In 2017, the top 10 HCM software vendors accounted for 46% of the global HCM applications market which grew 10% to approach $20.3 billion in license, maintenance and subscription revenues.
Last year SAP was No. 1 with a 9% market share riding on a 6.4% jump in HCM license, maintenance and subscription revenues. Workday was #2 followed by ADP, Oracle and Linkedin (now part of Microsoft).
We ask the simple question: Who’s buying HCM applications from whom and why? And we provide the answers – supported by decades of research – to our clients around the world. (Sample from our Apps Database)
Through our forecast period, the HCM applications market is expected to reach $23.5 billion by 2022, compared with $20.3 billion in 2017 at a compound annual growth rate of 3%.
| Exhibit 2: Worldwide HCM Software Market 2017-2022 Forecast, $M | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 2017 | 2022 | 2017-2022 CAGR, % |
| Total | 20300 | 23502 | 3% |
Source: Apps Run The World, December 2018
Top 10 HCM Software Vendors
Human capital management includes such functions as eRecruiting (applicant tracking), Onboarding (employee profile), Performance Management (assessment, goal management, succession planning), Core HR (personnel administration, benefits, compensation management, payroll), Workforce Management (absence management, activity tracking, scheduling, time and attendance), and eLearning (learning management system).
Here are our forecast assumptions for the HCM applications market. Talent shortages, demographic shifts, contingent labor surges are reshaping the global workforce as firms of all sizes revamp their HR systems to better acquire, retain and source a new generation of employees. For more on our forecast assumptions, please visit our Quarterly Win/Loss Analysis Scoreboard and our Enterprise
Here are the rankings of the top 10 HCM applications vendors in 2017 and their market shares.
| Rank | Vendor | 2016 HCM Apps Revenues, $M | 2017 HCM Apps Revenues, $M | YoY Growth | 2017 HCM Market Share, % | Recent Developments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SAP | Subscribe | Subscribe | 6.40% | Subscribe | Number of SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central customers for Cloud Core HR applications exceeded 2,800 in 3Q18, up from 1,100 in 1Q16. Employee Central has gone live on the SAP HANA database among a number of key accounts including SAP itself. |
| 2 | Workday | Subscribe | Subscribe | 38.50% | Subscribe | Extended Business Planning Cloud from its acquisition of Adaptive Insights to deliver workforce planning apps, while announcing skills cloud, a universal skills language that helps organizations cleanse, understand, and relate job skills data. |
| 3 | ADP | Subscribe | Subscribe | 5.79% | Subscribe | Acquired Celergo for global payroll and WorkMarket for contingent labor management in 2018. |
| 4 | Oracle | Subscribe | Subscribe | 3.41% | Subscribe | Oracle’s ERP and HCM applications reaches annualized SaaS revenues of $2.6 billion, up more than 25%. Oracle also acquired Iridize for personalized and contextual user onboarding and training for cloud applications. |
| 5 | Microsoft | Subscribe | Subscribe | 1.10% | Subscribe | LinkedIn revenue continued to surge at 33% in Microsoft’s latest quarter, underscoring its stickiness among members and recruiters. |
| 6 | Kronos Incorporated | Subscribe | Subscribe | 9.37% | Subscribe | Kronos announced $1.4 billion in FY18 revenues, up from $1.3 billion in FY17. More than 28,000 customers now run Kronos Cloud, up from 24,000 a year ago. |
| 7 | Ultimate Software | Subscribe | Subscribe | 22.63% | Subscribe | Customer count tops 4500+ as Ultimate strengthens ties with Deloitte Canada and other HCM advisory services. |
| 8 | SumTotal Systems, a Skillsoft Company | Subscribe | Subscribe | 12.82% | Subscribe | SumTotal’s 2-year, multi-million dollar innovation effort has resulted in a fully-unified HCM suite built on a single platform for Core HR, talent management, learning and workforce management. |
| 9 | IBM | Subscribe | Subscribe | -4.67% | Subscribe | After spinning off products like Notes, IBM focuses on core apps for talent management by playing up the Watson analytics engine that powers AI-based HCM solutions. |
| 10 | Ceridian | Subscribe | Subscribe | 36.03% | Subscribe | Both Dayforce and Powerpay have seen robust double-digit gains since going public. In October 2018, Ceridian launched new succession planning capabilities to round out its talent management suite. |
| Subtotal | Subscribe | Subscribe | 11.93% | Subscribe | ||
| Other | Subscribe | Subscribe | 8.74% | Subscribe | ||
| Total | Subscribe | Subscribe | 10.17% | Subscribe |
Source: Apps Run The World, December 2018
Custom data cuts related to the HCM Applications market are available:
- Top 500+ HCM Applications Vendors and Market Forecast 2017-2022
- 2017 HCM Applications Market By Industry (21 Verticals)
- 2017 HCM Applications Market By Functional Market (16 Markets)
- 2017 HCM Applications Market By Country (USA + 45 countries)
- 2017 HCM Applications Market By Region (Americas, EMEA, APAC)
- 2017 HCM Applications Market By Revenue Type (License, Services, Hardware, Support and Maintenance, Cloud)
- 2017 HCM Applications Market By Customer Size (revenue, employee count, asset)
- 2017 HCM Applications Market By Channel (Direct vs Direct)
- 2017 HCM Applications Market By Product
Exhibit 4 shows the enterprise applications market by functional area. The highest growth functional markets revolve around smaller segments like eCommerce, Enterprise Performance Management, Sales Performance Management and Treasury and Risk, where first movers remain less established than those that for decades have been entrenched in functional areas like ERP, CRM and PLM.
