HRchitect Webinar Series Continues – Where Should Vurv Customers Go From Here? Assessing the New Landscape of the Talent Acquisition Systems (TAS) Market:

October 9, 2008

 Let’s face it. The TAS marketplace is changing drastically every day and it’s important to keep up on the products available today and what’s on the horizon in the near future. Nobody knows this marketplace better than HRchitect and we would now like to share some information with Vurv customers as they face a critical decision time as to what to do with their Vurv system.

 

Due to the acquisition of Vurv by Taleo back in May of 2008, it has presented three possible directions for Vurv customers at this point.

 

1)     Stay on Vurv until Taleo eventually discontinues all support for the product. This will be in 2011, based on what Taleo is currently saying. Most Vurv customers we have spoken to have indicated they are having issues with Vurv currently and HRchitect would be happy to assist with Vurv product support services until a new TAS is selected.

2)     Convert to Taleo. Since we have implemented both systems more than any other consulting firm, we would love to help with the implementation, should you decide that is the best course of action.

3)     Evaluate TAS solutions and keep all options open – as the number one TAS consulting firm, HRchitect would be happy to assist and the following proposal reflects our evaluation and selection process

 

This webinar will provide attendees with:

  • An overall understanding and observations of the current TAS and Talent Management Systems (TMS) marketplace
  • Decision Drivers you should use as you evaluate replacement options
  • High-level gap analysis between Vurv and Taleo
  • Recommendations on moving forward
  • Questions and answers from our experts
     

This webinar will be conducted several times over the next six weeks for your scheduling convenience.  To register, click on the desired date below:

 

Friday, October 31 – 11am CST

Wednesday, November 12 – 12pm CST

Thursday, November 20 – 11am CST

Tuesday, December 2 – 12pm CST
 

So what makes HRchitect uniquely qualified to conduct these webinars? For starters, HRchitect has been involved in more than 80 Vurv and Taleo implementations and we know these applications better than anybody you could talk to. HRchitect has also been involved in hundreds of Talent Management related evaluation and selection projects and know the marketplace better than anybody you could talk to.

 

HRchitect has tremendous experience with Talent Acquisition Systems and our specific Taleo and Vurv experience is defined below:

 

Taleo Experience

 


HRchitect has been involved in the implementation of Taleo at over 60 companies.  These companies include – 1360 Technologies; 3M; Advanced 4C, Advantage Sales & Marketing; Aon; APL; Apria; Ashland Kentucky; AT Kearney; Atlantis Casino Resort and Spa, Avanade; Best Buy; BJC Healthcare; Blockbuster; Bright Heart Veterinary Hospital; Burns McDonnell; Burr, Pilger, & Mayer; CDI Corp., Celestica; Cendant; Ciber; Cintas; ConocoPhillips; Countrywide; Domino’s Pizza; Enterprise Products Partners; Gate Gourmet; Group Health; HCA; Hooters Casino Hotel, InfoPrint; Kindred Healthcare; Linde Process Plants; Lyondell Chemical; ManPower; Mars; Mid American; Montelago; NCO Financial Systems; OfficeMax; Olive Group; Orbital Engineering; Pacific Alternative Assets; Plum Markets; RadioShack; Sabre Holdings; Scott’s Fertilizer; St. Patrick Center; Swissport; Teaching Company; Teletech; Tenet; U.S. Bank, Victaulic, Virgin Mobile, and Walgreens.

 

Some examples of the value that HRchitect has brought and will continue to bring to Taleo include:

 

•          HRchitect has been able to effectively manage implementation projects that have been very challenging from both implementation complexity and demanding client “culture” standpoints

•          Taleo Center of Excellence – highly trained and experienced internal staff providing collaborative support for our consultants

•          HRchitect attended and presented at many Taleo sales and user conferences over last multiple years

•          HRchitect and Taleo co-presented a webinar within the past couple of years on the Usability Decision Driver

 


Vurv Experience

 


HRchitect has been involved in the implementation of Vurv at over 25 companies.  These companies include – ADM, Baker Hughes, Barclays Global Investors (BGI), Boeing Employee Credit Union, BRE, CACI, CTX Mortgage, Exponent, Herman Miller, Integris Health, Kohler, Kyocera, L.L. Bean, Maersk, Oshkosh Truck, Perot Systems, Progressive, SAIC, Verizon Federal, and Western Wireless.  

 

Some examples of the value that HRchitect has brought to Vurv include:

 

•          Vurv generally brought HRchitect into the more complex implementations, like BGI, Perot, and SAIC and has successfully worked to “save” Vurv customers.

