The Motley Fool published an article earlier this week with the title, "I Love Taleo". Although their were some glaring errors in the story (Taleo does not have performance or succession today), the article suggests Taleo is operating quite nicely under the radar.
I would agree. The company had a nice quarter and solid year. Q4 included 23 new enterprise customers, 129 new business edition customers, 8 new customers over $250K and a nice HRO channel (approximately 15% of bookings for the year). I am convinced in their product strategy, roadmap and focus on usability (usability is the game-changer).
My only concerns with Taleo are 1) they are showing up late to the broader talent management party and 2) talent management "suite" buyers today are not "beach-heading" in recruitment. Buying recruitment + performance simply isn’t happening in the market right now. They are buying performance and compensation and performance + learning + succession. They are not buying recruitment and performance. Maybe its because the silver bullet solution isn’t available today (I don’t think that is necessarily the case though). The challenge is that recruiter users aren’t, nor do they think of themsleves as HR. They think they are sales people who’s sole focus is to close the ideal candidate not identify and develop talent. Taleo does have the mindshare with the senior executive in HR but these issues could pose a challenge to Taleo until recruitment becomes more entwined into the talent lifecycle.
