{"id":1070,"date":"2009-06-30T01:00:31","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1070"},"modified":"2009-06-22T20:37:44","modified_gmt":"2009-06-23T04:37:44","slug":"the-hr-software-slump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1070","title":{"rendered":"The HR Software Slump"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was recently getting caught up on some blog reading and noticed Josh Bersin\u2019s post<\/a> on the Talent Management Software Slump.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m just a pessimist, but I thought I\u2019d post a reply.\u00a0 (granted, Josh wrote his post in early May…<\/p>\n

Despite this difficult Q1, we believe the market is going to come roaring back in Q2 or Q3 of 2009.\u00a0 Most of the private companies we talk with (Plateau, CornerstoneOnDemand, Learn.com, GeoLearning, Halogen, and others) tell us that while they had a weak Q1, they have seen tremendous growth opportunities in Q2.<\/p>\n

First, the mid-market and small enterprise segment of talent management is starting to grow rapidly.<\/p>\n

Fourth, there is still tremendous demand for talent management software.\u00a0 In today\u2019s rapidly changing workforce (from layoffs to restructuring to rapid growth), the value of this set of software is greater than ever.\u00a0 While Q1 was tough for vendors, most buyers only postponed their purchases \u2013 giving themselves more time to evaluate options and improve their own businesses.\u00a0 In Q2, Q3, and Q4 these companies will buy these systems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So my thinking on the slump basically reflects back to 2001 when the dot-com bubble \u201cburst.\u201d\u00a0 When that happened, basically, HR technology spending totally dried up.\u00a0 It actually took about 3 years for HR technology spending to come back, and when it did, spending came back with a vengeance.\u00a0 My theory on this was that when spending cuts happened in 2001, HR technology was among the first to be cut.\u00a0 Then as the recession ended and things got better, neglected business critical technologies were upgraded, implemented, and restored.\u00a0 Things like CRM or supply chain that didn\u2019t get needed upgrades for months or years got the first funding dollars.<\/p>\n

As we all know (or think), in most companies HR funding is a lower priority than other business functions.\u00a0 I don\u2019t see any reason to see this to be any different as the economy recovers this time.\u00a0 As organizational revenues recover, employees will be rehired or returned from furloughs, business critical applications will be maintained first, and budget cycles will still lag a year behind needs.\u00a0 Before an organization goes out and spends $100K or even $1M on any HR application including talent management, there are a whole lot of other unspent business critical dollars that will probably come first.\u00a0 HR budgets that got slashed in 2009 will still remain slashed in organizations with any governance at all.\u00a0 Perhaps some organizations will get dollars in their budgeting cycles at the end of this year, making dollars available in 2010, but I\u2019m guessing that 2010 budgets will focus in other areas than HR.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Josh is a better judge than I am though.\u00a0 It may indeed be possible that certain talent applications will actually fare better than most other HR technologies.\u00a0 Performance and Succession ran such high profiles in the last few years that we can only hope executives remain enamored with those technologies.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a big fan of looking at vendor pipelines for guidance on future sales.\u00a0 Every vendor (application, outsourcing, or consultancy) has great looking pipelines right now.\u00a0 Salespeople seem to be sandbagging as much questionable prospecting into their pipeline portfolios as they can right now, as much to remain optimistic as to try and keep their jobs.\u00a0 Pipelines are also more robust in number of prospects, but smaller in terms of deal size.\u00a0 The mega deals that have kept vendors going for years will be slower to rebound.\u00a0 I think that most organization will have to deal with the technologies they were able to install in the last couple of years and hope they continue to work for a couple more years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recently getting caught up on some blog reading and noticed Josh Bersin\u2019s post on the Talent Management Software Slump.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019m just a pessimist, but I thought I\u2019d post a reply.\u00a0 (granted, Josh wrote his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[40,2,29,43,22,41,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-solutions","category-hr-technology","category-hrms","category-hro-vendors","category-industry-news","category-point-solutions","category-vendors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1070"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1071,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions\/1071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}