In preparation for the Taleo Europe conference back in November 2011, we spent some time trying to predict the trends for Talent Management in 2012, some of which were discussed during the conference in Paris. Since I put my predictions to paper, Europe and talent management hasn’t stood still:

• SAP has bought Success Factors in a rush to establish a cloud presence and expertise (further validation, if needed, that the cloud is the future.)
• Salesforce has bought Rypple (to be renamed SuccessForce), causing some, unwarranted in our opinion, hysteria within the cloud and talent management space.
• Europe’s sovereign debt crisis has remained centre stage, with fluctuating costs of servicing sovereign debt and the first steps taken on the road to fiscal union, noticeably without Great Britain.
• A number of European countries appear to have edged closer to recession.

As you can see, quite a lot has happened in the last couple of months that will impact both Taleo and our customers in Europe in 2012.

This blog posting will focus on one of the 2012 trends I noted back in November 2011, specifically the point that we are living in uncertain times and to survive (and flourish), organisations are going to have to evolve from talent management to talent intelligence as a key driver of business strategy. I will argue that this is particularly relevant for Europe.

Many organisations in Europe have already been through savage cost cutting exercises over the last few years with reductions in headcount and delayed/cancelled technology projects (e.g., ERP upgrades) to name but two popular methods of cost reduction.  As we look forward to 2012, it’s very difficult to predict what is going to happen due to the looming threat of recession, reduced government spending (which is about to kick in with a vengeance), rising levels of unemployment, and increasing competition from the BRICS. In the face of such pressures, organisations are turning to their employees to enter new markets and deliver new products and services that will help maintain growth and profitability.

However, if you want to enter new markets and/or deliver new products and services, you need to know if you have the people with the right experience, skills, and competencies to support your changing business strategy. The majority of organisations don’t have an integrated talent management system and can’t answer this and other simple questions about their people. Most organisation’s talent management programmes only stretch as far as a few hundred senior executives at best, ignoring the talent that can be found at all levels.  Organisations that more effectively mine these additional talent layers can realize significant competitive advantage.

A common objection to this approach, particularly given the current technology spending climate, is that it will cost a lot of money.  Perhaps not. Firstly, the SaaS model significantly reduces the costs associated with technology projects (hugely compared to traditional on-site ERP delivery), so implementing an integrated talent management system may not be as costly as you think if you follow the SaaS route. Secondly, many organisations will already have a variety of different point solutions deployed to manage recruitment, performance, succession, learning, compensation, etc., across different countries and/or business units. This almost always means a significant duplication of cost, which can be eliminated by deploying a single, integrated talent management platform from a single vendor, organisation-wide.

This value proposition will be particularly attractive to European organisations with either limited budgets and/or a desperate need to have more visibility into the capabilities of their workforce. Looking at the projects Taleo has recently won and our sales pipeline for the coming 12 to 18 months, we see the trend for integrated talent management continuing to gain momentum as organisations move away from point solutions to vendors providing the full suite.

Europe’s difficulties could act as the catalyst for a whole raft of international and global talent management initiatives that will energise Europe’s leading organisations and drive growth across the region. Will Europe take this opportunity?  We’d love to hear your thoughts on how this will all play out in 2012.