Enterprise Talent Wars and IBM’s Acquisition of Kenexa

Different factors are driving changes for businesses who need to continuously adapt to them. Not having the right talent available is a challenge in being able to adapt to those changes. Efficiently managing the talent pool is an important to businesses that is leading to numerous acquisitions in this space. That observation leads me to IBM’s recently announced acquisition of Kenexa. With this purchase, IBM is getting into the HCM application space in direct competition with Oracle who acquired Taleo, Salesforce who acquired Rypple and SAP who acquired SuccessFactors for similar reasons. Demand for solutions in this space is also increasing due to the entry of millennial candidates into the workplace who are likely to look for job satisfaction in addition to typical benefits, likely to re-locate if they find the right position and also are very social. All these characteristics bring different expectations of HCM solutions by enterprises to cater to a different expectation of the workplace. In other words, in Kenexa, IBM picked solution focused on an area with a significant projected worldwide demand growth, as candidates are growing pickier in choosing an employer.

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