Prediction of Integrated Talent Management (ITM) Market Trends Over the Next Few Years

Of course nobody can predict the future (although many have tried) and so many factors in our industry and our economy can affect even the best of predictions. It’s always fun to look back at predictions from years ago and see how close, or how off the mark those predictions actually were. As a history buff, I love to look back on those kinds of things but I won’t bore you with all of that…  at least not at this point.

However, as leader in HR Systems Strategic Consulting and Talent Management Systems consulting, HRchitect feels like it has a pretty good grasp on where this marketplace is going. Below are eight predictions for the ITM Market…  

• The overall human capital management software market will continue to consolidate – driven by multiple vendor types (e.g., core HCM platform providers, ITM vendors, “aggregator” HCM firms, niche vendors) either seeking to expand their ITM coverage, or ceasing operations.
• Marketing and development efforts around ITM suites will continue full force, as vendors seek to differentiate their functionality and approach to ITM. There is not yet a mature ITM vendor that has competitive offerings for each component, and this will not change for several years. HRchitect continues to see the outcome of evaluation/selection projects depend heavily on the requirements of the functional area ranked as most critical (from either a timing or business-impact perspective) to the organization.
• Niche and ITM suite vendors have increased their feature/function lead – ERPs (e.g., Oracle, SAP, Lawson) and core HRMS platforms (e.g., Ultimate Software, NuView, Spectrum) will continue to invest in ITM, but will not close the gap with the ITM niche providers or ITM suite vendors, with one possible exception. Can you guess who? It’s certainly not obvious, and probably not who you may be thinking it is. HRchitect explains more in its report, “The Suite Life of Integrated Talent Management” and will reveal the answer in a future blog.
• Firms will continue to try to rationalize their application portfolio and reduce integration issues by implementing ITM suites – however, because the depth of functionality is rarely at the same level within the ITM suites, customers often are not yet willing to settle for the level of missing feature/function in critical ITM areas in exchange for integration.
• The linkage between Performance, Learning, and Succession is increasing in importance for ITM – the emergence of this process ‘cluster’ has some implications for the ITM market, as those vendors that began with learning capabilities and have expanded into performance and succession may have a longer-term advantage due to the depth of integrated functionality.
• Organizations are increasingly trying to satisfy multiple types of recruiting with a single solution, attempting to address professional, hourly and contingent requirements on a single platform.
• Use of competency data to link ITM components will continue to grow.
• Despite the marketing emphasis on features/functionality, vendor service and support are key to long-term customer satisfaction – HRchitect believes that the vendor community would do well to up the ante in their customer-support functions and take the view that a satisfied customer base will ultimately increase profitability and viability over the long term.

Solving a piece of the puzzle… 

Matt Lafata, HRchitect