One of the things we regularly do as an analyst firm is estimate the size and growth rate of various corporate software markets. Without giving away our proprietary methodology, I’d like to point out something which should make software providers think twice about their business strategy.
In the United States, only 38% of all employees work for companies with more than 1,000 employees, and only 22% work for companies with more than 10,000 employees. So if you focus your software sales and product strategy toward the biggest companies, you are likely to find a saturated market quickly. In fact, there are only 912 companies with more than 10,000 employees headquartered in the United States.
The “mid-market” is actually shaped like a dumbell. In other words, there are a very large number (nearly 6 million) of tiny companies in the US (startups, small businesses), but far fewer companies of a medium size (companies from 500-2,500 employees only make up 8% of total US employment). My guess is that the reason for this is that it is very hard for a business to grow above a few hundred employees, and those that manage to doso are solid enough to either grow much bigger or become acquired.
What this data essentially means is that HR software companies that target the large, global enterprise buyers are going to run into a lot of competition as their market matures. For example, the market for performance and talent management software has already become very competitive, with more than 22 software providers including Oracle and SAP. When this occurs it becomes a “replacement” market, which slowly favors the largest most established vendors.
On the other hand, if you can find a way to tap into the small business market, you are likely to find a goldmine. Look at ADP and Paychex, for example. These companies dominate the market for small business payroll and both are very large, profitable, and growing. ADP’s revenues are nearly $9 Billion and Paychex’s is over $2 Billion. Both are highly profitable and continue to grow rapidly.
In addition, the HR software solution providers must realize that the real needs of small businesses (those with more than 10-20 employees) are not much different than the needs of large companies. Functionally, they still need payroll, performance management, learning, succession, and compensation management systems. While they need a very simple, easy to use interface, one will find that once you start to fill their needs their requirements are very similar to big companies. Halogen Software and Kronos are two of the best examples of companies that understand this. Their products are widely used by small and mid-sized companies and both have grown successfully and profitably in this huge market.
In the coming months we are going to introduce two major research reports on enterprise software markets, one discussing the marketplace for corporate social networking software (a very exciting and rapidly changing space) and the other focused on the exploding market for performance and talent management software. In each report we will point out the current market size, growth rate, and potential penetration in each segment.
Finally, one more important thing to consider. Two seperate but also large markets for HR software are the federal and the state and local government markets. In the US both are very big: the Federal Government employs over 2.2 million employees and state and local governments employ more than 23 million employees. As you consider your growth strategy, think about when and how you will target these segments as well – both of which need precisely the same software as profit-making businesses.
Posted by iteamweb 
Posted by iteamweb 
Posted by iteamweb 
