SumTotal® Systems, the largest provider of talent, learning and business performance technologies and services, said that KMWorld magazine has designated SumTotal Enterprise Suite 7.2 as a KMWorld Trend-Setting Product of 2006. KMWorld picked SumTotal’s software because it “enhances the performance-management process and integrates learning activities as part of a worker’s development plan.”
The magazine’s list of trend-setting products for 2006 appears in the September issue of KMWorld as well as at www.kmworld.com. SumTotal 7.2 is the newest version of the company’s award-winning software suite.
“Assembling the list of Trend-Setting Products of 2006 is a year-long collaborative effort with editorial colleagues, analysts and, especially, users,” says Hugh McKellar, KMWorld editor in chief. “Roughly 1,500 products from some 300 vendors were considered, and the ones listed here demonstrate exquisite execution designed for, and with input from, the most important constituency of them all — customers.”
“The name of the game in learning today is managing talent, not just training,” said David Crussell, SumTotal chief operating officer. “When a magazine like KMWorld gives our product’s design such special recognition, it means we’re doing the right thing for our customers.”
SumTotal’s new platform is at the nexus of what many industry analysts say is the “hottest segment” of the burgeoning market for HR applications: the performance and talent management segment. In a January 2006 research report, Forrester noted that technologies for managing performance, talent and learning are among several strategic applications leading the growth of the $9-billion market for HR applications.
SumTotal 7.2 lets employers smoothly follow the performance management process, integrating learning activities as part of a worker’s development plan. The SumTotal platform also gives managers a way to spend less time writing appraisals and more time pinpointing how to bulk up an employee’s skills. And SumTotal 7.2 offers employees instant access to development plans with recommendations for the sort of learning that will help them meet their goals as well as their company’s overall aims.
