Bundling or unbundling?

When we built Reflect, we asked: where are companies heading with HR tooling—toward unification or decentralization?

A bit of history

2000s: focus on automating admin tasks via HRMS and payroll software.

Then came efficiency and employee experience with talent management, e‑learning, and ATS.

Over the last decade: employee experience became central, with tools for engagement and satisfaction.

The current landscape

Entrepreneurs launched specialized HR solutions—skills management, e‑learning, job boards, analytics, etc. Some were acquired by large players; others remained independent.

We now see:

• The giants (Workday, SAP SuccessFactors, ADP…) offering centralized suites with many modules covering the full employee experience.
• Specialized, best‑of‑breed tools solving targeted use cases: HR analytics, recruiting, eNPS, onboarding, and more.

Pros and cons

Unification

• Pros: simplified end‑to‑end HR process management—from recruiting to payroll.
• Pros: stronger support for complex international contexts across multiple countries.
• Cons: implementation complexity; large HRIS projects can stall after years and major budgets.
• Cons: one central tool rarely fits every specific organizational need perfectly.

Decentralization

• Pros: deep expertise. Few HRIS deliver exceptional analytics natively; many rely on white‑label BI.
• Pros: flexibility and integration. Pick the right tool for your context—payroll needs differ for 20 vs 1,200 employees.
• Cons: fragmented data. Exporting from multiple tools for reporting is time‑consuming.
• Cons: training and maintenance across several tools.