The Talent Myth Part V, continued
Technology Vendors Continually Make Mistakes that put them on the bottom shelf. Repeat.

OR

The Curse of the ATS Marketplace

I'm back after the July 4th holiday. Recharged and ready to tell the story of the curse of the ATS marketplace.

A good curse, or legend of one, starts long ago and far away. This one starts 15 to 20 years ago - before the Internet had emerged, before anyone had developed an ATS solution for the large Enterprise. It starts with two companies: Resumix and Restrac (now webhire).

Resumix and Restrac owned the world of ATS. There weren't any other players. ERP wasn't even an acronym yet - so there were not ERP players considering moving into their space. The cost of technology barrier was higher then than it is today, so you didn't have a flock of small companies trying to quickly release competitive products. For years companies that wanted to automate their staffing process bought one of two solutions. Those must have been the days for the Resumix and Restrac teams. "Well, they won this deal, but we won that one."

Rather than typing Resumix and Restrac over and over again, I'll just refer to them from here on out as "The Dinosaurs".

When the Dinosaurs first emerged they were greeted with great acceptance by the HR and IT buying communities. There had never been anything like what they offered corporate America. The promise of less paper? A searchable database? Our very own system to track everything and run reports? Heck! Explain what that all means and then sign me up!

And the Dinosaurs plodded along signing up significant numbers of the Fortune 1000 and large private and public companies. Owning the market. The only games in town....... but what happened? Some say they weren't ready for the evolution of the Internet and were slow to release web based products -- this only partly true. Some say they lost their vision and their sales teams weren't executing -- only partly true again. Some say they just didn't react quickly enough -- again only partly true. So, how then after years of leading the market - un-interrupted growth with minimal competition - and development of large customer bases did the Dinosaurs put themselves on the brink of extinction almost overnight?

The Dinsosaurs made mistakes that are/were in part common mistakes for technology vendors to make. They made them so egregiously that they became engrained in our market - engrained in the customer's expectation of vendors impacting customer retention habits and buying behavior, engrained in the vendors' view of what is acheivable (you know until the four minute mile no one could do it, now your mom runs one), and have thus truly cursed the ATS market.

The Path to Extinction

We need to follow the Dinosaurs path to extinction at some level because as we will learn history continues to repeat itself. We'll start today with the first of several key mistakes the Dinosaurs made, and then review others in individual posts, leading to a review of the vendors in the last 7-10 years that have followed suit - reviewing their mistakes, and then looking at those that seem to be next in line for extinction.

Stop One on the path: They listened to their customers a little too much, and not effectively for their business.

I know we all want to believe that if vendors just listened to their customers everything would just be okay, because then when customers gave feedback it would get incorporated into a product and everybody would win - even new customers. Well this is only true in some measure. Once you buy a product and start using it your perspective begins to take on blinders. You stop considering what your process could be, or what you need in a best-case scenario, and become more limited in your perspective, only offering input that moves a product forward incrementally and slowly. It's not all your fault as a customer, the vendor tends to pigeon hole you within the capabilities of their technology - "sure give us feedback, but first understand the limits of what we can and can't do." This creates an environment where rather than describing what a customer needs "holisitcally" the focus shifts to features and functions and push vendors there - "I want better searching, so when I click here I want it to do this, and when I click there it should do that."

Contrast that against a company looking for a new solution. They tend to have a vision for the solution they need at a high level. Okay, at least a vision for components of their solution. Using the example above - "I want better searching. I don't want my recruiters to have to know Boolean logic. I want to use my job requisition and competencies key to a position to drive the initial selection of candidates for review. AND I want to understand what the market is doing in this regard. What is new and available to me?" Which would drive you to develop a better product.

What the Dinosaurs did was confine their customers to giving feedback within their technical capabilities, then they prioritized the customer requests and created their product development schedule based on it. The only way the market took them in a new direction was when a large prospect with their checkbook out said they wouldn't sign until a feature was comitted to.

Is this unique to the Dinosaurs or to our market? No. But what was unique was the fact that neither of the Dinosaurs rose to the challenge of the market and actually crafted vision to continue leading the market. They buckled under the weight of trying to support their existing, impressive, and long customer lists. As the market moved aggressively to the Internet and to the web, both vendors focused on incremental improvements to their own products while their customer base began to erode. They began losing customers to less featured solutions that were offering enough of a solution to meet the needs of the customers and a LOT of vision around the new world of Internet Recruiting. The confusion and stress the Dinosaurs experienced from 1998 to 2000 must have been staggering.

