Talent management software vendor, Taleo Corp., wants customers to stop using ERP (enterprise resource planning) solutions to manage employee talent, and instead, use its new Taleo 10 software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering.
Al Campa, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer at Taleo, said the workforce has evolved from an environment of manual-based labour and industrial workers, to more recently, employees that are knowledge workers.
“People are now being viewed as business assets,” Campa said. “People are different from things such as laptops, equipment, etc. because things and assets depreciate over time. People don’t. They get better over time and appreciate in value.”
The company introduced its new Taleo 10 solution which is designed for businesses of all sizes. With Taleo 10, Campa said the company is trying to educate the market when it comes to managing employee talent.
ERP solutions don’t effectively manage talent, Campa explained. ERP systems provide users with information such as names, addresses, vacation details and benefits. This is not conducive to managing the workforce because employers need to know what the career paths of their employees are, who their next group of leaders will be, and more.
“That’s what businesses want to know about talent and that’s the kind of solution they need to manage the workforce.”
Taleo 10 is the newest SaaS offering that gives users visibility, flexibility and information that’s relevant to the workforce.
Kampa says the solution is so easy to use that it requires no training. The user interface of the solution is “Facebook easy,” he added, where users can find what they’re looking for in fewer clicks.
“Taleo 10 is a subscription-based model that lets people customize the applications based on how they want to use it,” he said. “We’re not telling customers to throw away their ERP systems, but rather, we’re saying ERP’s not terribly relevant to the age we’re in today, which is the age of talent.”
Included in Taleo 10 is Taleo Recruiting, Taleo Analytics with better dashboard capabilities and more visibility into the workforce, Development Planning, the Talent Grid, which is a cloud computing solution and Taleo Anywhere, which provides users with access to Taleo via a BlackBerry or iPhone device, no matter where they are.
Taleo 10 also has three built in talent communities, which include Knowledge Exchange, Solution Exchange and Talent Exchange. Campa likens Knowledge Exchange to being like Facebook for Taleo customers. Solution Exchange is considered the App store for partners and Talent Exchange is similar to eBay, but when searching for talent.
Taleo 10 is priced per employee and partners can expect to make anywhere between 75 to 80 per cent gross margins on it, Campa said.
This time last year, the company had about 50 partners worldwide. Now the company has about 70 partners across the globe, Campa said. The company is now offering various educational sessions and WebEx’s to educate its partner community, he added.
Campa said that Taleo 10 is an opportunity for partners to not only find new customers, but to also engage with their existing ones, who are looking for help with their talent management processes.
The Taleo 10 SaaS offering is scheduled for limited release sometime this month and is set for global availability sometime during this year’s fourth quarter.
Up next for the vendor, Campa says Taleo will launch its Taleo Small Business Edition product, which is set for availability sometime next month too.
