As predicted, it was an extremely telling few days at the annual HRO World conference.  My personal experience was that the talk of the conference was the lack of facilitated dialogue surrounding:

• Recent market events:  I personally find it irresponsible to not formally address the unfortunate number of ceased, modified and un-awarded transactions over the past few months.  The brainpower of the collective community missed a tremendous opportunity to apply calm and logical theories as to the underlying cause(s) and confounding variables that impact today’s buyer and provider community.  Without these discussions, individuals are apt to absorb misinformation, draw improper conclusions and suffer from fearful paralysis relative to current or future transactions. 
• Language:  Purists of old applied quite stringent criteria to what would “officially” qualify a deal to be called HRO.  The language of our industry has commoditized the term to the point of irrelevance, as one could successfully argue that any service provisioning to the HR buyer, regardless of size, scope and relative importance, is outsourcing.  Thus, we have nearly 2,000 vendors who could (and often do) call themselves HRO providers.  This begs the question of which type of buyer HRO World is intended to help.
• Market evolution:  It is no exaggeration when I say that more than 75 attendees asked me where this market is headed.  This was not idle chatter but instead genuine interest and concern about who is driving the bus and where we’ll all get dropped off.  Will mega deals cease to exist?  Is mid-market quietly rolling up share without the ire of public display?  Should I forget holistic outsourcing and simply contract out by single processes such as TBO, RPO, talent management, payroll, benefits, HRMS, etc.?  Do I even need an advisory firm to contract out each of these processes?  All excellent items to ponder.
• Conference evolution:  There is tremendous value in bringing this tightly knit community together on an annual basis.  However, many (including myself) never stepped foot into a single session.  Most come to this show to network, brief or be briefed, create and extend relationships, catch up with old friends and listen.  Similar to past years, I heard many vendors claim this is the last time they will sponsor a booth.  I believe them.  The lack of large buyers (as Naomi Bloom soberly pointed out in her request for a show of hands) amplifies this issue.  I would like to see this show morph into more of a forum.  The key difference in my mind is overt acceptance that the business that actually gets done at HRO World is accomplished over meals, in coffee shops, at bars, in concourse rooms and by walking the halls. 

Just to be very clear, I am a huge fan of this market and the people who populate this industry.  They are generally smart, driven and innovative individuals who truly hope to make a difference in the challenging and ever-changing world of HR.  However, we all know that survival requires evolution and I, for one, am calling for change.

Let’s keep the conversation going.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Human Capital/Human Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.