Pioneering Data On-Demand: Salary.com CEO and Serial Entrepreneur Kent Plunkett (Part 7)

SM: Did you enter the competency arena organically or through acquisitions?

KP: We moved into the competency area by acquiring some libraries. The ITG Competency Group library is, in our view, the largest standalone productized library of competencies. We also acquired a consulting firm run by Dr. Stephen Schoonover, who is one of the founding fathers of the competency consulting business. Fundamentally, when consulting firms come in to deploy competency models within an organization it can easily be a seven- figure consulting opportunity. We need to take that seven-figure opportunity and make it easier to deploy and implement.

We will build software that wraps around the data to make it easier to deploy competencies inside of an organization. We will have services to add to the mix to solve the problems that pop up in larger accounts. There is a significant opportunity here for us to take a data product and build an on-demand application that takes the market by storm, just like we experienced in the compensation space.

The third business we have invested in, with the aim of increasing our TAM, is the talent management suite business. We have a product that does pay, performance, and succession planning. Like our lead competitor’s product, it is organically built on the same platform. It is a very competitive market. Our differentiation is product content, as well as our significant competencies around pay and managing pay within the application. We are the ones to go to for pay for performance, and we win a fair share of deals there. We are beginning to see that our differentiation in terms of the content we can provide within the application is also having an impact.

If you add the total TAM for compensation, competencies, and talent management it becomes a $10 billion-plus opportunity. That has been a significant change over the last 16 months compared to when we went public; back then we were just focused on the opportunity within the compensation market.

SM: You are going to be busy for the next 10 years!

KP: Building a business is like building a family. You don’t let it go easily. The cost of failure is way too high.

SM: What have you learned from this journey?

KP: Every phase of growth has its own really interesting and significant issues. I have personally developed from a driving, in-the-details entrepreneur when we had 20-30 people to someone who has significantly let go and functions like a coach. I almost feel more like a venture capitalist than I do an operating manger, because I am basically putting people in position to make the right plays and decisions. I feel like I am almost coming full circle in my career as we get to 400 employees and beyond. It is really fun helping other people to win. There is no greater pride and joy than seeing someone far distant from me in the organization that comes up with an idea, executes it, and makes life better for the customer and creates value for the company. That is the coolest thing, and it is a lot different from being the person who is handed the ball and told to score a touchdown.

SM: Great story and I look forward to keeping in touch.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Pioneering Data On-Demand: Salary.com CEO and Serial Entrepreneur Kent Plunkett
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