The lesson for the vendors at this stop:
Listen to your customers, but balance it against market feedback that comes from your sales channel, analysts, industry research, etc. When you listen to your customers - get the incremental feedback that helps move a release along, but force them to step back and out of your product and define their ideal world when it comes to their process (READ: NOT YOUR TECHNOLOGY). Bring them back the market feedback that you gather and CHALLENGE your customers with it - show them where the market is going - and stop showing them where your next release is going!

The lesson for the HR Team at this stop:
Force your vendor to get out of the confinements of their technology and to focus on your process needs and where the market is going with regard to solutions to address them. Make them bring you feedback from OUTSIDE the user community. Consider that data - which should be focused on process and best practices NOT TECHNOLOGY. Separate your communications between user issues and incremental requests and serious requirements for a long term solution. Map your needs to your business goals and strategy (see my 6/26 and 6/27 posts). Get out in the market and talk to other companies and utilize resources that will help you identify where you should be as a staffing organization and what other companies are experiencing in that regard.

I didn't say there were going to be easy solutions to these issues. As a vendor or as a corporation, if you decide to incorporate these lessons I'd love to hear about it, even offer some input. Send your questions, comments, or feedback here.

Check back soon to hear about the next stop on the road to extinction.....

Talent.

The Talent Myth Part V, continued
Technology Vendors Continually Make Mistakes that put them on the bottom shelf. Repeat.

OR

The Curse of the ATS Marketplace

Every single technology vendor that has entered the Talent Management Marketplace has made it to almost exactly the same position in the market - seemed like they were going to make it and couldn't sustain. Some came on strong out of the gates, caught our attention - we might have even believed in them - they generated 100 to 200 customers, and then ~POOF!~ they were gone. Others hung around for a while, not doing much, started to get it - then became a player, but then again somewhere between 100 and 200 customers, ~POOF!~ Others in the market right now are on the brink of, well, ~POOFING!~

Their explosions or implosions, depending on your perspective, if happening all at once would fill up a skyline like 4th of July fireworks. (I just couldn't resist)

The interesting thing: They all made the same mistakes when faced with the same challenges. What mistakes did they make? Could they have avoided it? Can those on the brink pull out of the downward spiral they are getting ready to flat-spin into? Will they, or anyone ever get it right?

Check back after the holiday weekend. I'll start to answer those questions and more. At least I'll give you some really strong opinions about them!

Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Be safe.

Talent.

The Talent Myth, Part V
Technology, Strategy and more on Technology Vendors

Thursday's post asked you to think about staffing strategy and how you develop it. The questions asked identified a simplified view of the basic components in developing a Staffing Strategy Plan. As an HR Executive or team, your strategy - like the strategy of every other functional team in your company, should be focused on helping the company meet it's revenue and operational goals. You may have other goals associated with staffing or HR, but they should fall FAR DOWN THE LIST from the core of helping your company be successful in developing and delivering it's product or service to market.

After following the roadmap which Thursday's question walk you through, you are left with clear priorities that will drive your tactical staffing and employer branding and marketing efforts - and all of this combined should drive the priorities for the selection of your Talent Management technology. If you walk through the roadmap in the context of not just 12 months but 36 or 60 months - EVEN BETTER! So many HR Execs and teams make the mistake of starting with the tactical - or even worse their existing systems and it's deficiencies to drive their priorities in drafting their requirements for talent management technology or vendors - then add insult to injury by not looking long term.

Now I'm not advocating that you get your head up in the vision clouds and forget that your feet are planted in the HR department, and not marketing. But I am saying that you should be doing everything you can to tie yourself to your company's strategy, and your company's lifeblood: revenue. We all know the company can't operate without the right talent and talent strategy, NO ONE would argue that - but even with this obvious condition most HR Executives can't seem to find a way to rise up to the challenge.

Based on today's post and Thursday's questions, do you feel HR is capable of rising to this challenge? I'd love to know what you think - email me here

Of everyone involved in confusing the HR Executives around their strategy and the technology needed to help realize it the worst offenders have been, OF COURSE, the Technology vendors themselves. As this industry has struggled over the last 20 years to seperate itself from it's staffing industry roots and it's cottage industry-like image, the technology and systems vendors in this space continue to fall short in their delivery. I have yet to see a vendor that comes close to realizing the vision it offered or even it's potential. So many vendors have come close to being leaders and seemed on the track to becoming a truly great company only to fall slightly further on the path than the vendor in front of them.

They all seem to make the same mistakes. But that is what the next post is about.

Feedback? Questions? email me here

The Talent Myth, Part IV continued
The Technology Vendors

Thanks to everyone for the recent feedback on this blog - specially to John Sumser at Interbiznet for mentioning the site in his column of yesterday. On again, off again? I agree I have been spotty with the postings, but I'm trying my best to post weekly at a minimum from here forward and attention from Interbiznet is just the thing to keep the pressure on me to do so.

