RALEIGH, NC and WALTHAM, MA--(Marketwire - April 4, 2011) - Propelled by a shared vision to accelerate business outcomes and success through the strategic optimization of the workforce, Peopleclick Authoria today announced the acquisition of Aquire Solutions, Inc., a global leader in workforce planning and analytics solutions. This transaction unites the broadest integrated talent management suite with one of the fastest-growing and innovative workforce planning and analytics solutions available in the market (Inc. magazine's "5000 Fastest Growing Companies" and Human Resource Executive magazine's "2010 Top Product of the Year" for Aquire InSight™). This combination brings the Talent Management marketplace a first-of-its-kind collaboration solution driven by unmatched visualization, analytics and modeling capabilities that align the planning initiatives and strategic objectives of the executive team, line management and workforce.
With this acquisition, Peopleclick Authoria demonstrates its continued commitment to build out its best-of-suite strategy for Talent Management, one that is already uniquely differentiated by the inclusion of Vendor Management and Workforce Compliance and Diversity. With the addition of Aquire, which will continue under its existing strong brand, Peopleclick Authoria changes the paradigm of what true Talent Management visual analytics capabilities will need to be as customers identify and execute their Social, Analytics and Collaboration strategies.
"Quite frankly, there is no other vendor in this category that is doing workforce planning and analytics in the exceptional and compelling way that Aquire is today. With this acquisition, we are functionally linking business intelligence and total workforce Intelligence to deliver -- for the first time ever in the Talent Management arena -- the seamless integration of strategic, financial and human capital data and true collaboration across many disciplines and any and all management layers of an organization," said Charles S. Jones, Chairman and CEO of Peopleclick Authoria. "We are incredibly proud and excited to have these solutions and the creative people behind them -- directed by the leadership of Lois Melbourne and the extraordinary technical innovation and vision of Ross Melbourne -- on the Peopleclick Authoria team. We are enthusiastic about the additional value this combination will bring to customers worldwide."
According to Jim Holincheck, Research Vice President at Gartner, "The depth and breadth of talent management suite offerings is improving, and that customers increasingly want to work with fewer providers to ease integration and analytics, and simplify vendor management requirements." Moreover, "The biggest technology trend is around reporting and analysis. This is a good thing, as our customer references surveyed showed again that reporting was still relatively challenging for many of them (it had a mean score of 4.65 on a seven point scale, ranging from completely dissatisfied to completely satisfied).(1)"
Commenting on the transaction, Lois Melbourne, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Aquire, said, "We have built this business over 16 years on the foundation of innovation and customer satisfaction. This acquisition accelerates and fuels the innovation that is at our philosophical and technical core. It also increases the reach and footprint of our market landscape, enabling us to deliver unmatched collaborative analytics and workforce planning within the Talent Management continuum, while still providing the distinctive solution that we bring to ERP environments every day. We are thrilled at this opportunity to expand the Aquire market reach and to grow."
A pioneer in the market with their flagship OrgPublisher product line, Aquire (visit www.aquire.com/solutions/) has created powerful visualization capabilities within a data-intense technical environment. With highly graphical and flexible analytics and planning applications -- from organizational charting to workforce planning, succession planning and data integrity -- the company delivers the ability to collaboratively model current and desired states of an organizational structure. These solutions, either alone or in conjunction with the full Peopleclick Authoria Talent Management suite, give customers a strategic differentiator in understanding and assessing the most critical and complex elements of their organizations, so they can make precise and informed decisions about the business to affect real-time, proactive, impactful change.
"Workforce analytics and planning is a core component of talent management processes and should be used to optimize existing activities. Aquire is addressing this need with a workforce and employee centric approach that enables the ability to understand and optimize human capital," said Mark Smith, CEO and EVP of Research for Ventana Research, the leading benchmark research and advisory services firm. "Integrating Aquire's exceptional product suite into the broad Talent Management solutions provided by Peopleclick Authoria offers a comprehensive level of workforce analytics and planning to support Talent Management processes. This acquisition provides organizations a more holistic and actionable approach to utilizing workforce information for improving business performance."
Aquire Solutions, Inc. will operate as a wholly owned operating subsidiary of Peopleclick Authoria Holdings, Corporation. Under committed arrangements, this organically fast-growing enterprise will remain independently run by Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder Lois Melbourne and Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder Ross Melbourne. There will be no changes to the executive team or to the size of the organization. Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.
About Aquire
Aquire is a leading provider of workforce planning and analytics solutions. From organizational charting and analytics to workforce planning, talent visualization, succession planning, data integrity, and more, Aquire offers easy-to-use solutions that increase information visibility, expedite decision-making and streamline HR initiatives. American Airlines, Barclays Bank PLC, Fiat, Braun Gillette, Colgate-Palmolive, Nestle UK, Shell Oil, Verizon, and Mercedes-Benz are just a few of the more than 2,700 organizations in 125 countries that rely on Aquire solutions to manage data for 10 million working professionals worldwide. Visit us today at www.aquire.com or for the latest in workforce management opinions and trends blog.aquire.com.
About Peopleclick Authoria
Peopleclick Authoria is transforming Talent Management through best-of-breed technology and expertise. With a deep focus on business intelligence and analytics, the company's technology gives clients the actionable insight required to make strategic decisions that drive better business results. Nearly 60 percent of the Fortune 100 use Peopleclick Authoria Talent Management, Vendor Management and Workforce Compliance and Diversity solutions to manage salaried, hourly and contingent labor across their organization. These solutions manage the entire talent lifecycle from recruiting to onboarding and through the ongoing management of each individual's career while helping organizations measure, analyze and empower their existing workforce. Both founded separately in 1997, the two human capital management companies joined together in 2010 to form Peopleclick Authoria. The Company's solutions currently support more than 2,400 organizations ranging in size from large, global corporations to small and medium-sized businesses in more than 214 countries and territories around the world.
(1) Magic Quadrant for Employee Performance Management Software, March 2011