IBM Completes Kenexa Buy, Preps Analytics-Driven HCM
IBM's bid for Kenexa is officially a done deal. Big Blue today announced that it had closed on its acquisition of the cloud-based human capital management (HCM) specialist.
The IT giant announced this summer that it was buying Kenexa for $1.3 billion pending customary approvals. At stake was a big HCM prize. Kenexa has over 8,900 customers and engages with more than half of the Fortune 500.
IBM could also ill afford to stand by as its rivals also acquire big HCM players. SAP snapped up SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion in late 2011. Oracle acquired Taleo, a cloud-based HCM provider, for $1.9 billion in February.
When the deal was first announced, Alistair Rennie, general manager of IBM's social business division, revealed how Kenexa's platform fits into Big Blue's vision of the social enterprise as a source of social-driven business intelligence.
Part of the Social Enterprise
“Every company, across every business operation, is looking to tap into the power of social networking to transform the way they work, collaborate and out-innovate their competitors. IBM is uniquely positioned to help clients generate real returns from their social business investments, while helping them gain intelligence into the data being generated in these networks to be more competitive in their markets,” Rennie stated in a company release.
Today, the IT giant offered more clues on how Kenexa's social technology and services offerings further align with IBM's business analytics ambitions.
According to IBM's own research, 57 percent of the CEOs that it polled said that becoming a social business was a top priority. And 70 percent of CEOs said that “they are making significant investments to capture and draw insights from available data,” according to the company.
That represents some Big Data analytics opportunities for IBM, by the sheer volume of data generated by social platforms alone and demand for solutions that help business derive value from it.
“The combined strengths of IBM and Kenexa provide organizations with unique capabilities that allow them to increase workforce efficiencies and gain insight from their business information,” said the company.
Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.
Pedro Hernandez contributes to Enterprise Apps Today, and 11Press, the technology network. He was previously the managing editor of Internet.com, an IT-related website network. He has expertise in Smart Tech, CRM, and Mobile Tech, Helping Banks and Fintechs, Telcos and Automotive OEMs, and Healthcare and Identity Service Providers to Protect Mobile Apps.
