Key Findings & Highlights:

IBM Cognitive Process Services (IBM), headquartered in Armonk, New York, provides a range of back-office and industry-specific outsourcing services through its Global Business Services (GBS) business segment.

GBS’ Talent and Engagement (T&E) segment includes the following offerings:

• HR Reinvention: Services to help companies transform their HR organization, build a digital enterprise and move to the cloud.  This includes developing new, more agile operating models, implementing cloud HCM solutions and deploying cognitive capabilities to enable more personalized employee care
• Talent Acquisition: Consulting and RPO services for optimizing the hiring function to more effectively source, recruit, and hire the skills needed for business success
• Talent Development: Strategic services for creating a more dynamic learning function, that offers personalized, real-time development activities and creates a culture of continuous learning
• Culture and Leadership: Advisory services for understanding, amplifying and sustaining a company’s core culture and developing the leaders who embody it
• Digital Change: Contemporary change methodologies and tools backed by behavioral science and analytics to help clients shape, plan, and execute business transformation initiatives.

Today, IBM provides a range of HR outsourcing services through a consult to operate model, including:

• HR strategy consulting: HR transformation, Phase 0 assessment and selection, employee experience roadmaps, culture and leadership
• Core HR system implementation and optimization for Workday, SuccessFactors, and Oracle Fusion
• Multi-process HR services: contact center, EDM, payroll, benefits administration, compensation, recruitment outsourcing, and learning platform services including content development and learning administration.

IBM's HR services offering includes a consult to operate model, assisting clients on the front-end to shape the business case, redefine the operating model, and design HR processes, and then establishing the capability to manage and operate functional areas across all HR domains. This includes traditional HR multi-process services as well as release management services for client HCM platforms.

Through its HR solutions, IBM leverages RPA and AI technologies as foundational capabilities that enable digital transformation and enhance the value derived from client HR systems. 

IBM’s HR portfolio includes cognitive and automation assets that are designed to: 

• Deliver personalized recommendations, for employees, managers and HR.  
• Transform interactions and increase employee engagement with the enterprise
• Create empowering insights that make information and knowledge broadly available to support a wide variety of decisions
• Optimize operations by automating repeatable processes and improving the accuracy and quality of user and client outcomes.

It has incorporated RPA and AI capability across the entire HR domain, including

• Talent acquisition & onboarding
• Learning and employee development
• Knowledge management
• Payroll
• Benefits
• Compensation
• HR operations.

IBM has deployed hundreds of software robots and desktop automation scripts in its HR operations and estimates it has automated ~30% of its HR processing to date. IBM maintains a library of over 9k objects across its entire spectrum of services and industry verticals, with HR automations comprising ~1k of these (>10%). 

IBM's RPA and AI solutions are available as part of HR service delivery, or as standalone solutions (automation as a service). It can support clients with consulting, solution development, deployment, and ongoing managed HR services.  

IBM supports the delivery of its automation capability through a combination of its own development resources and solutions, and by leveraging select "best in class: technology platforms and partners.

IBM maintains a COE structure in the delivery of its RPA and AI capability, with primary leadership in its Costa Rica center, supported by resources in Budapest, Hungary, and Manila, Philippines. 

IBM's approach to rolling out its RPA and AI capability to its client base is a mix of application at the service level across all client programs, as well as deployment against specific client use cases and environments.   Because IBM leverages client HR technology investments in the delivery of its HR services, many of its RPA and AI engagements are conducted at the client level, on a case by case basis, targeting the highly manual processes first, and then expanding to improve various processes next.

IBM has does not disclose its precise volume of clients leveraging each of its RPA and AI solutions, however, based on its approach, 100% of its clients are currently impacted by the technology. The large majority of its clients are Fortune 500 (or equivalent) multinational enterprises headquartered in North America, Europe, India, and Asia Pacific.