Taleo Performance Has Arrived
Today, Taleo announced the release of Taleo Performance at their annual Taleo WORLD user conference. In the words of one Taleo customer, “very impressive”. I second those thoughts.
Not only are they looking at the entire performance management process differently, but Taleo has incorporated some design concept unseen in the market today.
A couple of things uniquely stand out in the application:
1. The “Talent Card”. Taleo is using a “baseball card” approach to see the employee picture on one side, and their “employee stats” on the other side (see picture). Those stats include critical information on employees such as performance review information, career plans, goals and objectives and succession plans. All unified and dynamic, utilizing Adobe Flex technology.
2. “Total User Experience”. The product, from a UI perspective, looks like nothing else in the market. They call it “object-based navigation”. The application has moved from “transactions” to “interactions”. Taking a “less is more” approach, the solution buries a lot of the functionality into the platform, essentially taking the human element out of the interaction, and presenting what is only important to the manager and employee. The product has been completely designed with the end user in mind and making all interactions with one-click. According to our recent survey, usability (40%) ranked as the most important factor for considering a talent management suite. Taleo has really taking usability to the next level.
3. Modal Views and Interactive Breadcrumbs. Taleo Performance enables separate, distinct views of the application. Taleo Performance can be viewed similar to iTunes, where you can see a menu of songs, see the albums, or view specific lists. Similarly, the product has interactive or “smart” breadcrumbs, whereas interaction and views can be navigated within the applications breadcrumbs.
4. Integration to Microsoft Outlook. The ability to interact with the application within Outlook (via an Outlook add-on) and perform tasks within Outlook that replicate with the solution.
Although they are not calling it a “suite”, Taleo is selling 4 applications as part of their Taleo Performance solution — performance management, career planning, leadership and succession management, and goals management. Currently in limited release, Taleo Performance will be general availability in January 2008. As part of today’s announcement, Taleo also announced the plans to build a compensation management application as one of the next phases of development over the next 12-18 months.
Technorati Tags: Taleo, performance management, Taleo Performance, talent management
9 Comments Add your own
1. Romuald | September 10th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Being an ex-Taleo, I know that usability has been an important consideration for quite some time now.
It sounds like they are right on target with their new product.
The only “false note” I’ve read today comes directly from .
The false note is that it is not a performance management solution that will change the fact that only 12% of employers give a career path plan.
The solution will help implement the initiative… if initiative there is.
2. Collab@work » Blog &hellip | September 10th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
[…] can have a quick look at the user interface design on Jason Corsello’s blog. It looks like my ex-colleagues from the UXP team (for User eXPerience) have done a really nice […]
3. Kris | September 11th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Jason -
Any word at Taleo World on pricing?
4. Steve | September 11th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Jason,
As a credible pseudo-journalist (no offense in the term), do you intend to disclose when you do consulting business with a company and you are reviewing their prodcut?
5. Marc | September 11th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Hi Jason,
You seemed to have been impressed by bells and whistles. According to Taleo sponsored survey, the main issues in performance management today do not relate or depend on product usability. You can certainly be impressed by the visual quality of a product but you cannot suggest that this product can help in the management of employee performance based on this.
6. Jason Corsello | September 11th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Steve-
My firm works with a majority of talent management vendors to build and sell better products. We are not ashamed of providing services to both buyers and sellers in talent management. Our Center of Excellence is open and available to anyone including enterprises, vendors, service providers, financial analysts, etc. Ultimately, we are champions to our enterprise customers to ensure their talent management strategy is delivering business value.
Although this blog is not affiliated with my firm, the mission of this blog is to provide the combination of fact and opinion on the industry. This blog is completely transparent. If you agree with me, feel free to state it. More importantly, if you disagree with me, the blog is completely open to challenge my opinion. I just ask that you provide insight that benefits readers versus challenging my ethics. I can assure you, I can not be bought (just ask many of the vendors that approach me daily to write about their products)!
If you are a regular reader of the blog, you will notice that I have both praised and challenged many vendors including Taleo, SuccessFactors, Kenexa, Vurv, etc.
If you have any thoughts on how I could do this better I am all ears.
Regards,
Jason
7. Hypefree | September 15th, 2007 at 6:15 am
In support of Steve’s previous comment - let me butcher Shakespeare: “Me thinks you doth protest too much.” I think it is only fair that you dislose whether your firm does business with Taleo or any other vendor whether you are praising or slamming their product/strategy. Noone is doubting your ethics - this is simply a professional practice.
8. Martin Snyder | September 17th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Since I believe almost everything I read, what’s the difference if Jason discloses or not?
Why not just assume he is on the payroll and let his ideas stand for themselves ?
Since nobody can know if/when/why people hold a bias, and readers are not doing actual business with Jason, why should he dislcose anything anyway ?
I think his (Jason’s) comment was right on target and not a case of too much protest.
If you are good at what you do, you can generally say what you want in your blog anyway- your $$$ wont be on the line because you bring game. Ask Cheeseman about that-
9. systematicHR - Human Reso&hellip | September 25th, 2007 at 2:03 am
[…] is certainly getting my attention. Among the screens that most caught my attention (perhaps Jason Corsello’s as well since it’s the shot he put on his website), was the manager view of their employees […]
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