A talent management system (TMS) is an integrated software suite that addresses the "four pillars" of
talent management
Talent management (TM) refers to the anticipation of required human capital for an organization and the planning to meet those needs. The field has been growing in significance and gaining interest among practitioners as well as in the scholarl ...
: recruitment; performance management; learning and development; and compensation management.
Purpose
Whereas traditional
HRMS and
enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of main business processes, often in real time and mediated by software and technology. ERP is usually referred to as a category of business management software—typically a sui ...
(ERP) systems focus primarily on
transaction processing
Transaction processing is information processing in computer science that is divided into individual, indivisible operations called ''transactions''. Each transaction must succeed or fail as a complete unit; it can never be only partially compl ...
and the administration of basic
human resources
Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ...
processes such as personnel administration,
payroll
A payroll is the list of employees of some company that is entitled to receive payments as well as other work benefits and the amounts that each should receive. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time worked or tasks pe ...
, time management, etc., talent management systems focus on providing strategic assistance to organizations in the accomplishment of long-term enterprise goals with respect to
talent
Talent has two principal meanings:
* Talent (measurement), an ancient unit of mass and value
* Talent (skill), a group of aptitudes useful for some activities; talents may refer to aptitudes themselves or to possessors of those talents
Talent ma ...
, or human capital. Talent management systems may also be referred to as or paired with an
applicant tracking system
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is a software application that enables the electronic handling of recruitment and hiring needs. An ATS can be implemented or accessed online at enterprise- or small-business levels, depending on the needs of the ...
(ATS) in either standalone application or as a suite of products. According to Bersin, talent management may be defined as the implementation of integrated strategies or systems designed to improve processes for recruiting, developing, and retaining people with the required skills and aptitude to meet current and future organizational needs.
Functional modules and their market worth
TMS solutions typically offer one or many disparate or integrated
modules
Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a s ...
which provide business functionality in areas of human capital management /
human resources
Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ...
typically referred to as "strategic".

*
performance management
Performance management (PM) is the process of ensuring that a set of activities and outputs meets an organization's goals in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on the performance of a whole organization, a d ...
* goal management
*
compensation management
Compensation may refer to:
*Financial compensation
*Compensation (chess), various advantages a player has in exchange for a disadvantage
* ''Compensation'' (essay), by Ralph Waldo Emerson
* ''Compensation'' (film), a 2000 film
*Compensation (psych ...
* talent acquisition /
recruiting
*
Learning management system
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...
s
* career development
*
succession planning
Succession planning is a process and strategy for replacement planning or passing on leadership roles. It is used to identify and develop new, potential leaders who can move into leadership roles when they become vacant. Succession planning in d ...
The role of
talent acquisition
Acqui-hiring or Acq-hiring (a portmanteau of "acquisition" and "hiring", also called talent acquisition) is a neologism which describes the process of Mergers and acquisitions, acquiring a company primarily to recruit its employees, rather than t ...
and
performance management
Performance management (PM) is the process of ensuring that a set of activities and outputs meets an organization's goals in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on the performance of a whole organization, a d ...
has increased many folds compared to
learning management system
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, materials or learning and development programs. The learni ...
s in the talent management market. Many companies which were earlier working on only one of these domains have moved to developing integrated talent management systems.
Delivery methods
Many organizations struggle with HR data silos, disconnected technologies, and manual processes, the future of talent management is embodied in solutions designed from the ground up to provide business-centric functionality on a unified talent management platform. Talent management system recently have been at the forefront of growth in the
software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is co ...
(SaaS) delivery market following earlier iterations in the standard HR systems space via
application service provider
An application service provider (ASP) is a business providing application software generally through the Web.
The ASP model
The application software resides on the vendor's system and is accessed by users through a communication protocol. Altern ...
(ASP) delivery models. Traditional delivery via on-premises license sales still exist, but are much less prevalent in the competitive space.
[ ]
Enterprise systems integration
Vendors of TMS software typically claim varying degrees of
integration
Integration may refer to:
Biology
* Multisensory integration
* Path integration
* Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome
*DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technolo ...
with other enterprise software vendors, and in particular with leading vendors of HRMS systems. The accuracy of these claims is often a question of interpretation, as the degree to which each vendor integrates with 3rd party systems varies considerably depending on circumstances and both the vendor and the third party solution. In some cases, third party vendors offer certification for such scenarios, in order to offer some basis of comparison.
Competitive market
The so-called
war for talent The war for talent is a term coined by Steven Hankin of McKinsey & Company in 1997, ana bookby Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod, Harvard Business Press, 2001 . The war for talent refers to an increasingly competitive landscape f ...
has driven a marked increase of attention and investment in the talent management space as new vendors continue to enter to support an ever-growing demand for strategic human resources applications. Many of these competitors have entered via the
software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is co ...
(
SaaS
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is co ...
) delivery model, affording small and medium businesses (
SMB) new less-costly options. The Gartner Magic Quadrants for Talent Management Suites compares the major players of this market each year; in 2018 ranking products included
Cornerstone OnDemand
Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc. is a cloud-based people development software provider and learning technology company. The company was publicly traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker symbol until it was acquired by private-equity firm Cle ...
,
SAP
Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant.
Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a separ ...
's
SuccessFactors
SAP SuccessFactors is an American multinational company headquartered in South San Francisco, California, providing cloud-based software for human capital management using the Software as a service (SaaS) model.
Competitors include Workday, ...
, and
Skillsoft
Skillsoft is an American educational technology company that produces learning management system software and content.
History
Skillsoft was founded by Charles Moran in 1998. Moran served as Chief Executive Officer and President from 1998 to 201 ...
's SumTotal systems. In 2019, Gartner retired the talent management quadrant and made talent management functionality a factor in its HCM Magic Quadrant. The 2020 and 2021 leaders included
ADP
Adp or ADP may refer to:
Aviation
* Aéroports de Paris, airport authority for the Parisian region in France
* Aeropuertos del Perú, airport operator for airports in northern Peru
* SLAF Anuradhapura, an airport in Sri Lanka
* Ampara Air ...
,
Ceridian
Ceridian HCM is an American provider of human resources software and services with employees in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia and Mauritius. It is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange.
History
Ceridian is a descend ...
,
Kronos (UKG),
Oracle
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The wor ...
, and Talentsoft.
See also
*
Human resource management system
A human resources management system (HRMS) or Human Resources Information System (HRIS) or Human Capital Management (HCM) is a form of Human Resources (HR) software that combines a number of systems and processes to ensure the easy management o ...
*
List of talent management software companies
The following is a list of notable companies associated with talent management systems (TMS).
TMS companies
Other companies that produce TMS
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Talent Management System Companies, List Of
Human resource manageme ...
Notes
References
*
*
* {{citation , title=With 360-degree Tech Enhancements in Learning, Adaptability is the Key for Recruitment By Harvard University
, url=http://blogs.harvard.edu/telegraph/2017/11/27/with-360-degree-tech-enhancements-in-learning-adaptability-is-the-key-for-recruitment/
Human resource management
Human resource management software