Forrester Research, Inc. Names Cornerstone OnDemand a "Leader"

The great thing about independent, trusted research is that it’s independent and you can trust the results. Obvious, right? But when you’ve maybe had your fill of software vendor marketing (and even the occasional grandiose proclamations -- hey, we’re all a guilty of it sometimes), it’s comforting to know that there are objective voices of reason out there.

Forrester Research has just published "The Forrester Wave™: Talent Management, Q1 2013," a shiny new research report that evaluates the nine most significant vendors in the talent management software industry. In the report, Cornerstone has been ranked as a "Leader".

"Cornerstone is the fastest growing talent management vendor in organic growth of new customers, active customer increases and company employees," writes Forrester senior analyst Claire Schooley in the report.

The report goes on to note that "as a forward-looking company, [Cornerstone] offers features like a full extended enterprise app for customers and partners, a rich career development product, and a leading learning management system with significant investment in meeting localization needs of non-US-based companies. The applications are also very flexible and adaptable and growing in the area of making mobile and social ’everywhere.’"

Our Take: Further Validation of the Cornerstone Approach

Of course, we take this most recent recognition as further validation of what we’ve been up to for the past decade, even in the face of intense consolidation in the HR software world. And we take it as an important reminder of the choice that faces buyers today.

According to Forrester’s report, more than 90 percent of the talent inquiries they receive relate to SaaS deployments. Additionally, more than half of customers want a single solution equally strong in all areas of talent management. After recent waves of market consolidation, the ongoing challenge for vendors is the integration of various talent management components to provide users with the most seamless, integrated experience possible. But, as Forrester points out, "vendors touting a unified talent management offering must go beyond skin-deep navigation and cosmetic user interfaces."

In a market that has markedly shifted over the last two years towards large ERP suites and mixed delivery models, we’d argue that Cornerstone is the only best-of-breed, organically grown market leader in Talent Management software. You can also throw in that Cornerstone is the only "leader" delivering their software via pure SaaS and not a muddle of on-demand and on-premise offerings.

Why does this matter? With the organic talent management approach you get:

The choice for the buyer is pretty stark.