Kenexa’s Analyst Day and 7th World Conference – A Winner: Part 1

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

Kenexa’s October 16^th analyst day included:

• A conversation with CEO Rudy Karsan
• Product overviews
• Business unit highlights
• A customer panel
• One-on-one meetings with executives including Rudy and CMO Tim Geisert.

IBM’s acquisition of Kenexa, which is expected to close by the end of the year, could only be talked about in limited discussion. Kenexa employees will be integrated during 2013. Initially, IBM’s RPO business will be integrated into Kenexa’s RPO business and will be named IBM Kenexa RPO. The group will report into Rudy, who will then report into Alistair Rennie of IBM. Phase 1, occurring through 2013, will be business as usual with IBM as a new source of business for Kenexa, a very large channel. Phase 2 will be integration into IBM.

In addition to RPO, key assets Kenexa brings to IBM include SaaS, innovation, and the ability to get big data into IBM’s warehouses (e.g., Kenexa has 100m employee touches a year globally). Kenexa’s 2015 revenue projection will be doubled with IBM’s added social capabilities and analytics (IBM will demo this at its conference in January 2013).

Below is an overview of Kenexa’s new products and services that were presented by the respective product manager. The presentations also included videos and a one-page user-friendly brochure.

• RapidHire: 2x BrassRing’s high-volume hiring module (ideal for the retail, restaurant, and hospitality sectors)
• 2x Onboard: used in ~50% of contracts (including many global deals for cost savings and compliance), improves the employee experience (with mobile access available) by:
  • Making introductions before the employee’s first day
  • Helping new hires understand the culture
  • Conducting employment eligibility verifications for new hires
  • Providing new hire surveys, which can be scheduled at any time
  • Assisting internal employees and contractors who have been transferred
• 2x Perform: includes performance, succession, and compensation management
• Learning: includes a new social LMS, content management, and Hot Lava to develop content on all mediums (i.e., tablets, mobile devices, and PC’s)
• Engagement: highlights include a mobile feedback application that can be used for immediate feedback from meetings / events, employee surveys, and 360 degree feedback
• Global Talent Management: clients include Shell, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, BP, Yum (in China), and Huawei (in China); 2012 sales included the suite of recruitment, learning, and performance management; EMEA sales grew 40%, mostly from competitor conversions
• Compensation Management (part of 2x Perform): added ~500 new compensation clients YTD 2012 including Ernst & Young, Cox Enterprises, and Cracker Barrel.

For more information on these products and services, please see my prior blog entries, Kenexa’s vendor profile, and the NelsonHall database.

Kenexa is also continuing to develop its survey, assessment, and leadership development capabilities with recent contract awards including Amazon, Campbell’s, and Cargill announced October 16^th.

Stay tuned for part 2 later this week, which will include RPO highlights.

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Finding it Hard to Keep Up with HR Technology? Plan to Attend HR Tech This Year

After attending last year’s HR Technology Conference in Chicago, I blogged about my positive experience with themes that included portals, platforms, and self-service and highly recommended attending this year’s conference.  Well, the time to plan for this year has come!   This year’s HR Technology Conference and Exhibition is October 3 – 5 in Las Vegas.  I’ve been given a special discount code for attendees to use when registering.  Enter HRO11(all caps) as the promotion code when you register online to get $500 off the posted rate.  The discount expires September 19^th.

Why do I think this is such a worthwhile event? We live in a technology world, but I continue to be amazed at the number of new HR technology offerings that are announced each month, sometimes weekly! As a former HR buy-side client, I can resonate quite well with the masses that are thinking about whether or not to invest in new technology. There are so many things to consider including:

• What is the latest technology for HR and payroll services, be it an applicant tracking system, a talent management system, an e-learning or multi-country payroll platform, benefits enrollment technology, etc.?
• Who is providing what?
• How easy and user friendly is it?
• How will it benefit my business?
• If I’m interested in a particular product or service, how do I know who to contact to get a demo for other members of my organization, etc.?

What I really liked about the conference is that you can walk the exhibit floor and attend whatever demo you like and speak with representatives knowledgeable about the products and services and not feel like you are being swarmed upon by vultures.  This is because the exhibit floor is loaded with many other curious HR practitioners and often the booths have so many people interested that group demos are given, so you can watch, learn, and ask questions with others.

Equally as good if not better are the conference presentations.  For example, let’s say you are the director of employment of talent acquisition for your company and you have been hearing about video interviewing.  Further, maybe you heard about Kenexa’s recent alliance with GreenJobInterview to integrate its virtual video interviewing capability into Kenexa’s 2x BrassRing so candidates can be interviewed virtually.  Well, this all sounds good, but isn’t it better to learn more about the benefits and results obtained by video interviewing from another buy-side client?  Well, you can on October 3^rd from Mike Grennier, Senior Director of Corporate Recruiting at Wal-Mart, at his presentation titled “Wal-Mart Embraces Video Interviewing for Job Applicants.”

If you read my colleague Linda Merritt’s blog earlier this week on analytics and are interested in learning more, then on October 4^th Randy MacDonald, SVP of HR at IBM, will give a presentation on technology and analytics and how IBM helps clients quantify HR results.  I’m a big proponent of technology, but I’m a bigger advocate in my belief that technology is only as good as it is utilized and produces results.  Here, we will learn how IBM helps its clients.

I hope to see you there.

Gary Bragar,  HR Outsourcing Research Director, NelsonHall