according to Talent Management. Cloud-based technology is making life easier in many ways, with robust tools for both employers and employees and high ROI from lower upfront costs and scalability.
• Talent Management points out there are many considerations (choosing a unified or integrated solution is a big one), but HR/talent managers must remember that not all solutions are created equal. 
• The article's list of factors to explore when choosing HR technology include: credibility and stability, services, single-code functionality, implementation methodology, user experience, security, analytics and reporting, and customer focus. 

Dive Insight:

Some, such as user experience and security, are pretty straightforward. But others not no much.

For example, single-code functionality means understanding how the provider adds functionality. It's smart for buyers to "look under the covers" for potential speed bumps, such as when acquired bolt-on modules might have a separate database or a separate technical code. The result? Support becomes harder to execute, not to mention the possibility of un-synchronized data.

The article serves as an excellent primer for HR leaders who are about to attempt to upgrade their HR tech. As HR seeks to be a strategic business partners, unified data will be mandatory.