Who Will be in Charge of the Talent Management Suite?
The Talent Management Suite seems to be gaining traction -- and adoption -- faster than any new trend I've seen in 18 years covering HR technology. But will your COO take it away from you?
By Bill Kutik
The concept of the Talent Management Suite -- the integrated group of applications once called "strategic HR" -- seems to be gaining traction (and adoption) faster than any new trend I've seen in 18 years in the industry.
I've promulgated only one "law" after observing HR technology for all that time: Namely, anything new has to be talked about as the greatest thing since sliced bread for at least six years before reaching majority adoption among organizations. Self-service is the best proof of that law; TMS (now three years old) seems to be the exception that proves the rule.
The latest evidence is that IBM's HCM Global Business Services is making TMS the centerpiece of its big company consulting and systems integration strategy with its 2,500 or so employees around the world. This is the group that Mary Sue Rodgers ran from the UK when it used to be called IBM HR Business Consulting Services until its HR-BPO part, which IBM calls BTO, was carved out and ... oh, don't ask. It's IBM and competes with the HR consulting arms of Deloitte, Accenture and other big implementation practices, with many of its people originally acquired from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Its new global leader, Tim Ringo, said in a recent interview in The Netherlands that large multinationals are feeling the most pain around using their technology investments to manage their talent effectively but that IBM will also reach down to help mid-sized companies, which it defines as 20,000 to 50,000 employees. (Always amusing how differently vendors define "mid-sized" and "small" companies. SAP starts it below $2 billion in revenue!)
More importantly, Ringo has found, at least in Europe, that COOs are beginning to take the lead in breaking down the functional silos in HR necessary for TMS to work and then taking charge of it. At least one U.S. study has shown few COOs and CFOs understand how their investment in people is being used by HR.
Ringo's observation makes clear that if HR doesn't assertively change its ways to smooth the way for effectiveuseof TMS, they could "use it or lose it," just like a flexible-spending account. Certainly a warning shot.
Ringo is going to attend this year's 10th Anniversary HR Technology Conference® in Chicago this October for a variety of reasons, including getting reacquainted (after 15 years at Accenture) with the CEOs of the many software vendors IBM intends to partner with.
One of those vendors will probably be Authoria, which, through its purchase of AIM and Hire.com, has built out the suite as fast as any other vendor that didn't have it already (Softscape did). SuccessFactors has also been fast, recently adding its own homegrown Recruiting module to its existing Performance and Career Management, Succession and Compensation applications.
Authoria has a winning positioning for its new Authoria Recruiting by focusing on "quality of hire," long sought after as the truly meaningful metric for recruiting beyond the current cost-to-hire and time-to-hire measurements. Naturally this is only possible through integration with performance. How else do you know how well the new hires worked out? The original Authoria Communications knowledgebase product is used within it for hiring manager coaching assistance.
The company has set a daunting task for itself -- trying to claw into the Tier One recruiting group with BrassRing/Kenexa, Peopleclick, Taleo, Vurv and others -- while simultaneously establishing itself as a leading TMS vendor.
In an interview, Nina McIntyre, senior vice president of marketing, says they've hired dedicated recruiting salespeople and sold a dozen modules in Q4, not quite the pace of the leaders, but very solid. And half went to customers who now have four or five Authoria suite products, including one with six.
So with the Talent Management Suite becoming reality faster than any new development in HR technology in nearly two decades, the only question is, Will you be on the bus or off the bus? Or will the COO take your seat?
HR Technology Columnist Bill Kutik is also co-chairman of the 10th Anniversary HR Technology Conference & Exposition in Chicago, Oct. 10-12, 2007. Information will be available at
www.HRTechnologyConference.com
. He can be reached at
bkutik@earthlink.net
.
January 15, 2007 Copyright 2007© LRP Publications
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