Taleo Acquires JobPartners – European Expansion a Priority

Today Taleo announced the acquisition of JobPartners, a small European provider of talent management software, for $38M in cash.  JobPartners is a small (~100 employees, around $15M-17M in revenues) but well established talent management software provider which has built an end-to-end talent management system primarily focused on the large enterprise market.  The company has 68 enterprise customers and a development center in Krakow and support center in Edinburgh.

This acquisition shows how important the European talent management market has become.  In our visits there and discussions with clients, it is clear that the concepts and strategies of integrated talent management are well understood by european HR leaders and business managers.  In fact, our Talent Management Factbook research continuously shows that companies in Europe are more sophisticated implementers of development planning, career planning, and overall organizational development strategies.  I always believed this was because most European countries are older than those in other geographies, so their business histories and markets are more mature.  In a mature market and business climate, organizations realize that without talent management strategies a company cannot grow.

This essentially doubles Taleo’s presence in Europe, bringing the company’s total headcount to over 200 people.  JobPartner’s customer base consists of “blue chip”  (is there a european similar term?) companies like Carrefour, Credit Agricole, Deutsche Post DHL, Dexia, Group France Telecom, Nike EMEA, Printemps, Rabobank, Reebok, Societe Generale, and Sodexo.  These large organizations look for vendors with a deep understanding of enterprise-class problems, which illustrates how JobPartners team will help Taleo further expand its enterprise business throughout Europe.

Other major players in Europe include Lumesse (formerly Stepstone Solutions), SuccessFactors (and Plateau), Saba, Kenexa, Oracle, SAP, Technomedia, and Cornerstone.  With this acquisition, Taleo becomes the second biggest non-ERP player in Europe based on revenue.

We estimate that the European market for talent management software (our in-depth Talent Management Systems report for 2011 and 2012 will be published soon) is growing at 15-18% this year, and is one of the fastest growing geographies in the world.  So this acquisition represents not only the acquisition of a product set, but more importantly the acquisition of an expanded customer base and strong team to complement the existing Taleo team.

We estimate in our 2010 Talent Acquisition Systems research that JobPartners had approximately 3% of the talent acquisition market in 2010 – so while the company is small, this acquisition brings Taleo’s market share to nearly 30% of this segment of the market, making Taleo even more of a gorilla in the market for applicant tracking and overall talent acquisition software.

For more information on these markets, please read our Talent Acquisition Systems 2011 research, our LMS 2011 research, and watch for our upcoming Talent Management Systems 2012 research to be published soon.  (If you purchase the Talent Management Systems 2010 report, you will be able to apply your purchase price toward the upcoming Talent Management Systems 2012 research.)