What is our primary use case?
We've done some customizations on top of it, but it really focuses on leader management at the executive level – things like succession planning and leader development.
We haven't used it from a talent acquisition standpoint. It's really just been for talent management. We primarily use their succession planning features. The AI component recommends potential successors for roles we're trying to fill or plan for.
How has it helped my organization?
We're just launching it. We have two clients using it. Our company, Heidrick & Struggles, partners with Eightfold.ai, and we use a lot of our own IP, such as digital spend, capabilities, competencies, and culture assessment information. A lot of what we do is gather that assessment data and make recommendations based on that, in addition to Eightfold.ai's insights. It's a combination of the two that really helps us accurately identify the best fit for executive leadership roles.
It's purely data-driven, so we try to take human bias out of the process. That's really the sweet spot for this solution – the partnership between Heidrick's components and Eightfold's components.
The AI recommends potential leaders, so you don't have to do a ton of thinking. You still want some human interaction, but from a pure recommendation standpoint, it reduces the bias you'd get if you did not use data points for these decisions.
What is most valuable?
I really like the AI piece. It helps you find the right folks for your succession plan. I think that's where Eightfold.ai has an edge over other competitors.
What needs improvement?
From my perspective, I think the usability could use some attention. Eightfold.ai offers modules for talent acquisition, talent management, and other areas like projects. They try to use a common UI for all of them, but it really needs to be more persona-based. That's the thing that I struggle with the most.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using it for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is fantastic. In the two years we've used it, I've only experienced one outage.
I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability a five out of ten, one being easy to scale and ten being difficult to scale. There are a lot of manual components at this point. Since you have to ingest a large amount of leader data, that process is currently very manual with file feeds.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support are horrible. They could improve in terms of friendliness and responsiveness.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This was a solution we sought to build. We did research to determine the best partner, and through that process, we selected Eightfold.ai. So we didn't have a pre-existing solution in this area.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very complex. I would rate my experience with the initial setup a three out of ten, with one being highly complex and ten being easy to set up.
The deployment took about seven or eight months.
What about the implementation team?
We use Amazon Web Services and Azure DevOps for deployment, so there's a lot of technical folks involved. So, there were probably ten people total involved in the deployment.
Maintenance is mainly required for onboarding new users and handling feature progression. As Eightfold.ai releases new features, our DevOps team and our managed services teams work with clients to implement them.
Eightfold.ai hosts their side of things, so we don't have to worry about that piece. However, there's some additional complexity for us because we also integrate other applications within the Heidrick suite.
But just focusing on the Eightfold.ai perspective, there's not a lot of maintenance other than managing feature releases and moving those through our staging, UAT, and then enterprise environments.
What was our ROI?
Eightfold.ai contributed to reducing the hiring costs or improving employee retention for our clients.
It helps reduce that cost from both an overhead and employee headcount perspective. For the client, it reduces overhead costs because they're not managing spreadsheets. The system takes care of all that.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is expensive. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with one being cheap and ten being expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend it to others. The AI piece is really what drove our decision to select Eightfold.ai. It truly fulfills the need when combined with our own intellectual property and the data points we gather. From that perspective, it serves the purpose well.
Eightfold.ai's data is robust, and as time goes on, the system learns and improves our recommendations. So, it's more about the learning aspect and being able to accurately pinpoint leaders with the right skill sets.
Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner