4 SuccessFactors Alternatives to Manage Your Growing Workforce

Halden Ingwersen profile picture
By Halden Ingwersen

Published
6 min read

Your startup is ballooning.

You began with six people. (Seven if you count your niece, who you listed as an “intern" for a year to help her out with college application experience in exchange for her running some errands for you.)

Three years later you were up to 11, and then 30. The next thing you know your company is at 45 people and growing, and you're still feeling short-staffed.

You should be very proud. But of course you've got a lot more problems now than you did when the whole company was just you and your buddies having the business equivalent of a LAN party in your living room.

You can no longer manage on good faith alone. You absolutely need a robust HR program that can grow with you.

successfactors_alts

So, because you have excellent taste, you visit Capterra and head straight for our free, comprehensive directory of talent management software. You immediately notice that SuccessFactors appears to be the most popular of the bunch.

But does that mean it's the perfect fit for you and your business?

The following list of alternative talent management software choices will help you determine if SuccessFactors is the right software for you, or if you should explore some other options before committing.

This article looks at four SuccessFactors alternatives. See the full list of SuccessFactors alternatives here.

SuccessFactors fast facts

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Performance dash in SuccessFactors

  • Targeted at 500 or fewer employees

  • Priced at $84.53 per user, per year

  • Cloud-based software

  • The most popular talent management software on the market

  • Rated 4/5 stars by over 75 reviews

SuccessFactors is a pretty great software choice. But just because it's the most popular that doesn't mean it's perfect or that it's the right fit for everyone.

Reviews suggest that SuccessFactors can take a long time to integrate with other programs, adding on extra features can raise the price tag too much, and it can be clunky and slow to operate. As popular as it is, SuccessFactors might not be a good fit for you. But something else could be!

These four alternative software choices round out the top five in Capterra's list of the top 20 talent management software options. They're all highly rated by users, and they all have robust enough features to give SuccessFactors a run for its money, so check them out below and see why they're as loved as they are.

Four SuccessFactors alternatives

1. IBM Talent Management

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IBM Talent Management dashboard

An all-in-one talent management suite, IBM Talent Management has all of the features you might expect for people management (performance appraisal, compensation tracking, goal setting and tracking) but also has everything you want from onboarding software, an applicant tracking system, and recruiting software, as well as a good smattering of HR tools such as an employee database.

IBM's software is a good choice if you have a lot of employees and don't want to mess around with multiple software programs to manage them.

Rating: 4/5 stars, with over 85 reviews Reviewers say: Reviewers mention the ease of pulling reports and data, and the speed with which assessments can be performed.

Reviewers are less in love with a clunky internal search process that doesn't always give them the results they're looking for. They note that the system also runs best on Firefox, which is a bummer if you're a Chrome devotee.

Used IBM Talent Management? Review it here!

2. UltiPro

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UltiPro job listings

It feels easy to trust talent management coming from a company with a tagline of “people first." UltiPro is comprehensive software that covers HR and talent management, payroll, performance tracking, and even some limited recruiting and scheduling.

Being able to manage your employees' performance, schedules, and payroll from the same software is extremely useful, and streamlines what can sometimes be a tedious process.

Rating: 4/5 stars, with over 420 reviews Reviewers say: Reviewers are big fans of bundling payroll, scheduling, and performance functions in one software system. Several people also mention that it's a good value.

The negative reviews suggest you go over your software agreement with a critical eye to avoid running into problems post launch due to inflated expectations.

Used UltiPro? Review it here!

3. Oracle Taleo Cloud Service

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Oracle Taleo employee information page

If your biggest concern is the learning curve of new software, Taleo is a good choice. They offer a guided implementation walk-through with a full toolkit to help you get started.

Once you're up and running, you'll find yourself working with a talent software suite that includes features of an applicant tracking system (ATS), a learning management system (LMS), and performance appraisal software, in addition to its go-to function as a talent management system. If you need to keep your employees in a single system from training to succession management, Taleo is a solid choice to cover the employee life cycle.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars, with over 80 reviews Reviewers say: According to reviewers, the workflow and the ability to nest learning plans within bigger plans (in case employees need training on a big topic that breaks down into smaller aspects) is awesome.

Less awesome are the problems with slow and overburdened tech support, which is never a good thing when you have a business to run and can't be on the phone all day.

Used Oracle Taleo? Review it here!

4. Cornerstone Talent Management

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Cornerstone's reporting page

It may not be as multi-functional as some of the other options on this list, but Cornerstone shouldn't be discounted because of that. That's because it does talent management extremely well, and covers every feature you could want in that area, from goals to onboarding to succession. And all this functionality is wrapped up in a very sleek and modern interface.

Rating: 4/5 stars, with over 75 reviews Reviewers say: According to reviewers, the user interface is simple and direct, making the learning curve gentle and the software easy to navigate, even for first-time users.

On the downside, the ease of use for the end user doesn't carry over to administrative users, who might have a harder time navigating and finding all the options they want to use.

Used Cornerstone? Review it here!

What talent management system will you use for your growing small biz?

Tell me about your decision process in the comments below, or tweet me @CapterraHalden.

Want more talent management resources to better your business? Check out these great articles:


Looking for Talent Management software? Check out Capterra's list of the best Talent Management software solutions.

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About the Author

Halden Ingwersen profile picture

Halden Ingwersen is a former Capterra analyst.

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