This post comes from Matthew Parker, CEO of StepStone Solutions, who comments on the acquisition of MrTed.

Yesterday I was very pleased to announce the acquisition of MrTed, a company that I have long admired, both for the quality of its people, its TalentLink product and enthusiastic customers.  I'd like to welcome both its staff and customers to the StepStone Solutions community. 

The acquisition is a big move for StepStone Solutions - it's been just three months since we became an independent business after the HgCapital-financed Management-Buy-Out and we're delivering on our plans to expand and develop the organisation (as our second quarter performance and this acquisition demonstrates), so that we can continue to enhance customer experience and the interactions that employers have with talent.  We're already hard at work on integrating the StepStone Solutions and MrTed businesses whilst maintaining a focus on continuing to deliver the best possible service to all our customers.

We've been very pleased with how well this news has been received, and I wanted to share some of the comments that have already been posted:

Jason Corsello from Knowledge Infusion wrote on the KI OnDemand blog: 

"Knowledge Infusion views this acquisition as positive for both StepStone and MrTed customers.  StepStone customers now have a forward path to modernize their technology investments leveraging a multi-tenant SaaS model.  For MrTed customers, the increased investment from StepStone and their private equity backers allows the company to expand its offering and accelerate new capabilities."

Naomi Lee Bloom (Bloom & Wallace) posted to the In Full Bloom and Enterprise Irregulars blogs saying: 

"StepStone now faces a much less challenging European talent management landscape.  It also picks up considerable new competitive strength against it's US-centric talent management suite competitors as well as the opportunity to sell its broader talent management applications to MrTed's customers."

 Before going on to say:

"I think this is a very good and strategic acquisition for StepStone Solutions"

On ERE, John Zappe said:

"The sale gives StepStone Solutions a stronger presence in the U.S., where London headquartered MrTed has been gaining brand awareness and growing its foothold"

And over at the Hire Strategies blog, long term colleague, Peter Gold commented:

"I think this is a VERY smart move by Stepstone."

Obviously I'm delighted by the positive response of these influential analysts, commentators and independent consultants (and thanks to them) -  and I look forward to sharing our progress with you all. 

Onwards and upwards!

This post is part our series of HR Technology 2009 related posts.  In case you missed it, check out the Kindle Giveaway we are running in conjunction with this year's conference.

Already day one is over, but what a day its been: After Bill Kutik opened the event, Don Tapscott shared his thoughts on how the net generation is changing the world.  There were many interesting points in his presentation, but I particularly liked Tapscott's description of what he called 'the generation overlap' - where the tastes and behaviours of parents and their children coincide and the introduction of his latest book, Grown Up Digital, through a short clip - The Dumbest Generation:

After leaving that session I met with Allan Schweyer, Principal with the Center for Human Capital Innovation and had the opportunity to ask for his thoughts on this year's conference, the priorities for employers over the next 12 months and how HR should approach them.  Listen to his response in the clip below.

Next on my agenda was Jason Corsello from Knowledge Infusion who delivered an instructive session on why and how to use social tools in the work place, the contents of which was backed-up later in the day with some great real-life examples in the fantastic Talent Management Panel: HR Technology Doesn't Stop In a Down Economy, moderated by fellow Knowledge Infusionist, Jason Averbrook.

The panelists from Target, Dell, Nike and KeyBank shared their experience of building and articulating solid business cases, obtaining budget and implementing broad portfolio's of HR technology to achieve business value.  My tweets from the session can be seen below but to get the full stream search Twitter for #tmpanel.

For me the key take-aways from the session were:

• Repeatable, standardised processes that are globally applicable are the next stage for firms that have assembled broad technology portfolio's
• Present a business case based on the overall benefits that the organisation will enjoy rather than the incremental benefits from individual components - show the total investment and total return, not each line item
• In the fast changing economic environment HR needs to enable social collaboration between workers so that new strategies can quickly be designed and executed

So, a great first day with two more to come - roll on Thursday!

StepStone can be found in booth #315 at Human Resource Executive's 12th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition.