SAP + Rival: Bring Agility to Global HR Teams
For more than two decades, SAP SuccessFactors has dominated the HCM market. With payroll coverage in more than 100 countries, SAP is the gold standard for managing complexity at scale.
But infrastructure alone doesn’t win talent.
At its core, SAP is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. That makes it perfect for keeping finance, HR, inventory, and sales connected in one system. SAP is all about control. The tradeoff? The tech is rigid; changes require consultants, and everyday users end up clicking through dated portals that feel more 2005 than 2025.
Rival complements SAP as the orchestration and experience engine that helps HR move faster, work smarter, and deliver a modern, state-of-the-art employee experience powered by AI.
In this blog, we’ll show how Rival helps you maximize your SAP investment, turning compliance-driven processes into more seamless, user-friendly experiences.
What SAP Does Well
HR and IT consider SAP a safe enterprise bet. SAP is known for its:
✔️ Global compliance coverage: Unmatched payroll and localization in 100+ countries
✔️ Unified platform: Combining HR, finance, and supply chain data in one ecosystem
✔️ Scalability: Built specifically for the world’s largest and most complex organizations
✔️ Breadth of offerings: Recruiting, learning, performance, and succession planning
Multinational companies need SAP’s solid infrastructure to handle complexity and regulations.
Where HR Teams Hit Friction
Those same strengths that make SAP a compliance powerhouse actually make it a headache for HR users. Here’s why:
⚠️ Rigid, IT-heavy journeys: Every tweak or configuration requires tickets and consultants (time and budget you don’t have).
⚠️ Slow adaptation: M&A, reorgs, or policy changes take months to reflect in SAP.
⚠️ Complex user experience: Dated, non-mobile portals force account creation, lead to candidate drop-off, and provide a poor frontline worker experience.
⚠️ No preboarding automation: The process stops cold at “offer accepted,” forcing IT setup and compliance to happen outside the system.
⚠️ Manual follow-up: HR ends up chasing tasks across payroll, IT, and compliance teams.
⚠️ Limited visibility: Managers can’t see progress and HR can’t quantify engagement.
⚠️ Weak analytics: Reports focus on headcount, not retention or funnel health.
Back-end changes require significant time and resources and the front-end employee journey suffers.
How Rival Complements SAP
Together, Rival and SAP bring structure and speed. Your HR data stays compliant and Rival makes it move.
Here’s how Rival fills the gaps HR teams feel most:
⚡ Smarter recruiting: Rival imports reqs and candidates from SAP, adding AI-powered sourcing, matching, and nurture campaigns.
⚡ Modern employee experience: Rival’s mobile-first employee portals and application flows close the user experience gap.
⚡ Seamless preboarding: Maximize the time between offer accepted and day one with automated IT setup, compliance checks, and communications.
⚡ Workflow orchestration: Automate HR, IT, and payroll tasks with configurable logic—no coding, no consultants.
⚡ Manager & employee dashboards: A comprehensive view of employee journeys and proactive nudges keep everyone accountable.
⚡ Self-service support: Rival’s conversational AI, Rival OS Intelligence (ROSI), gives employees an intuitive way to ask HR-specific questions and find answers instantly.
⚡ Retention & career pathing: Easily integrate milestones and growth paths to keep employees engaged.
⚡ Proactive reporting: Real-time alerts and task tracking prevent compliance mishaps.
⚡ Agility without IT: HR adjusts workflows in days, not months.
With Rival and SAP, HR can finally act on insights instead of waiting for them—finetuning the candidate experience and driving retention.
Unlock More Value from Your SAP Investment
Rival integrates seamlessly with SAP so you can unlock value quickly. Across talent acquisition and employee lifecycle management, Rival orchestrates all the moving parts with ease.
With Rival, HR practitioners can design and launch workflows themselves, while ROSI helps employers and managers self-serve without adding to HR’s workload.
Together, SAP and Rival give you a solid system of record that keeps your business compliant and a system of action that keeps you competitive.
