Recently, Beisen HR has applied for a new round of integration of HR services (x5.2 billion yuan) in Beisen port, following the recent launch of the old HR platform 0
Ji Weiguo, co-founder and CEO of Beisen, told China business daily and other media reporters that in the past 20 years, the field of human resources has been changing and innovating, during which some new concepts continue to appear, such as the transformation of “three pillars of HR” – referring to the expert center (COE), human resources business partner (hrbp) and shared service center (SSC), as well as the OKR (objectives and key results) performance management model emerging in recent years. In fact, if we take a long time window to observe, “every change of human resources reflects the general trend of the transfer of human resources functions to business departments, and business departments are increasingly becoming the protagonist of human resources management”.
In Ji Weiguo’s view, in the next 10 or even 20 years, the overall trend of human resources digitization is the integration of business and human resources, and the role of the new generation of HR SaaS will change from the software used by the human resources department to the productivity tool of business managers, hrbp and employees.
Our reporter noted that thanks to the “cloud” of enterprises and the wave of digital transformation, the HR SaaS industry ushered in a growth opportunity, and the participating enterprises and capital parties actively made efforts to layout. Compared with developed markets, China’s HR SaaS industry started late, so the market maturity and penetration are still relatively low. Beisen quoted the report data of insight consulting in its prospectus, saying that in 2020, the penetration rate of cloud human resource management solutions in the whole Chinese market was only 1.4%, while that in the U.S. market was 24.5%, which means that there is still a lot of room for growth of HR SaaS in China.
human resources service enters the era of 3.0
Ji Weiguo pointed out that from the perspective of the development of China’s human resources software service industry, it has roughly experienced three major processes. The 1.0 era is before 2016. Human resource software is called “installation informatization”, which is characterized by the separation between businesses, and even many businesses do not “run” online. Since 2016, the 2.0 era represented by HR SaaS, which subscribes and pays on the cloud, has opened, and the whole business chain has begun to open up, establishing a full scene and integrated logic and concept for employees. The data can be analyzed, But it is still not a business centric architecture. With the development of digital economy, HR SaaS began to evolve to 3.0. Its ultimate goal is to help business departments achieve business success. It has become a productivity tool for enterprises and a “powerful tool” to implement business departments and achieve business success. Therefore, the integration of business and human resources is the general trend and direction of the digital evolution of human resources.
Chen Guo, managing director of Boston Consulting Company, said: “the digitization of human resources is no longer a simple digitization of organization and talent management. On the premise of adapting to the working mode of the digital era, it will realize the digital collaboration of organization, including task collaboration, goal feedback and knowledge management.” How to cooperate and coexist between HR and business has become an urgent problem to be solved by digital enterprises.
Beisen introduced the new generation of italentx5 0 based on multiple responsibility roles such as business manager, store manager, hrbp, manufacturing line manager and human resources person in charge, it focuses on the three business role functions of business manager, store manager and hrbp. Among them, the business manager can not only “find out” the team information in real time, but also return the voice of performance appraisal and team preparation to the business manager through the functions of digital talents, new organizational performance and budget preparation of the platform, so as to improve the overall efficiency.
In addition, Beisen’s PAAS (platform as a service) platform has also been iterated and upgraded for the needs and pain points of enterprises under the new normal of epidemic prevention and control and the new economic cycle. Ji Weiguo said that on the one hand, parental leave, home office solutions and remote integration of new employees have been added. On the other hand, enterprise customers can quickly develop online personalized applications based on the platform, such as work order system, store bonus, shift work, etc.
how to release greater business value
Our reporter learned from various data and public information that the field of human resources in China covers headhunting recruitment, human resource management, flexible employment, employee learning and training, salary management and other subdivided industries, and has actively developed to SaaS in recent years. Among them, Beisen is representative in China’s human resources services and even the whole SaaS field. The company has launched SaaS services such as recruitment cloud, performance cloud and successor cloud since 2010, PAAS platform in 2015 and integrated solution in 2020. In May 2021, it completed round f financing of USD 260 million, setting a record for the largest single round financing in the vertical track. Because SaaS enterprises need to continuously invest in product R & D and operation, and their commercialization ability has not been fully released, they are currently seeking to open financing channels from the secondary market.
According to the disclosure of Beisen’s prospectus, Beisen achieved revenue of 382 million yuan, 459 million yuan and 556 million yuan respectively in the fiscal years ending March 31, 2019, 2020 and 2021, with gross profit margins of 60.6%, 59.8% and 66.4% respectively. From the perspective of revenue structure, the company’s revenue sources include cloud HCM (Human Resource Management) solutions and professional services. In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, the revenue contribution ratio of cloud HCM solutions reached 62.7%, while customized professional services accounted for 37.3%. Beisen said in the prospectus that the net funds raised from the IPO will be mainly used to further upgrade the integrated cloud HCM solution; Continuously improve product and technology development capability; Invest in sales and marketing to improve brand awareness; Enhance the ability in customer success and service; And for working capital and general corporate purposes.
According to the data of insight consulting, based on the revenue in 2020, Beisen has become the largest cloud human resource management solution provider in China with 12% market share. This figure is higher than the sum of the second and third largest enterprises in the same period, each with a market share of less than 5%.
The reporter noticed by combing a number of us listed companies in the field of human resources services, including traditional HR service enterprises and HR SaaS companies, which jointly support a huge commercial market, especially workday (NASDAQ: WDAY), a US stock star SaaS enterprise, was founded in 2005. As of the closing on May 20, Eastern time, workday reported US $165.99 per share, with a total market value of US $42.106 billion. Therefore, whether Beisen can grow into a workday in China has also attracted attention.
Cao Kaibin, President of Haibi Research Institute and Secretary General of cloud service branch of application software products of China National Software And Service Company Limited(600536) Industry Association, pointed out to our reporter that after years of market exploration and product polishing, Chinese government and enterprise customers’ awareness and acceptance of SaaS are expanding, and it is expected that China’s SaaS service will usher in rapid growth in the next few years.
Obviously, SaaS enterprises still need to work hard to cultivate their “internal skills” to expand their “sector” and seize the market window. Ji Weiguo revealed that Beisen and knowledge lab jointly launched the HR x business symbiosis plan, which will involve entrepreneurs and core executives of 100 enterprises in digital empowerment and intelligence creation. He believes that in order to face challenges in the digital era, enterprises must build themselves into a symbiotic organization, and the first thing is to solve the problem of how HR can coexist with business and efficiently match strategic dynamics.
