Thomas and I just finished the first round of vendor briefings for the upcoming Magic Quadrant for Employee Performance Management (EPM) Software. As Thomas bicycles his way through the Alps for the next two weeks (you can keep track of what he is up to here), I had a chance today to take a breath and reflect on the last few weeks.
We have seen a maturing of products as vendors continue to add functional depth to their EPM solutions. We have also seen an increased focus on usability. Not surprisingly, we have also seen many touting new social networking capabilities.
At the same time we have been doing these briefings, I have been getting the usual steady stream of client inquiries. I looked at the list of clients this month and it struck me that there were at least three of the very large variety (greater than 65,000 employees) plus another of that size tomorrow. All four of them wanted to discuss integrated talent management. All of them have some solutions in place in some talent management areas already but want to know more about the market for the broader suite.
In "Unlocking the Strategic Value of Talent Management Application Investments" (Gartner subscription required), we discuss the adoption patterns of customers. In terms of buying behavior, the research conclusions still hold true. However, just because the really large companies have not bought talent management application suites does not mean that they would not like to do so. Now, the vendors just need to be able to deliver the depth and breadth required by these customers. What do you think? Are vendors ahead of customer demand or do customers want more than the vendors can deliver?
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