Company:            Taleo
Started:                1999
Located:               Dublin, California

Public:                  NASDAQ: TLEO
Geography:          Global
Market(s):            Human Capital and Talent Management

Products:             Taleo Enterprise Edition - Talent Management Suite which includes Sourcing,

                             Recruiting, Onboarding, Goals Management, Performance Management,

                             Succession Planning, Compensation Management and Development Planning.

                                     

                             Taleo Business Edition - Talent Management Suite which includes Recruiting,

                             Goals, Performance Management and Employee Website solutions.   

Key Customers:    Whirlpool, Hyatt, Macy’s, JP Morgan Chase and HP

Website:                Taleo.com

Blog:                     Taleo Blog – Talent Management Solutions

Recent News:

Taleo Provides Q4 Business Update; Caps Powerful 2008

Taleo Positioned in Visionaries Quadrant for Employee Performance Management Software

Global Businesses Embrace Taleo’s Performance Management Software in Tight Economy

Taleo Named Talent Management Software Leader in Leading Market Research Firm Reports

 

I asked Al Campa, Taleo’s Chief Marketing Officer a few questions about his business and his view of the SaaS market in 2009.

Did you start out as a Software-as-a-Service company?

In 1999 we were incorporated as Recruitsoft, established our headquarters in San Francisco and launched our Recruiter Web Top product. From the very beginning Taleo has been committed to the SaaS delivery model and was one of the pioneers in SaaS.  We provide a comprehensive suite of on-demand talent management applications for businesses of all sizes, across all industries around the world.  Taleo was the only SaaS company to design its product from the start for the largest, most complex companies in the world.  Most SaaS companies start by meeting the needs of small companies and then work they way up-market.

Why do your customers buy from Taleo?

Three things come to mind – the ROI of talent management, the value of on-demand solutions and the strength of our competitive positioning.

 

·       Even in a down economy, companies continue to see a high level of turnover. And turnover is expensive. Our talent management applications help companies save millions of dollars by reducing or eliminating agency recruiter fees, reducing cost per hire, reducing on-boarding costs, and increasing the effectiveness of candidate sourcing.

 

·       As many organizations are being forced to do more with less, the benefits of using an on-demand solution become clear. Compared to on-premise solutions, our applications cost less, are quick to deploy and provide a rapid ROI.

 

·       As for our competitive positioning, we are one of the few vendors to offer a truly unified talent management solution…we organically developed our recruiting and performance management   applications on a single architecture. And we offer scalable, on-demand platforms for enterprises and SMB’s. Plus, we are profitable, growing and have a strong balance sheet.

What do you see as the key trend emerging in the SaaS industry?

The best part of the SaaS model is that it presents opportunities to provide types of innovation that are just not possible with solutions that are installed behind the firewall.  The emergence of the concept of Web 2.0 or the next version of the internet is all about collaboration, combining different solutions to make new ones and leveraging aggregate data generated by thousands or millions of users.  People see this type of power everyday in the form of the iPhone and it’s ecosystem, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook.  Taleo has embarked on an initiative that we call the Talent Grid to leverage new technologies and the aggregate talent management knowledge of millions of talent management practitioners from 3,900 customers as well as a broad ecosystem of partners and subject matter experts.  The Taleo Talent Grid will enable customers to collaborate with each other and with Taleo to find solutions to the most pressing talent management and business challenges they are facing. 

What is your outlook for 2009?

As we move further into 2009, we believe the overall economic environment will remain difficult and pose challenges. However, we are very optimistic about Taleo’s future and our growth strategy is well defined. Our recurring revenue business model gives us a high degree of visibility, which in turn allows for flexibility in budgeting. We plan to compete in more deals and we also expect our win-rate to improve. We will also compete more in standalone performance management deals and take advantage of international expansion opportunities with our customers. This strategy will allow us to continue to succeed and meet our goals throughout the year.

 

 Thank you to Al Campa, Didi D’Errico and Jaime Spuhler for contributing to this profile.