Media Contact:
Marcella Bidinost
Tel: +61 417 120 378
Email: mbidinost@taleo.com
SaaS turns 10, and so does Taleo
Taleo Products, Customers and Partners Set Best Practices to Meet CEOs’ Top Priority: Finding
and Keeping the Right People
May 25, 2009 – Taleo (NASDAQ: TLEO), the leading provider of on-demand talent management
solutions, this week celebrates its 10-year anniversary with success across every measure of its
business: high customer satisfaction, growth, innovation, and industry accolades.
Taleo’s 10-year anniversary also coincides with 10 years of SaaS (software-as-a-service,
based on the application service provider or ASP model), which also began to circulate in the
technical community in 1999. In terms of delivery, performance, security, integration,
customization, value and business sense, both have come a long way.
Taleo’s software for attracting, developing, motivating and retaining top talent has not only
propelled its own success, but also the success of its customers, which includes a third of the
Global 100 and more than 4000 businesses worldwide.
In the Asia-Pacific region, where Taleo has operated since 2002, 146 customers – including
Telstra, Westpac, Qantas, Woolworths and Lion Nathan – all use Taleo to assess, acquire,
develop and align their workforces for improved business performance.
According to a recent global CEO survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, talent typically constitutes
up to 70% of a company’s operating expense and a business’ best competitive differentiator
and investment for future growth. Today’s economy has driven increasing adoption of Taleo’s
software products to help businesses better focus their efforts and successes in finding, hiring,
developing, assessing and keeping their biggest lever for recovery and future success: their
people.
The correlation between companies that best manage their staff and those with the better
bottom lines is now well proven. Studies by Australia’s Great Place to Work Institute and
Hewitt’s Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand show links between levels of employee
engagement and virtually every measure of company performance. These studies show the
best workplaces provide career opportunities, recognition for work successes, and encourage
people’s contributions. According to Hewitt, companies with the best talent management also
generate on average 1.5 times more revenue and 2.5 times more profit per employee than
lower ranked organisations. Likewise, there is a direct link between the businesses faring the
best in this economy and Taleo’s customer base. Today, Taleo’s customers include 48 of the
Fortune 100 and 30 of the Global 100.
“The first decade of our business, we focused on delivering to our customers the very best
products on an easy to access on-demand (or SaaS, software-as-a-service) delivery model,”
says Michael Gregoire, Chairman and CEO of Taleo. “We also set out to prove that the SaaS
business model could be profitable for our shareholders. That dual focus on innovation and
profitability has helped Taleo grow to a size and success that we share with less than 1% of the
more than 3,000 technology companies that started with us in 1999.”
“In the process of building a great talent management company, we’ve also built an amazing
talent management community. In this economic environment, businesses have the key to
their own recovery walking in – and out – of their offices every day. Taleo, our customers and
our partners are creating proven, successful, practices that companies of any size, in any
industry can employ to be better employers and drive better businesses.”
Built for growth, Taleo has moved from its beginnings providing Canada’s first job board to
becoming the world leader in software for talent management.
The company incorporated in May 25, 1999, selling its first on-demand software to large
enterprises such as Bombardier and HP, who are still clients today. Taleo went public in 2005
and since then revenue has grown over 133%, to more than $US168 million in 2008, and the
company entered 2009 with an application revenue backlog of $US315 million. In the last year
alone, Taleo:
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Gained scale through the acquisition of Vurv, effectively doubling its customer base
and cementing its position as the de facto global leader in online recruiting.
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Entered the performance management software segment, and is on track to close its
100th performance management customer this quarter. Further, this month Taleo
Performance was awarded the CODiE award for the “Best Human Resources
Solution” by America’s Software & Information Industry Association.
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Set the bar for customer service and support. In addition to the customer renewal
rate in excess of 95%, Taleo recently became the first talent management vendor to
secure certification by the Service and Support Professionals Association, receiving
an “outstanding” rating.
“Taleo has always been a very well-run, well-oiled machine, but it has gotten red-hot in the
last 12-18 months,” says Rick Fletcher, president and founder of Human Resources consulting
firm, HRchitect. “They have definitely become the talent management category killer in terms
of product strength and company viability. Taleo is particularly hot in the enterprise and the
lower market with its Business Edition.”
About Taleo
Taleo (NASDAQ: TLEO) is the leader in on-demand unified talent management solutions that
empower organizations of all sizes to assess, acquire, develop and align their workforces for
improved business performance. More than 4,000 organizations use Taleo for talent acquisition
and performance management, including 48 of the Fortune 100 and over 3,400 small and
medium sized businesses across 200 countries and territories. Known for its strong
configurability and usability, Taleo runs on a world-class infrastructure and offers 99.9%
availability. Taleo's Talent Grid harnesses the resources of the Taleo community of customers,
candidates, and partners to power the talent needs of companies around the world.
Forward-looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the demand
for Taleo's solutions, results from use of Taleo’s solutions, Taleo future financial results and
general business conditions. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release
are based upon Taleo's historical performance and its current plans, estimates and
expectations and are not a representation that such plans, estimates, or expectations will be
achieved. These forward-looking statements represent Taleo's expectations as of the date of
this press announcement. Subsequent events may cause these expectations to change, and
Taleo disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking statements in the future. These
forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that
may cause actual results to differ materially. Further information on potential factors that could
affect actual results is included in Part II, Item 1A of Taleo’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q,
as filed with the SEC on May 11, 2009, and in other reports filed by Taleo with the SEC.
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