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Taleo Corporation: Taleo Celebrates Ten Years of Talent Management Excellence

^{Published on 2009-05-22 09:30:43, Last Modified on 2009-11-02 11:54:50 - Market Wire}
 

DUBLIN, CA--(Marketwire - May 22, 2009) - Taleo (NASDAQ: [ TLEO ]), the leading provider of on-demand talent management solutions, today celebrates its ten-year anniversary with success across every measure of its business: high customer satisfaction, growth, innovation, and industry accolades. 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 3,400 small and medium-sized businesses.

Talent is typically up to 70% of the company's operating expense and a business' best competitive differentiator and investment for future growth, according to a recent global CEO survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers. In fact, today's economy has driven increasing adoption of Taleo's software products that 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.

There is a proven correlation between companies that manage their staff's well and those that manage better bottom lines. A "Great Workplace Employment Study" conducted at the end of 2008 found that businesses rated as great places to work fared better in revenue growth, had far fewer layoffs and suffered zero bankruptcies or bail-outs compared to other businesses. 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, 30 of the Global 100, and 20 customers ranked among the very best places to work including: Starbucks, Ernst & Young and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

"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 Software-as-a-Service) delivery model. 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," said Michael Gregoire, Chairman and CEO of Taleo.

"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 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 that time revenue has grown over 133%, to more than $168 million in 2008, and the company entered 2009 with an application revenue backlog of $315 million. In the last year alone, Taleo:

 -- 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. -- Entered the performance management software segment, and is on track to close its 100th performance management customer this quarter. Further, last week Taleo Performance was awarded the CODiE award for the "Best Human Resources Solution" by the Software & Information Industry Association. -- Set the bar for customer service and support. In addition to the customer renewal rate in excess of 95%, Taleo recently was the first talent management vendor to secure certification by the Service and Support Professionals Association, receiving an "outstanding" rating. 

"Taleo always been a very well run, well-oiled machine, but it has gotten red-hot in the last 12-18 months," said 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.