Vendors in the talent management market have delivered continued investments in automation, analytics, and AI as attracting, retaining, and developing top talent remains a pressing matter for employers. Specifically, Nucleus found AI capabilities pertaining to the identification, validation, and development of skills have become particularly prevalent, and leaders in the market are expected to continue to concentrate research and development resources towards this area over the next 12 months.

“Skills continue to be a significant area of focus for providers in the talent management market,” said Research Manager Evelyn McMullen. “We expect continued mergers and acquisitions in the arena of skills intelligence will lead to consolidation, enabling leaders to augment existing learning, development and performance management functionality with more comprehensive, AI-driven capabilities that improve the identification, validation and tracking of employee skills and competencies.”

ROI case study data from the past four years show that modern talent solutions pay back $4.15 for every dollar spent. This highlights the hard value driven by talent management, regardless of whether the primary focus is attracting best-fit candidates during high-volume hiring periods or maximizing and tracking the efficiency of existing resources during more uncertain times.

Leaders in this year’s Value Matrix deliver advanced functionality without sacrificing ease-of-use at scale. These include Cegid, Cornerstone OnDemand, Oracle, and Rival.

The Experts in this year’s Value Matrix are organizations that deliver value to customers with complex use cases through deep functionality and industry-specific capabilities. These include Dayforce, Infor, SAP SuccessFactors, and Workday.

Accelerators in this year’s Value Matrix deliver value through greater ease of use and quick implementation. These include ClearCompany, isolved, and Lattice.