Triumph Motorcycles kick-starts changes with high-tech HR

From manual to automatic

Parsons said the software would eliminate manual tasks, saving each line manager several hours in administrative duties each week. They will be able to approve holiday requests and answer other queries from their mobile phones, for example.

The HR team will be able to escape repetitive administrative work, giving them time to work more closely with line managers. “They will shift from being a quite reactive admin resource to being more proactive,” said Parsons.

The company plans to link its CRM and cloud HR systems, in a move that will make it easier to manage the permissions that employees require to access data and IT systems.

“A customer will be able to walk into a dealership, point to a motorbike that he likes, say he wants that bike in yellow, and know accurately what date he will receive that bike”

Jonathan Parsons, Triumph Motorcycles

It will also allow the company to create profiles for new employees and delete the profiles of employees who have left the company.

Parsons described setting up a new employee and remembering to delete past users on Triumph’s existing AS400 technology as “laborious”.

In the future, Triumph is considering introducing chatbots, based around Infor’s Coleman artificial intelligence (AI) technology, that will be able to answer HR queries automatically.

Triumph also has plans to use Infor’s analytics software to help assemble teams with the right mix of skills for each motorcycle design project and for other team projects, said Parsons.

Employees will be able to complete a survey which will plot their strengths and weaknesses on a spider chart, allowing managers to create teams of people with complementary skills.

“If you think about a team designing a motorcycle, you might want more visionary, creative people on the project in the early stages. But towards the end of the development phase, you might want people who have attention to detail, with project management-type mindsets,” said Parsons.

Stepping up a gear

Parsons said it took a year for the company to catalogue every HR process, but that was an essential starting point before choosing a technology supplier.

Triumph looked at multiple potential suppliers of HCM systems, including Workday and SAP’s SuccessFactors, but found that most systems were designed for companies with 50,000 employees upwards.

It chose Infor’s HR technology because it was more flexible and adaptable than alternative systems, said Parsons. Infor is also supplying the company with ERP and CRM software.

Triumph made its decision after speaking to other users of the technology, including shoe retailer Footlocker and Ferrari, which has a similar business model.

“[Ferrari is] not a mass producer of vehicles. It is relatively small scale, so that bespoke ability and focus on quality is parallel to Triumph,” he said.

Parsons advises other organisations embarking on similar projects to modify their software as little as possible. 

“We have taken the attitude that unless there is a really good reason, we have gone with [the processes] in Infor HCM because we are anxious to customise as little as possible,” he said.