Insights on Corporate Talent, Learning, and HR Technology
Today was a very important day in the world of corporate learning and talent management systems.
Vista Equity Partners, a mid-sized private equity firm, announced a proposal to acquire SumTotal Systems, the largest independent provider of LMS software, and one of the pioneers in this industry.
Typically such transitions occur because the shareholders have ... Read more»
ARAMARK is one of the country’s most well-run, talent-driven companies – and they are proof that talent management, when done well, is one of the most important business strategies a company can embrace.
Who is ARAMARK?
ARAMARK is an amazing 250,000 person global company which provides facilities management and food service for many of the ... Read more»
Today Softscape settled the lawsuit filed by SuccessFactors in March of 2008. This lawsuit, which we wrote about in a prior blog post, revolved around a contentious sales presentation which was developed by Softscape and leaked into the public domain. In the final settlement Softscape agreed that the presentation in question had some errors ... Read more»
As the US economy lost 240,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate rises to 6.5%, one of the questions I know many people ask is the direction of the “talent management” marketplace. Let me give you our thoughts on the trends taking place.
First, the urgency of “talent management” in corporate HR organizations has ... Read more»
In the last year many of our research members and clients have come to us for help in restructuring their HR or Learning & Development organizations. There have been three major forces at play here.
1. Reducing costs: In nearly every industry organizations are going through restructuring, mergers, or other cost-cutting efforts. The HR department ... Read more»
This week we introduced some important and groundbreaking research on a new, important category of enterprise software: the market for corporate Social Software platforms. Traditionally our research has focused on identifying the strategies, processes, and systems which help corporate HR and L&D drive effectiveness and business value. But as we continued to study the ... Read more»
Our soon to be published research on corporate L&D spending in 2008 shows a definite slowdown in spending on corporate training. (An 11% drop!) This is certainly not a surprise – in August our research panel shows that today’s corporate talent managers cite “a need to reduce costs” as their #1 business challenge (54% of ... Read more»
One of the things we regularly do as an analyst firm is estimate the size and growth rate of various corporate software markets. Without giving away our proprietary methodology, I’d like to point out something which should make software providers think twice about their business strategy.
In the United States, only 38% of all employees ... Read more»
I have to smile. Today I read an interview with Harry Debes, the CEO of Lawson Software, discussing why he thinks the SaaS (Software as a Service) model will fade and die. While I dont agree 100% with his discussion, I do agree with much of what he has to say.
I also have lived ... Read more»
I just completed a series of interviews with three organizations going through the important, challenging, and time consuming process of implementing a new performance management system. In each case (a large healthcare provider, a global mining company, and a global call center operations company), the company is using the implementation of a performance management system ... Read more»
Whew. Earlier this year we embarked on a major research effort to understand the growing role of social networking in enterprise learning and talent management. The results are amazing. Let me give you a brief preview of some of our initial findings:
In the last few months we have read more and more about the global economic slowdown. Jim Cramer, the Wall Street pundit, wrote in today’s New York Magazine, that he has never seen things as dismal as they are on Wall Street. Today the State of California announced a 5.7% unemployment rate, an increase of ... Read more»
This week I had a call with five financial services clients to understand the impact of the economic slowdown on their learning, talent, and systems investments. How are HR, talent strategies, and enterprise learning investments being affected by the credit crunch and slowdown in the US financial system?
(The clients included companies in banking and ... Read more»
On March 12, two of the leading talent management software vendors went to war. SuccessFactors, a leading provider of performance management software, filed a lawsuit against Softscape, a leading provider of integrated talent management software.
The lawsuit, and continuing press releases, claims that Softscape inappropriately logged into SuccessFactors’ internal systems, distributed false and misleading claims ... Read more»
Last week I spoke with some of the business and HR leaders at Freeport McMoRan, one of the nation’s largest producers of copper, gold, and molybdinum. This company, which recently acquired Phelps Dodge, produces over 4 billion lbs. of copper each year, from its mines in North America, Indonesia, Chile, and Peru. The company generates ... Read more»