On Tuesday this week, ADP announced that it acquired The Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC) – a company which offers performance coaching and employee engagement software. ADP has been building out its Talent Management portfolio for some time now, as it has become a contender in the human capital management (HCM) space. It looks like this acquisition will help to bolster those capabilities.
 
On the deal, ADP’s president and CEO, Carlos Rodriguez, had this to say:
 
“At its core, the strength and differentiation of any company lies in its talent. That is why we are continuing to invest in data-driven talent management solutions with the acquisition of TMBC. The company's technology and renowned research will add to our existing talent portfolio and puts ADP in a position to better serve the growing number of innovative organizations who are thinking differently about how they manage and engage their talent.”
 
There is one key nuance in Mr. Rodriguez’s comments. It’s not just talent management – it’s data-driven talent management. This is what makes the acquisition particularly interesting for HR professionals. Historically, talent management has been a largely subjective endeavor. But together with TMBC, ADP now has a powerful base that unites hard labor information plus decades of real-time, statistically reliable performance data and national benchmarking data. With this combination, companies have the potential to take the bias out of everything, from designing teams to performance reviews. 
 
This strong base of data is further enhanced by the fact that ADP is also getting TMBC’s founder and CEO, Marcus Buckingham. He might be a familiar name – Mr. Buckingham helped create the well-known StrengthsFinder assessment with Gallup, giving him decades of experience in researching what makes employees tick and building teams based on the strengths of those employees. So along with the unique cloud-based tools that ADP is getting from the acquisition, it is also gaining a noted thought leader and researcher in talent management.
 
Marcus’ comments in the press release – as well as his Facebook Live video – sum up why data is the exciting part of this new ADP and TMBC combination:
 
“In the world of people-at-work, everyone trusts ADP data, so I leapt at the chance to bring to the ADP ecosystem StandOut's data-based insights and tools on people's talents, engagement and performance,” said Marcus Buckingham, co-head, the ADP Research Institute. “At a time when so many companies are clamoring for real-time and reliable people data, when they crave tools that leaders and team members actually want to use, the combination of ADP's scale, security and data-integrity with StandOut's focus on real-world teams, is unique and powerful. I'm so excited to see how many companies and people we can serve.”
 
ADP has made its bet that data and analytics is the future of HCM. Now it’s up to HR pros to do something with this powerful asset.