At Least Peopleclick is Confident About Their Future...

...because no one else seems to be very bullish on them.  ERE Media has an interesting article about them today regarding their recent challenges and prospects for the future.  The truth behind the fiction has a number of warning signs that should be concerning to any prospect or customer...

• Warning Sign #1 - The management team has completely flipped in recent months.  A complete management overhaul is never a good sign...period.

• Warning Sign #2 - I would sure love to know who the 170 new customers are because my market intelligence suggests very few new customer wins in the past 12 months for their ATS.  OFCCP saved them for a quarter in 2006, but not anymore.

• Warning Sign #3 - One of their large marquee customers is due to end the relationship because of far-reaching technical and support issues.

• Warning Sign #4 - Heard they recently had a meeting scheduled where the just didn't even show up (it wasn't me but that is one of my biggest pet peeves).
  

• Warning Sign #5 - Every observer that knows the market is quite aware that they have been shopped quite aggressively over the past nine months (and even beyond).  To say, "that's not our focus" is misleading and any banker or corporate development executive in the space would confirm that statement is wrong.

• Warning Sign #6 - Even board members came out last year in this article, critical of the company and questioning why they have yet to see their exit event.

• Warning Sign #7 - Stand-alone ATS will soon be a thing of the past.  All of the other major vendors, including Taleo, Vurv, Kenexa and Stepstone are all pursuing integrated talent management strategies.  Peopleclick has no expressed intentions to become a true talent management vendor.

Viability should be a grave concern right now.

Comments

[Phil Fersht]

Jason,

Excellent synopsis of their precarious situation. Do you think they can piggy-back successfully on IBM's success in the HRO space like Vurv has done with Convergys? Workbrain has also hit a couple of home-runs latching onto HRO deals...

PF.

[Brenda Hodge, VP, Peopleclick]

Jason, given that we’ve never met, I would love the opportunity to brief you next week when I’m in Boston for a conference. In the meantime here are a few facts:

•Peopleclick has a new CEO, Ron Kupferman, and has changed a number of senior executives recently. This is common in the industry. Every tier one vendor in this space has changed their senior executive team in the last 18 months.

•Of the 170 new contracts in 2006, we added 45 new Recruitment Management specific clients. We’ve experienced growth across all three of our product lines and now have the strongest backlog in the history of the company. For specific customer wins see our press release at http://peopleclick.com/news/asp/13107.asp

•We were first to market with a solution for our customers for OFCCP compliance with Definition of an Internet Applicant. Organizations are now receiving audit letters which makes our expertise in great demand.

•Two of our large marquee customers just renewed with us as well as Expedia Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, 3Com Corporation, the Mayo Foundation, Philips NXP Semiconductors, Ladbrokes PLC, Prudential Insurance, and Standard Bank expanded with us internationally.

•See the success story on the Coca-Cola international expansion at http://www.crljournal.com/pdf/CRLcover_0207.pdf
By the way, this was written by the same reporter, Elaine Rigoli as the ERE article.

•We know that our FOCUS on Talent Acquisition will benefit our clients and we are excited about the new products we are bringing to market to help find quality people, quickly, without risk. If you hire the wrong people, performance management or succession planning will not matter. Be glad to discuss the strategy with you in person in Boston next week.

[martin snyder]

Jason I'm not sure I see Taleo moving toward TM in a systematic way, do you?

And as for ATS as a standalone business not being possible going forward, I think you need to qualify that by scale and something less than full TMS as imagined today.

For many of us, 170 new customers makes a good quarter- of course, the deals are much smaller, but there are hundreds of thousands of smallish organizations out there that need solutions-and full-boat TMS may not be on the menu for a long time to come, if ever.

In fact, I see Assessment, Performance, and Recruitment as the natural fit- the balance of TM not nearly as compelling as a unified business model, with lots of easy integration choices to make those big 3 work.....

[Hakseagozes]

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[küresel ısınmaya]

very impressed with the views you've put on this blog... cool analyses.