Author: joshbersin

Workday 14: Amazing Enterprise Software for HR

Today Workday introduced release 14, the latest upgrade of the company’s SaaS HR and Financials application.  I rarely gush at enterprise software, but in this case I have to admit I was “wowed” by the progress the company has made.

Workday’s product now spans the range of ERP applications from financials to human resources, workforce ... Read more»

SuccessFactors Q2 2011 Financials – Plateau Moves to SaaS Focus

SuccessFactors just announced another stellar quarter (48% YTY growth in revenues, 42% YTY growth in billings), and the CEO Lars Dalgaard talked extensively about the company’s progress with the acquisitions of Infohrm, Cubetree, Jambok, and Plateau.

First, from a financial standpoint SuccessFactors continues to grow at an amazing rate.  The talent management software market is ... Read more»

Badges Swarm the Internet (and soon Intranet)

Over the last year we’ve observed the “gamification” of various web-based systems.  Social learning systems now have “leaderboards” to show who uploaded the most highly ranked content.  Sales training applications in pharmaceutical companies give employees “virtual money” for making the sale.  Feedback and social recognition systems like Rypple and ILuvRewards encourage employees to ... Read more»

SumTotal Announces Acquisition of Accero and CyberShift

Today SumTotal Systems, one of the largest (privately held) providers of learning and talent management software, announced the acquisition of both Accero (global complex payroll provider) and CyberShift (mid-sized provider of time and attendance, expense management, and contingent workforce management software).

(Research members can read our detailed bulletin on SumTotal and this acquisition tomorrow.)

Background:... Read more»

Yes, HR Really Does Make a Difference – HR Factbook Research Proves Business Value

This week we published the first ever HR Factbook®, a comprehensive benchmarking study which summarizes almost two years of research into the spending, resource allocation, and staffing levels of corporate Human Resources.  I am particularly proud of this research, because not only does it provide valuable benchmarking information for any HR manager, it also ... Read more»

Blackboard to go Private: Giving the Company Freedom to Invest

Over the last ten years Blackboard has been one of the most successful learning technology companies in the market. Its platform is now the dominant system for secondary and university education and has been growing market share in primary education and in the corporate market. The company’s corporate LMS business is now in the top ... Read more»

The War between LinkedIn, Monster’s BeKnown, and BranchOut

The war for professional networking has just escalated. This week LinkedIn shut off it’s API (programming interface) to the hot new Facebook-enabled professional networks BranchOut and Monster’s BeKnown.  (TechCrunch broke this news.) What they’re essentially saying is “if you want to build a professional network and monetize all that we’ve built, you have ... Read more»

Mobile Talent Management: PeopleclickAuthoria aka PeopleFluent Introduces iPad Solution

Talent Management software comes to the iPad: PeopleClickAuthoria (which just changed its name to PeopleFluent®) today released a preview of an iPad solution currently called Mobile Talent Management.

PeopleFluent (it will take a little while to get used to this name) is one of the largest providers of talent management software, with revenues ... Read more»

Monster.com Launches BeKnown: Professional Social Networking for Facebook

Today Monster.com dropped the gauntlet and launched BeKnown, a new Facebook application that hopes to become the professional social network for Facebook users, and a vital new tool for recruiters, human resources, and talent acquisition teams.  In this blog post we will explain this market and preview some of the exciting features in this ... Read more»

Employment Paradox: Unemployment, Skills Gaps, Difficulty in Hiring

As the global economy slowly recovers, more and more employers tell us they are seeing an increasingly difficult talent environment ahead. As I discussed in my keynote at IMPACT (video available), the global shift in demand to emerging economies, coupled with the economic recovery, has created skills gaps in almost every major industry.  ... Read more»

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 ... Read more»

From E-Learning to We-Learning – Lessons Learned

We have been conducting a series of workshops around the country on best-practices in corporate social learning, and the results have been really overwhelming. As I’ve discussed with many of you, we really are in the middle of a revolution in corporate training, as we all learn to adapt the concepts of formal training toward ... Read more»

From E-Learning to We-Learning: National Workshop Series – Join Us!

I”m very excited to announce that starting in a few weeks our analysts will be going on a roadshow around the country to present our latest research and best-practices on social and informal learning.  This workshop, sponsored by Skillsoft, is an in-depth half-day discussion of best-practices in the exciting new world of corporate social learning.... Read more»

LinkedIn IPO: Witness The Recruiting Machine

Today LinkedIn went public with a huge (somewhat controversial) valuation of 80 times 2011 earnings and and around 21X 2011 expected revenue. This makes the company worth around $8.9 billion. The company’s total revenues hit $243M in 2010 and are likely to be around $400m in 2011. This is an amazing story of entrepreneurial success ... Read more»