HCM Win/Loss Analysis As Part Of Enterprise Applications Buyer Insight Customer Database
On the buyer side, customers are investing in HCM applications based on new features and capabilities that are expected to replace their existing legacy systems. In many cases, competitive upgrades and replacements that could have a profound impact on future market-share changes will become more widespread.
Since 2010, our global team of researchers have been studying the patterns of the latest HCM software purchases by customers around the world, aggregating massive amounts of data points that form the basis of our forecast assumptions and perhaps the rise and fall of certain vendors and their products on a quarterly basis.
What follows is a sample of our latest findings, which are being updated continuously. Each year our research team identifies tens of thousands of these HCM customer wins and losses from public and proprietary sources.
The research results are being incorporated into regular updates in our Enterprise Applications Buyer Insight Customer Database. You can access the Quarterly Win/Loss Analysis Scoreboard and our Enterprise Applications Buyer Insight Customer Database by becoming a subscriber.
Source: Apps Run The World, January 2019
Further Readings
The HCM Top 500 report series covers more than 3,000 pages of content, make sure that you don’t miss any of the 500+ profiles by becoming a subscriber. Or you can catch the highlights with the following links:
- Top 10 Core HR Vendors, Market Forecast 2015-2020, and Customer Wins
- Top 10 Talent Acquisition Vendors, Market Forecast 2015-2020, and Customer Wins
- Top 10 Workforce Management Vendors, Market Forecast 2015-2020, and Customer Wins
- Top 10 HCM Software Vendors and Market Forecast 2015-2020
- HCM Top 500 Vendors To Navigate 22 HR Software Markets In Bumpy Year
- HCM Top 500 Leaderboard Showcases Biggest HR Apps Vendors in 22 Markets
- HCM Top 500 Ranks the World’s 500 Largest HCM Software Vendors
More Enterprise Applications Research Findings
Based on the latest annual survey of 3,000+ enterprise software vendors, Apps Run The World is releasing a number of dedicated reports, which profile the world’s 500 largest Enterprise Applications Vendors (Apps Top 500) and the world’s 500 largest Cloud Applications Vendors (Cloud Top 500) ranked by their 2015-2017 product revenues.
Their 2017 results are being broken down, sorted and ranked across 16 functional areas (from Analytics to Treasury and Risk Management) and by 21 vertical industries(from Aerospace to Utility), as shown in our Taxonomy. Further breakdowns by subvertical, country, company size, etc. are available as custom data cuts per special request.
Research Methodology
Each year our global team of researchers conduct an annual survey of thousands of enterprise software vendors by contacting them directly on their latest quarterly and annual revenues by country, functional area, and vertical market.
We supplement their written responses with our own primary research to determine quarterly and yearly growth rates, In addition to customer wins to ascertain whether these are net new purchases or expansions of existing implementations.
Another dimension of our proactive research process is through continuous improvement of our customer database, which stores more than one million records on the enterprise software landscape of over 100,000 organizations around the world.
The database provides customer insight and contextual information on what types of enterprise software systems and other relevant technologies are they running and their propensity to invest further with their current or new suppliers as part of their overall IT transformation projects to stay competitive, fend off threats from disruptive forces, or comply with internal mandates to improve overall enterprise efficiency.
The result is a combination of supply-side data and demand-generation customer insight that allows our clients to better position themselves in anticipation of the next wave that will reshape the enterprise software marketplace for years to come.
