Julia Knight-Ludvigson
Chief Marketing Officer
Today, there are many solutions to help you manage your global mobility programs, from best-of-breed to end-to-end suites. With so many types of solutions, it can be difficult to understand what you’re actually getting.
One of the primary considerations when investing in technology for managing your globally mobile employees is to understand who built the solution you’re using. Secondarily, one should be concerned with how it is built.
Proprietary technology or a third party platform
The first point of “how” your solutions are built concerns whether it is built on its own proprietary platform or “on top of” another solution.
Proprietary technology can be better suited for the nuances of managing global employees. There is typically more flexibility in how your solution provider can build their products since they’re not impacted by the constraints on which the platform is built. A risk to a solution built on top of a third party platform is if that vendor decides to discontinue that platform, or make changes to it that may negatively impact the functionality of the solution you’ve implemented.
Best of Breed vs Suite
Perhaps the easiest way to think about a best-of-breed vs a suite solution may be through an analogy using kitchens. Vendor A offers a best-of-breed point solution - they sell kitchen sinks. Vendor B offers a suite or end-to-end solution - they sell you a furnished kitchen including the sink, cabinets, dishwasher, stove, refrigerator, pantry, etc. with all the pieces fitting together for optimal storage and usage of your kitchen.
A best-of-breed solution may offer you exactly what you’re looking for that one piece of the mobility puzzle, but it is not integrated into the the whole solution. With suite-based solutions you benefit from knowing that all the pieces fits together. Integrated solutions can scale based on your needs at the time.
How is your solution maintained and upgraded?
When purchasing a GMM solution, you want to make sure it can easily be upgraded and implemented. The global workforce and business landscape is always changing and you need a solution that evolves along with it. Inevitably this consideration is largely impacted by how your solution is built.
Making the right decision for your needs
Only you can determine what type of GMM technology is right for your organization. Based on the scale, complexity, and nature of your global mobility program selecting a custom built solution may be the right answer. But before you make any decision, asking the right questions to understand who builds your solution, how you will access it, and how it is maintained will arm you with accurate tradeoffs between any potential solutions for your program.
