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SAP SuccessFactors pros and cons

Vendor: SAP

3.9 out of 5

95 reviews
85% willing to recommend

1,877 followers

Pros & Cons summary

SAP SuccessFactors is renowned for excellent Talent Acquisition, Learning, Goal, and Performance Management, with quick Human Resources Management implementation. Its onboarding seamlessly integrates recruitment data. Although scalable and customizable for diverse industries, it requires enhanced third-party integration and improved analytics. Localization support is lacking in areas like the Middle East and Russia, while its functionality is often considered complex. High pricing suggests a need for review.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

SAP SuccessFactors excels in Talent Acquisition and Learning features, making them highly valued by organizations.

The performance management capabilities of SAP SuccessFactors provide significant improvements, allowing effective monitoring of team performance and goal management.

The ability to seamlessly handle employee records, payroll, and HR processes in a cloud environment offers convenience and efficiency for businesses.

SAP SuccessFactors offers robust integration with other systems, making it a scalable and flexible choice suitable for various industries.

Talent management and HR analytics features in SAP SuccessFactors are praised for their effectiveness and ability to streamline HR functions.

CONS

SAP SuccessFactors needs better integration with other systems.

The analytics and reporting capabilities require significant enhancement.

Improvements are needed in SAP SuccessFactors' Language and localization options, particularly for regions like the Middle East, Russia, and Nigeria.

The initial setup and configuration process is complex and needs simplification.

SAP SuccessFactors pricing is considered high and not flexible.

SAP SuccessFactors Pros review quotes

BP

Belinda Pearson

SAP specialist at Dis-Chem Pharmacies Ltd

May 15, 2023

I love SAP, and I like SuccessFactors...I think most users prefer SuccessFactors as they become more comfortable with it.

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RK

HRIS Manager at Khatib & Alami

Dec 27, 2021

This solution has automatic linking and reporting features. Upgrades are hassle-free because you don't need to change everything from scratch, when compared to Meta4.

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Founder and Director at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Mar 7, 2023

SAP SuccessFactors integrated solution, allows us to start the process from a recruitment marketing perspective and have our career site and candidate profile pull through into each other.

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SAP SuccessFactors

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Learn what your peers think about SAP SuccessFactors. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.

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Managing Director at Omnitelltech

Feb 19, 2021

I think it's perfect that every requirement has flexibility in how it is handled, and that there are several workarounds for any problem we are looking to solve. Each problem has multiple solutions, so it gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of processes.

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YZ

SAP Project Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

May 7, 2020

The performance goals and learning management solutions are the product's most valuable features.

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Sr Supervisor at Falcon Pack

Nov 15, 2022

One of the most wonderful features is the ability to customize the modules and workflows. So far, we've done a fair bit of customization and it is helping us a lot and really adds to the value we already get from SuccessFactors.

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Head - Shared Service Operations and HR Systems at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 2, 2024

It is a very stable solution.

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UD

AVP - HR IT at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees

Jan 4, 2022

This solution offers good flexibility and configurability. It can handle different types of performance management.

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reviewer1488675

Country Expert Total Workforce Managemnet/ Learning & Development at Bosch

Jan 18, 2021

It has a global database, and it is globally accessible. By using this solution, we have moved away from paper, which is a big step for us.

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Solutions Architect at EJADA

Nov 10, 2022

The main advantage of SuccessFactors is its ability to add many types of integrations within the SAP Cloud platform. Many useful modules can be implemented alongside SuccessFactors as third-party integrations, and this capability to extend the system is a big plus.

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SAP SuccessFactors Cons review quotes

BP

Belinda Pearson

SAP specialist at Dis-Chem Pharmacies Ltd

May 15, 2023

There have been cases involving a lot of re-implementations and frustrations within clients where they have the workbook sessions, the workbook workshops and things like that. And I think that doesn't really go down well because the workbooks are very technical and, a lot of times, very confusing for the client.

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RK

HRIS Manager at Khatib & Alami

Dec 27, 2021

The process for long modules needs to be improved, because compared to how it's done with a competitor (Meta4), the competitor's process was simpler.

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Founder and Director at a consultancy with 1-10 employees

Mar 7, 2023

SuccessFactors should consider building their best practices around critical industries to help companies become more differentiated in the markets they operate in.

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SAP SuccessFactors

Free Report: SAP SuccessFactors Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about SAP SuccessFactors. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.

849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Managing Director at Omnitelltech

Feb 19, 2021

To explain one feature that I would like to see in SuccessFactors, I must describe a similar feature as seen in Oracle. In Oracle, there's a feature called Workforce Prediction, and with this feature, we can predict some of the behaviors of any employee. For example, the software can attempt to predict whether the employee might resign in future, or perhaps if they will start to perform better. This is something that is missing in SuccessFactors.

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YZ

SAP Project Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

May 7, 2020

The solution needs more localization, especially for the Middle East and Russia.

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Sr Supervisor at Falcon Pack

Nov 15, 2022

One of the most essential features that needs improvement right now is the reporting functionality. SuccessFactors' reports seem to be lagging a bit behind and we are very interested in customizing the reporting mechanism such that it pushes reports through quickly and automatically.

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Head - Shared Service Operations and HR Systems at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 2, 2024

The tool is not very nimble or customizable.

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UD

AVP - HR IT at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees

Jan 4, 2022

User experience for this solution needs to be improved.

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reviewer1488675

Country Expert Total Workforce Managemnet/ Learning & Development at Bosch

Jan 18, 2021

Its overall integration and user experience can be improved. SuccessFactors is a system that is built out of three different systems. The elements part was bought from Plateau, and the original performance dialogue was built by SuccessFactors itself. After that, SAP bought it, and it hasn't improved in the last few years. SuccessFactors is a perfect tool if you use it the way it is meant to be, but if you start building custom sessions and try to use it differently, then it is a total mess. It is not agile. It is like an old Mastodon truck or whatever. We don't have the Employee Central and Competence Management modules. Our company made the choice to not implement the Employee Central module. We also didn't implement the Competence Management module. We use the learning module to do some competence management, but I am not that fond of it. It would have been best to have the whole suite. SAP should never sell this without selling the whole suite because it just doesn't work. The biggest gain for me would be having the possibility of doing strategic personnel planning and managing internal mobility. If it could be used for social purposes, such as creating communities and connecting with media channels, that would be perfect. It should also have the possibilities for local admin and agile product development.

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Solutions Architect at EJADA

Nov 10, 2022

Overall, the documentation could be improved, and I think the learning management module needs to include more capabilities when it comes to matching an organization's particular learning approach.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 77)

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