ADP Positions Marketplace as Entrée to As-a-Service HR

One of the ways ADP is making real on its tag line of “a more human resource,” is by making HR data more readily accessible and usable, while still keeping a focus on security and compliance.  It’s no secret (at least not now that ADP mentioned it at the recent Industry Analyst Day) that ADP has a lot of HR data—three pedabytes worth of it. That’s two times the size of the image library housed by Facebook, which as David Turetsky, ADP VP, Product Management says, is a lot of “cute cat pictures.” And ADP is opening it up—in a secure fashion, of course—and building analytics and advisory services around it.  The doorway to the data, insight and integration is the recently launched ADP Marketplace, which houses APIs and applications for HR and IT professionals, and clients and partners to access.

HR Professionals: If you are an HR professional or business using ADP’s payroll, benefits, or talent management software, Marketplace advantages include pre-approved integration with third party software for ‘plug and play’ to address HR business outcomes like employee engagement, compliance with the many global regulations, and increasing insight on your workforce through analytics.  Vantage clients will also have access to third party benchmarking data from The Hackett Group.

IT Developers: IT developers can access the ADP APIs and set up integrated, secure, automated, real-time integration and data transfer via Marketplace.  For example, when an employee is on-boarded into one system, the data will automatically be updated in any other system that has been integrated, whether it is an ADP system or a third party partner with an established and approved API. 

HR Specialist Players:  The Marketplace is a channel into ADP’s thousands of clients.  Any HR player can go in and apply to have its software “plug” reviewed and added as an option.  It becomes a channel through which it can reach HR professionals. There are 60 partners in the marketplace today, sortable by process or function, with more than 350 in the pipeline. ADP Marketplace includes both complementary and competitive (in select areas of HR) software providers.

Clients of any size and on any platform can use these APIs and applications.  Once approved, the pre-built applications on the Marketplace are all accessible to the end client with single sign-on.  ADP is making it easy to use.

From HfS’s perspective, ADP Marketplace seems to be developing with the spirit of the As-a-Service Economy, likely spurred in this direction by the rapid rise of ‘born in the cloud’ HR SaaS providers. ADP is severing ties with legacy apps. What intrigues HfS about this strategy is that it appears that a company could eventually build its HR solution by going to the ADP Marketplace and mapping out what pieces will create the right “hire to retire” solution—whether it is a standard set, or customized. Subscribers can stop using one app and start with another one and address each discrete problem or opportunity. 

Eventually, we could see all of ADP’s applications on the Marketplace, ADP componentizes and shutters old applications.  In the meantime, ADP is building up its advisory service capability, showcasing, for example, the value of its Accountable Care Act (ACA) compliance consulting at the conference.

It appears to HfS that ADP is betting that data and the ability to secure it and use it will be its differentiator in the future workplace. With the combination of employee data, best practices data from The Hackett Group, pre-built reports, dashboards, applications, analytics models and tools, and ‘approved’ integration, ADP is creating a mini-HR economy.  

ADP will need to continue to advance the software, secure the data, built and retain partners in the ecosystem, and develop advisory services to keep being competitive. However, ADP appears to have heeded the call of “As-a-Service,” opening up its system and data and making it easier for HR and IT professionals as well as third parties to create a more outcome focused business partner in HR.