Taleo

The Taleo company is engaged in development of on-demand of the solution for talent management (talent management). Web services which are offered by provider allow the companies to operate with information on candidates for employment as well as the available employees and also to make assessment from capabilities and to make plans of advanced training.

The number of clients of Taleo for the beginning of 2012 exceeds 4.5 thousand, including 49 companies from the list of Fortune 100. Solutions of the company process given in total about about 200 million candidates.

History

2012: Oracle buys Taleo

For $1.9 billion the Oracle company announced purchase of Taleo in February 9, 2012. This an event used to be purchased soon after the SAP solution of SuccessFactors – the close competitor of Taleo, for $3.4 billion.

According to Thomas Kurian (Thomas Kurian), the executive vice president of Oracle Development, for many companies human capital management becomes a strategic initiative. "Leadership of Taleo in the industry of cloud solutions of talent management is important addition to services of a public cloud Oracle", - he emphasized. According to the statement of Oracle, the deal with Taleo, as expected, will be closed in the middle of this year, and the consent of shareholders is expected now. The Board of Directors of Taleo approved sale unanimously.

The Taleo applications are concentrated on talent management and include such spheres as hiring of employees, training and development, planning of compensations and succession. The companies still should understand, how exactly the product portfolio of Taleo can be brought into accord with software of Fusion HCM which is also available in the form of a cloud service and has a number of the crossed functions.

According to Oracle, about 5 thousand enterprises use the software of Taleo. With its help manage hiring of 15% of the companies in the USA. About a half of the leading websites in the field of job search, according to the statement of Oracle, also work with Taleo.

SAP characterized the purchase of SuccessFactors as something that will give to the company necessary "cloud DNA" and experience in this market. In the statement of Oracle concerning the transaction with Taleo such sentimentality did not sound, but Taleo is the second large acquisition within six months after RightNow – vendor of cloud applicaions. That this transaction is probable a talk went since the moment as SAP announced the transaction with SuccessFactors. Already then analysts and interested discussed response of Oracle, and Taleo was represented to much as the probable purpose for absorption.

According to the software analyst of HRM and the managing partner of consulting company Bloom & Wallace Naomi Bloom, in the nearest future possibly still it is worth expecting similar absorption. "I believe that Boards of Directors of Cornerstone, Ultimate Software, undoubtedly, discuss among themselves - whether there are for them potential buyers", - she noted. The solution of Oracle, according to the analyst, has nothing in common with understanding "make more due to purchase of technology". Instead, she considers, as well as with PeopleSoft acquisition - vendor of ERP, Oracle hopes to eliminate the competitor and to intercept flows of means.

In addition, Taleo not the beginner in business of SaaS also has the sufficient knowledge base which will be useful to Oracle, Blum told. The available experience of Oracle in sales of CRM applicaitons on demand, is not so relevant as unlike human resources, CRM is not a subject of state regulation and its influence on employees in the organization much less. Meanwhile, according to the analyst, "if you the client of Taleo, or God forbid are going to become one of them, from the events at you blood in cores should stiffen". "I treat Oracle kindly, it is the surprising financial machine. But if I become their client, I will look at them in a different way", - Blum noted.

It is said in the statement of Oracle that now review of plans concerning the products Taleo is carried out, and "the final functionality, the diagram of release and terms of its release" remain at the discretion of Oracle. But Oracle made considerable investments into Fusion Middleware and Fusion Applications, hoping for them as a software platform of the next generation. Clients of Taleo can wait for improvement of software for a long time, Blum considers.

According to the analyst, transactions with SuccessFactors and Taleo can reflect also growing concern from SAP and Oracle concerning vendor of Workday which concluded a number of large deals for providing own cloud software of HCM.

The analyst of Forrester Research Paul Hamerman is surprised why Oracle did not carry out this absorption five years ago. According to him Oracle would pay much less, and the first received a set of the software of recruiting. But today Taleo created "four pillars" of talent management, namely: hiring, performance of work of employees, compensations and training. At Oracle great success of sales of basic HR applications for payroll, benefits and application is made in other spheres, but it, according to Hamerman it was not lucky with talent management.

The analyst considers that overlaps with Fusion HCM are not so considerable as now in them there is no hiring, training and possibilities of planning of substitutions, i.e. all areas where Taleo is strong. "Actually this quite necessary addition", - Hamerman emphasized.