systematicHR

OK, as ths Employease press release says, they only agreed to do so, but it’s a great move assuming it gets past all the regulatory stuff. ((Got this through Phoenix INformation Managmenet.)) The (pending) acquisition is a great move for ADP, but it’s not the one I would have necessarily made. It bolsters their mid market HRMS and SaaS offerings, as well as giving them an incredible boost in the benefits world. ADP major accounts (100-1000 employees) is already strong enough, but ADP in general has needed to address emerging technologies more quickly than they generally can in-house.

I mentioned that it’s not the acquisition I would have made. I honestly have no idea what the deal is worth, but assuming that a fiscally conservative corporation like ADP (very very conservative) would only make a few larger acquisitions per year, this might limit their opportunity to grab a large talent management or recruiting vendor in the next 12 months. In the large employer space where ADP’s Globalview (SAP) seems to be taking the market by storm, their clearly missing gap in the HR suite is in talent, and this is going to be expensive to pick up. Perhaps they can still get a Workstream on the cheap.

ROSELAND, NJ – The Employer Services Division of Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (NYSE:ADP), today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Employease(R), Inc. a leading provider of Web-based solutions and outsourcing options for HR and benefits professionals. The agreement follows a successful partnership between Employease and ADP(R) Major Accounts Services, part of ADP Employer Services. The acquisition is expected to further expand ADP’s presence within the mid-market to fulfill a growing demand for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. ((Retrieved from Employease Press Release on August 20, 2006.))