Who First Called It 'Talent Management'?
The answer is Softscape, one of the three original "mini-suite" vendors from years ago. It has 10-year-old evidence proving it was first. It also has one of the few complete suites of talent-management applications available. And 280 customers are using some of them.
By Bill Kutik
Once upon a time there were three "mini-suite" vendors, a label I was recently accused of coining, but I don't believe so. The name was appropriate because most software vendors back then (the exact year is murky) sold either a full HRMS (comprising many applications) or a single application, such as recruiting or performance management.
The three mini-suite vendors fell in between, selling several applications, but not a full HRMS. They were A.I.M., Kenexa and Softscape.
Four years ago (that date is clear), A.I.M. and Softscape became the object of affection for some of the dozen vendors needing to acquire applications to build out their talent-management suites. That was especially true with pioneer Softscape because then, as now, it is one of the few to have all of the applications natively written on one technical platform.
Softscape CEO Dave Watkins estimates eight or nine serious suitors have come calling since 2004 to check out his 200-employee, family-owned company, which still has no outside investors. None of the prospective buyers worked out and Softscape is continuing to move forward as an independent company with plans for rapid growth. For the record, Authoria bought A.I.M., and Kenexa went public and acquired two recruiting vendors.
Softscape already has many marquee customers. It provides performance, succession and compensation for Accenture's small-and-mid-sized HR outsourcing clients; performance, 360-degree feedback and soon, succession for KPMG in 150 countries; and performance and compensation for GMAC. Unilever is its largest customer, at 233,000 employees.
So why haven't more people heard of Softscape?
Watkins says the company decided early not to take outside money -- to avoid getting the dreaded "impatient investor" looking for a quick profit. So Softscape operated in a semi-stealth mode. "We just didn't sell too much," he says, though the company has been cash flow positive for 12 years.
Now things are changing. Sales grew 30 percent in 2007; 30 new customers were added for a total of 280; and customers are big and global: The average size is 30,000 employees.
Stealth mode is certainly over. Watkins has borrowed some money to fuel company recognition and growth and is considering taking part in the "Industry's First Talent Management Shootout" at the HR Technology Conference® in October. That would be utterly appropriate, which is why I've invited Softscape to the Shootouts for the last four years, though it has stealthily declined.
From Watkins' point of view, the talent-management market has taken a really long time to develop. After all, he was selling performance management back in 1997 against Nardoni Associates (now Pilat) and Raymond Karsan Associates (now Kenexa). That application remains Softscape's lead product.
A year later, Softscape published a historic piece of
collateral
. It presented the company's product vision and used the term "Talent Management" for the first time anywhere, I believe. Do note the small copyright date of "1998" in the lower right corner when you click on the link.
The graphic is a delightful historical artifact, an antique really by computer industry standards. There are too many apps in the ovals by the currently accepted definition, and today, Softscape uses a wheel (just like everyone else) to show the applications connect to one another, not just to a hub.
But do read the copy in the left column for what may be the first full statement of what talent management means. At least under that name, rather than "employee lifecycle" or whatever.
By 2003, Softscape had built at least shallow versions of all the applications and has been deepening them ever since. Recruiting is the last one waiting to become fully featured, promised this year.
A general aside: Have you noticed how vendors often want to position themselves one level above what they actually do or are really good at? Softscape is not immune.
After waiting this long for the market to coalesce, Watkins doesn't want Softscape to be called a talent- management-suite vendor anymore. With his own HRMS started in 2003 -- but without benefits or payroll -- Watkins wants to position Softscape as an HCM vendor. He has three clients that abandoned major vendors (including PeopleSoft) to use Softscape's HRMS to justify it.
OK, if he insists. It would certainly eliminate those annoying integrations with existing HRMSes. But with talent management still roiling away on HR's front burner, why run away from the category Softscape first named and pioneered -- a full decade ago?
Editor's Note: A story on a lawsuit filed against Softscape by SuccessFactors is
here
.
HR Technology Columnist Bill Kutik is also co-chairman of the 11th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition® in Chicago, Oct. 15 to17, 2008. The full agenda will be available in late April/early May at
www.HRTechnologyConference.com
. He can be reached at
bkutik@earthlink.net
.
March 10, 2008 Copyright 2008© LRP Publications
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