•          HRchitect has been able to effectively manage implementation projects that have been very challenging from both implementation complexity and demanding client “culture” standpoints

•          Internal Vurv training program – in order for HRchitect to be proactive to meet Vurv’s required resource demands, we created an internal training program and have methodologies and templates that augment Vurv’s procedures

•          Vurv Center of Excellence – highly trained and experienced internal staff providing collaborative support for our consultants

•          HRchitect attended and presented at many Vurv sales and user conferences over last multiple years

•          HRchitect and Vurv co-presented two webinars in past couple of years – one on Performance Management and other on ATS Decision Drivers

 

Solving a piece of the puzzle… 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect

 

 

 

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Baseball Playoffs

October 3, 2008

It’s October and for many of us that means it is Major League Baseball playoff time! Here at HRchitect we have our favorite teams but we’d like to poll you about who you think will win it all this year. The results will be published in our October newsletter which will hit newsstands (or at least email inboxes) on October 7. So hurry and cast your ballot before midnight on Monday, October 6. One lucky winner will be chosen at random to receive two tickets to the World Series! Actually we are kidding about that and wish we had World Series tickets to give away but we will give some Starbucks gift cards to three lucky winners and you can enjoy a Latte while watching the World Series on TV.  After you vote, send a quick email to info@hrchitect.com to be placed into the drawing.  Winners will be announced in our October Newsletter and on The Puzzling World… blog on Tuesday.

 

In any event, plus choose from the selections below (and we do realize by the time you get around to responding to this that some of these teams may be eliminated from the playoffs):

 

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What’s Up With Workstream?

October 2, 2008

 

 

 

 

Earlier in the week we talked about the Authoria acquisition and the infusion of capital by a private equity firm. It was another clear sign that the Talent Management space is really, really hot.

 

However, the picture isn’t rosy for all vendors.

 

Take Workstream, an Ottawa, Canada based company with stock pricing issues over the past few months. They received a delisting notice from NASDAQ in late September (which they have appealed) for failing to file its annual report. Couple that with the fact that they have been facing the very real possibility that their shares will be taken off the exchange for trading at too low of a price. They have been given until November 17 to regain compliance with a $1 minimum bid price that has been set forth by NASDAQ but things are not currently looking good as they have been trading at less than 40 cents a share since June and are currently under 10 cents a share.

 

Workstream also pulled out of a planned merger with HR and Payroll vendor Empagio in June which resulted in litigation between the two companies.

 

Let’s back up a little bit and take a look at who Workstream actually is, and how they got here.

 

Workstream was founded in 1996 by Michael Mullarkey and originally started out by pulling together several distressed niche players in the talent acquisition space (Icarian, Perform, and Pure Carbon), which helped them gain market share. They expanded into other Talent Management areas with further acquisitions such as Kadiri for compensation planning, HR-Soft for performance management and Exxceed for competency management. With more than 14 acquisitions, Workstream ended up with a mixed bag of non-integrated applications in a market that was increasingly demanding integrated solutions. As a result, their revenues grew only 1-2% for 2005-2007.

 

This led to a multi-year integration effort on their part where the first phase culminated in the release of TalentCenter 7.0, which unified their best-of-breed talent management solutions through a Web 2.0 user interface, while providing built-in advanced analytics and dashboards, out-of-the-box multi-language and multi-currency support, a common reporting engine, a common security infrastructure, and user-definable, personalized workspaces.

 

So what does all this mean? Well, for starters, I don’t believe Workstream is going anywhere as they have over 400 customers including some big names such as Chevron, Kaiser Permanente, Wells Fargo, Verizon, Dell, and Nordstrom. They also claim a 96% retention rate so they must be doing something right.

 

Add to that the fact that a few months ago they were claiming growth in their business with fourth quarter revenue (their fiscal year ended in May) up 13% over the previous quarter and annual bookings growth of 50% year-over-year, and you have some of the right ingredients for success.

 

Further, Workstream also owns 6figurejobs.com and combined with their TalentCenter solution should be an attractive solution for the right company or investor to come along and put some money behind what looks to be a company that is on the path to turning things around. Of course you never know what will happen in this dynamic and changing world of Talent Management solutions and our continuing word of caution to companies looking to purchase Talent Management solutions in these uncertain times is to hire HRchitect to help take the risk out of your evaluation and selection and choose the system that is right for your firm…the first time.

Solving a piece of the puzzle… 
Matt Lafata, HRchitect 

 

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