SAP Startup Spotlight: Pulsifi

Jay Huang is co-founder and CEO of Pulsifi. He is driven by helping people discover and achieve their potential. He co-founded Pulsifi to help companies truly understand their people and make better people decisions through the use of data, predictive analytics and AI. Prior to Pulsifi, Jay Huang was Head of Strategy at CtrlShift, an AI pioneer in people data for digital marketing and online advertising. At The Boston Consulting Group, he worked closely with companies in addressing their biggest people challenges. Previously, he was also a venture capitalist with Infocomm Investments. Jay Huang holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering & Operations Research from University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University. In this interview, he talks about what his company has to offer, how it is connected to SAP, and what’s next for Pulsifi.

E-3 Magazine: What exactly does Pulsifi offer?

Jay Huang: Pulsifi provides a people data platform to help enterprises improve quality and efficiency in talent acquisition and talent management, leveraging predictive analytics and AI.

How does your solution work?

Huang: Our SaaS platform is based on our people science, which is a combination of organizational psychology, data science and machine learning. Our platform analyzes multiple sources of people data such as CVs, psychometric assessments, video interviews and employee records to holistically understand each person across hard and soft skills as well as traits. It then accurately predicts work outcomes such as role fit, culture fit and performance and makes personalized recommendations from hiring selection to learning and development. Finally, actual outcomes feed back into the predictive models to refine them. Our customers include Nestlé, Heineken, RB, Baxter, Singtel, and many more across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand. Many of our customers also use the SAP SuccessFactors human capital management (HCM) platform.

What are the customer-side requirements?

Huang: There are no customer-side requirements! Users easily access our platform via a web browser. We onboard customers’ candidate and employee data into our predictive models through integrations with their existing HR systems like SAP SuccessFactors or even spreadsheet uploads. For customers without much existing data in place, we start collecting the data for them to begin the journey of realizing the benefits of predictive analytics.

Why did you start Pulsifi to begin with?

Huang: My co-founder Pete and I have a vision to help people and organizations achieve their true potential. Having been employees, leaders and founders, we realized that people are the most important asset of any organization, yet also the biggest challenge. A key reason for this is that many companies do not understand each of their people well enough, and do not make use of data to do so. Pete and I started Pulsifi to help companies make the most of people data at scale so that people can achieve their greatness and, in doing so, build great companies.

How could your solution potentially help customers navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and the different challenges of reopening?

Huang: Since the pandemic, human resources is a completely different playing field as we adjust to a new normal. While skills remain crucial, companies are starkly reminded of the importance of resilience, adaptability, a learning mindset and cultural fit in their people more so than ever. There is a stronger imperative to ensure that the right candidates are hired as employers hire more selectively while the number of available candidates increases. Companies also seek to engage and support their existing employees more, and bring out the best in them. Here, Pulsifi’s people data platform helps companies understand each and every one of their candidates and employees more holistically, accurately predict if they are of good fit, and how to develop them to their full potential. The result is that companies make much better people decisions while saving manual effort and reducing subjectivity.

How are you connected to SAP?

Huang: Pulsifi graduated from the inaugural SAP.io Foundry Singapore in 2019. Our platform is now listed on the SAP App Center and integrated with SAP SuccessFactors. Pulsifi and SAP go-to-market teams collaborate to bring SuccessFactors customers the benefits of predictive people analytics and AI. The dedication and result-orientedness of the SAP.io Foundry team gave us one of our best experiences in co-innovation programs. Our partnership with SAP.io has provided us the opportunity to be part of and enhance a world-class human capital management ecosystem with our predictive analytics and AI, and a global platform to support the world’s leading companies.

What’s next for Pulsifi?

Huang: We have an ambitious product roadmap to enhance predictive analytics and user experience across the talent lifecycle from hiring selection, to high potential identification, to personalized learning and development. Very often, this involves co-development with our customers, ensuring that our offering is always market-driven. We are also deepening our presence across Southeast Asia and expanding into new markets such as Europe. Naturally, all this is only possible because of our people. In addition to building Pulsifi into a world-class company that creates impact, it is seeing the growth of our people towards their greatness that is my greatest fulfilment.

Thank you for the interview.

Enjoyed this interview in our SAP Startup Spotlight Series? You might also like our piece on Cultivate, a digital leadership platform that helps organizations adjust to rapidly changing environments and helps people leaders grow.