Vurv Acquisition by Taleo Puts Customers Up For Grabs…and another take on the acquisition!

Since this acquisition was one of the biggest pieces of news to hit the Talent Management industry recently, I wanted to devote another blog to it.

 

The last blog talked about all the great talent that is on the street as a result of this acquisition. But I guess a bigger question for Taleo is whether Vurv enterprise customers are going to make the transition to Taleo.

 

As the leading Talent Acquisition Systems consulting firm, HRchitect has helped hundreds of companies evaluate, select and implement talent acquisition systems. Both products are fine products but current Vurv customers have made a conscious and educated decision to purchase their system over Taleo, or some other vendor. With the Vurv system eventually going away as part of the acquisition, it opens up opportunities for other vendors if Vurv customers decide to dip their toes back in the water and Taleo is going to have to work just a little harder to keep them in their new collective family.

 

I also continue to analyze this acquisition and talk with others in the industry as there are many reasons why Taleo did this but will we ever know the real driving factor. Think about this for a minute. I don’t think that anybody would argue that for pure Talent Acquisition at the high end, Taleo was the number one player and Vurv the number two player. It has changed over the years but when the acquisition took place, that is where they sat. So why do an acquisition like this? Certainly it wasn’t for the technology as they will basically be throwing the majority of that out the door. Certainly it wasn’t the people as they also showed most of them the door.

 

So think about this for a minute…

 

Taleo is firmly entrenched at the top position right now and Vurv was the biggest threat to their supremacy. They had innovative products and what if a bigger player came along, somebody like a Kronos, and they purchased Vurv. It would immediately create the biggest threat to Taleo’s throne and in my opinion is something that Taleo wanted to do anything they could to keep from happening.

 

 

Solving a piece of the puzzle… 

Matt Lafata, HRchitect