Look for Part V of the Talent Myth tomorrow. In the meantime as a teaser to tomorrow's post, here are a few questions for you to think about:

When you draft your strategy for Talent Acquisition and Management do you:

- Sit down with line managers on the front line and check on what their key goals are for the year and how their teams are equipped to help acheive them?

- Discuss and define any skills gaps that exist and agree on a working contract of what service you will provide him/her to help fill the gaps and meet the goals, and how you will deliver it?

- Roll up the goals and skills gaps found across the organization and come up with a cohesive plan to address the issues and deliver back to the line organizations clear expectations of what will and can be delivered, gathering feedback and finalizing your strategy?

- Present your strategy and findings to the Executive team, identifying critical areas where talent, or a lack thereof, may have an impact on acheivement of key corporate goals that are revenue related?

I think that's enough to chew on before tomorrow....

Until then,

Talent.

Please send your feedback here.

The Talent Myth, Part IV
The Technology Vendors

Could HR executives be more confused about technology?

In some ways the challenges the HR executive has to deal with in terms of technology vendors are not unique to our little Talent Management sector. The selling of vapor-ware (promising technology that is yet to be delivered), the short shelf-life of technology standards and trends, vendor focus on sales with a fraction of that focus on support - these are a few things you have to look out for whether you're buying Talent Management software or financial software. The vendors in our little market-space have their own unique bag of challenges that the HR executive should be looking out for. The HR executive tends to also create a few very unique challenges for themselves in selecting and using technology.

Most all HR executives I've met are admittedly technology adverse, have had only rare technology experiences where a system actually delivered on it's promise, and have put tens - even hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultants pockets for assistance in selecting systems to be left with the same problem they started with just now they experience it through a different interface. Given that, you would think that after the first wave of vendors in Talent Management (Restrac/Webhire & Resumix) were displaced by the next wave (I-Search, HireSystems/BrassRing, PeopleClick, & Recruitsoft) that they would have gotten it right - and selected vendors that had more staying power, viability in addressing their issues, and vision for the future.

With the wave 2 vendors now either out of business (I-Search), struggling desperately (BrassRing, PeopleClick), or starting down the same path (Recruitsoft) the HR executive finds themselves on round 3 of trying to get it right.

So, how did we find ourselves here?

In the midst of FUNDAMENTAL problems with the talent acquisition and management process the HR executives and the vendors that sell to them continue to focus not on solving the basic issues and making their users (recruiters, hiring managers) lives easier, but rather because both parties struggle with the basic issue - they both blow visionary smoke at each other in the form of predicting the future of Talent Management and technology and trying to build and accomplish a more strategic vision. (MORE ON THIS IN NEXT WEEK'S POST)

While evaluating the selection and purchase of the system that fuels the company with the talent that builds the product, delivers the service, and drives the revenue, the HR executives farm out the process to consultants that are, with rare exception, mediocre. (See my Jan 20 post)

The vendors in this space continue to confuse the HR executives and teams with their failure to solve fundamental business problems, and clouding of that issue with the representation of future visions and capabilities that don't exist - or an over simplification of the complexity they are selling. (MORE ON THIS IN NEXT WEEK'S POST)

I will be posting again next week. In the mean time, please send your feedback, questions, or comments here.

Could I possibly come back after several months on hiatus and ask you to do some homework prior to reading my post? Yes.

To prepare for tomorrow's post ask yourself the following questions. Don't over analyze or over engineer your responses, answer them with your gut instinct. It will make tomorrow's content that much more interesting.

How many software applications - of any type - for your business or your personal use have met your expectations once you've used them for 3-6 months?

In your personal life do you let a third party buy your car or house, or do you rely on third parties for guidance and data since these are such critical and expensive purchases? When buying large HR systems do you apply the same logic to the way you buy?

When making a critical systems decision do you feel it's more effective to focus on the few key business drivers for that decision, or develop a list of drivers and metrics for your decision that compares in complexity to the system you are purchasing?

Thanks,

Talent

Feedback? Questions? Comments? email me here

Illness, travel, vacation, kids, family, and other distractions have kept me from my blog. I apologize, if you have been checking in and I haven't been writing. I have let us both down.... HOWEVER.... I'm back and I'm focused. The Talent Myth Part IV was originally planned to be about the Industry Press. While there is a lot to say about the industry press, with recent events (Oracle - JD Edwards - Peoplesoft) I've decided to switch this installment's topic to be about the HR Technology Vendors. Actually this may be the next few installments.

Check back tomorrow, and let me know what you think.

Feedback? Questions? Comments? email me here