I was recently invited to a demonstration of the “Kickass HR Solution” called Aperio®, by HRWARE. I was impressed with the flexibility, depth and ease of use. Not to mention the price point is perfect for the SMB market.
I spent some time with Kathy Tuitt, President of HRWARE to talk a little more about her, the company and their amazing new solution.
Tim: Tell us a little about your career history and how/why you founded HRWARE.
Kathy: I started my career as a Staff Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand, studying to be a CA. I quickly realized that this was not the career for me and moved into a sales position. After selling different products for several different companies, I landed a job selling HR Software. I had found my niche! I loved the market, the HR people and this type of software. I was working at a company with my partners, (Tony Couto and Alfred Tuitt) that was about to be acquired and we decided to go it on our own. In November 1994, HRWARE was founded as a Canadian distributor of HR software.
Tim: Tell us about the moment when you decided to develop Aperio®. What motivated you to make this decision?
Kathy: As a distributor we had very little say in the product Roadmap of our suppliers and we relied on our own development team to meet the needs of our clients. HRWARE was becoming a “custom” shop, which met the immediate needs of our clients but proved extremely difficult to upgrade. Our UTOPIA, was to develop an HR software solution that would be extremely flexible and configurable without the need for customization. Aperio® was born.
Tim: What is your target market? Please tell us a bit about typical companies that use your services?
Kathy: Aperio® was designed for the SMB market with a specific focus on companies with global requirements (offices in multiple countries). Aperio® was designed from the ground up to accommodate multiple languages and globalization issues. Aperio® is modular and is well suited for small businesses or scalable for organizations with as many as 3000 employees. Historically we were limited by our partnership agreements to selling in the Canadian market and while this will always be our primary focus, we are now looking to set up a global reseller channel in several different countries.
Tim: Tell us a little about the team at HRWARE and what makes them awesome.
Kathy: The three executive team members at HRWARE each have over 25 years of experience in the HR Technology industry alone. They understand the market and the challenges that companies and end-users face on a daily basis. This brings a high level of added value when working with the development, implementation and support teams to provide the highest quality product service and support to our current and future clients.
Tim: What is Flexify® and why it is a game changer in your market?
Kathy: Flexify® is a software feature which combines the Flexibility of Configuration and the technology of Extensibility to completely eliminate the need for custom programming to meet a client’s needs. Extensibility allows clients to easily add forms and fields of information to their system to track unique requirements without affecting the ability to seamlessly upgrade the software. Flexify® reduces the cost and time of implementation by up to 90%. By significantly reducing implementation costs and still allowing organizations to meet all their needs, Aperio with Flexify® provides an affordable alternative for SMB’s looking for an HRMS solution.
Tim: What do you see as the next big HR Tech trend and how will you position Aperio® to be at the forefront?
Kathy: I believe that one of the next big HR Tech trends will be software extensibility. Today, only a few of the big boys like Oracle and WorkDay offer it but most SMB’s can’t afford those solutions. Black-Box Extensibility allows qualified end-users (usually system administrators) of software solutions, to easily add new forms & fields to the applications without the need for custom programming. This represents a significant savings in software implementation time and costs to organizations and opens the door to SMB’s to invest in HR Technology. Aperio® now makes it easy for them to have similar toys that the big boys provide for an investment they can afford.
Tim: Will you be attending any HR events/conferences this year? If so, which ones and why?
Kathy: There are some events like Influence HR 2015 and the HR Technology Conferences in Las Vegas in October 2015 and CeBIT 2016 in Hannover, Germany in March, which we will attend in order to feel the pulse of the industry and to maintain a competitive edge and a better understanding of where Aperio® fits in the global HRMS/HCMS spectrum.
In Canada, we’ll definitely be at HRPA 2016 in January in Toronto and at the HRIA 2016 in Calgary where we will be promoting our brand with our Canadian Resellers. You might also find us at Toronto’s 2015 HR Leaders Summit in mid-November but that’s not yet confirmed.
Outside of Canada, the beginning of November we will be participating with our Mexican resellers in the EXPO Capital Humano event in Mexico City to help them promote the Aperio® brand.
Tim: Now that you’ve successfully launched Aperio®, what’s next for you and your team?
Kathy: That’s a very good question; we’ve worked very hard to make Aperio® global compatible and are working with the Canadian and Ontario governments and Microsoft to help us build a global reseller channel. We are currently in talks with potential resellers in Canada, Mexico, Chile, Columbia, Peru, Australia, India, Turkey and Egypt and our expectation is to establish resellers in all of those countries by the end of this year.
That said, we will be continuing to improve the functionality and configurability that Aperio® and Flexify® provide our resellers and clients while at the same time adding new modules like Payroll, Benefits, Compensation Management, Leadership Development and Succession Planning.
Tim: How can people learn more about Aperio® and your services?
Kathy: People can go to our website www.hrware.com and/or follow our social media channels for the latest news and updates on Aperio®:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hrwarefeed
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HRWARE
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hrware
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/hrwarefeed
Also, you can directly reach me at kathyt@hrware.com or call me at 905.840.2521 EXT: 102