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SAP SuccessFactors pros and cons

Vendor: SAP

3.9 out of 5

99 reviews
85% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

SAP SuccessFactors offers strong talent acquisition, learning, and performance management features. It provides flexibility in handling HR processes, supports seamless integration with SAP systems, and enhances employee management. However, it lacks robust integration with non-SAP systems, struggles with customization, and requires improvement in analytics. High pricing and licensing along with limitations in international compatibility, particularly in payroll, may deter some tech buyers seeking comprehensive HR solutions.

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 management, providing best-in-class features.

The platform offers seamless integration with S4 HANA, optimizing payroll and enhancing ease of operation.

Its onboarding module effectively transitions candidate information, streamlining the recruitment process.

The cloud-based system supports scalability, making it suitable for businesses of various sizes with its rich HR capabilities.

SAP SuccessFactors enables detailed performance and goal management, aiding effective team evaluations and management insights.

CONS

SAP SuccessFactors needs improvement in its reporting and analytics capabilities, lacking depth and customization options.

The integration between Employee Central and other modules is problematic and requires enhancement.

The pricing of SAP SuccessFactors is considered high, and the licensing model could be improved.

Data management in SAP SuccessFactors is challenging, with limitations in accessing, updating, and manipulating HR data.

SAP SuccessFactors could benefit from improved compatibility with various countries, especially concerning payroll and other functionalities.

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: August 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: August 2025.

867,676 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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