Road Report: UKG Aspire 2024

4 December 2024 | Stacia Garr | #RoadReport

TL;DR

• Commitment to Customer-Centric Innovation: A central theme throughout the event was UKG’s dedication to putting customers at the forefront of their strategy. New CEO Jennifer Morgan emphasized a "customer-driven" approach, where products and services are designed around real-world challenges faced by organizations. This focus is reflected in the organizational alignment with customer needs, from the beginning of the sales process to post-live support.

• Strategic Focus on Double-Digit Growth through Global Expansion and Partnerships: Jennifer Morgan underscored UKG’s commitment to double-digit growth, achieved in part through global expansion and strategic partnerships. By focusing on partnerships with global systems integrators (GSIs) and expanding in regions with high growth potential, UKG is positioning itself to scale its reach and impact across diverse markets, helping drive new customer acquisitions and broadening its influence worldwide.

• Bryte AI and Flex AI Agents Designed to be a New Era of Workforce Automation: The introduction of the Bryte AI platform and Flex AI Orchestrator showcased UKG’s strategic focus on leveraging AI to automate and enhance HR and workforce management processes. These AI-powered tools are designed to manage routine tasks, make data-driven decisions, and even collaborate autonomously, creating efficiencies for managers and employees. UKG’s approach to AI—configurable, autonomous, and collaborative—demonstrates their commitment to building intelligent systems that enhance productivity without entirely replacing human oversight.

• Emphasis on Industry-Specific Solutions and Modular Customization: UKG’s focus on vertical industry leadership was evident, with targeted solutions designed for frontline-heavy sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and transportation. The modular design of products like UKG One View Multi-Country Payroll and the Ready platform allows organizations to customize solutions based on their unique needs. This modularity is designed to enable scalability and support specific industry requirements, allowing UKG’s offerings to be adaptable and relevant to a diverse client base.

Note: Today, December 4, 2024, UKG announced that Suresh Vittal will become the new Chief Product Officer as of January 20, 2025. Hugo Sarrazin, President, Chief Product and Technology Officer, will be leaving the organization.

UKG held its annual customer event November 11-13 in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. New CEO Jennifer Morgan was just one of a host of new senior faces at the event, signaling a significant change in approach at UKG. In this blog, I share the press release highlights, the key messages from Jennifer Morgan, and the most critical insights from Chief Product Officer Hugo Sarrazin. Within each section, I will also share my take on what I saw at the event.

Please note that this is a longer-than-usual Road Report. UKG has undergone some pretty significant changes in leadership since our last meeting with them, so we have spent a bit more time than usual sharing our thoughts.

Details on each of the above are in the full blog, which you can read for free on our RedThread community platform. Join here.

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Disclaimer: UKG is a member of our RedThread Research Tech Consortium, which is a group of 30+ HR Tech vendors that financially support our ability to provide high-quality, unbiased research. My travel and expenses were paid for this trip. I am not paid to write up this Road Report summary, which I do for the benefit of our RedThread Research membership. We have no other financial connections with UKG. UKG representatives were allowed to review this document for factual accuracy and to make suggestions or clarifications, but they did not have any final reviewer permissions.