profile updated Jun 6, 2008, 4:38 PM
In the tough, competitive market that is talent management software, family-owned and managed Softscape has successfully built a reputation for quality products and strong growth. The company has been featured on all sorts of "top" lists including Red Herring, Deloitte's New England top tech companies and the Inc. 500. Bersin & Associates awarded four stars - the top rating - to Softscape's Apex talent management product suite in a report released in early 2008.
Awards are nice, but it's how the products work in the marketplace that drive acceptance. And in this case, Softscape also does well. It has a host of customers among the Fortune 100 and 500; a third of of them have more than 10,000 employees. It's biggest client is Unilver with some 230,000 employees.
There are plenty of smaller clients, of course. It serves a raft of small firms that outsource their HR to Accenture, providing compensation, performance and succession applications for them. Other SMBs subscribe to its Softscape On-Demand, an SaaS delivery built on the Apex platform.
Increasingly, Softscape has been moving toward the fully integrated HR model. So Softscape On-Demand includes features that other vendors offer as upsell modules and which smaller companies may wonder how to use. Nonetheless, both Apex and Softscape On-Demand are a nearly complete HRMS, even if the recruitment tools are not quite as fully developed as the best of the standalone systems.
The company has resisted seeking investors and has warded off suitors, preferring its independence, according to CEO David Watkins. Despite having some 275 customers, he described the company as having intentionally keeping a low profile.
In the last year, its very public battles with rival SuccessFactors have kept it in the industry eye. Softscape has twice sued SuccessFactors over alleged employee raiding and, mostly recently, claiming the California-based HR software company engaged in a form of corporate espionage. For its part, SuccessFactors sued over an unflattering PowerPoint about it and its products that Softscape admitted making.
News & Updates 
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Softscape Introduces New Job Distribution Service (Businesswire)
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SuccessFactors A Leader Says IDC Report (BusinessWire)
SuccessFactors, a global provider of on-demand performance and talent management solutions, is named a leader in Integrated Talent Management in a recent study of HR software vendors by IDC, a provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets
The report says, “SuccessFactors’ Talent management suite offers a prominent end-to-end solution leading the marketplace and illustrating the continuous circle and strategic interdependency of the various talent management functions within an organization."
Other companies reviewed in the $25,000 report (that is not a misprint) are: Authoria, Cornerstone, Halogen, Kenexa, Lawson, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Plateau Systems, Saba, Salary.com, SAP, Silkroad, Softscape, Stepstone, Taleo and Workscape.
Jan 8, 2009, 11:31 AM -
Softscape Charges Espionage Attempt in Court Suit (ere)
With the Clinton-Obama fight over, Softscape and SuccessFactors (profile; site) have stepped up to fill the void with the two HR software companies in court for the second time this year. This time the allegations include claims of corporate espionage, unfair competition and interference with contract.
Jun 5, 2008, 6:01 PM
Products & Services
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Enterprise Solutions
This is the Softscape Apex solution. An integrated combination of talent acquisition, workforce and succession planning, performance, compensation management, analytics and other tools that make this more of a complete HRMS than a talent management suite. Recently the company has been describing this as an HRMS. One more thing. While most companies use the term "integrated" to describe their collected products, Softscape has been receiving industry recognition for the way it has merged the various function. -
Softscape On-Demand
Built on its Apex platform, so it delivers most of the same tools as the enterprise version, Softscape's SaaS provisioned talent management suite is designed for smaller firms that don't need to handle tens of thousands of employees. Charged on a subscription basis, Softscape On-Demand is for firms that want a broad view of their workforce in order to plan and hire wisely. If all you are looking for is an ATS and maybe a performance management tool, you'd do better looking elsewhere.