There is significant energy and momentum in the Human Resources Technology marketplace towards integration. Traditional core HRIS and ERP vendors are trying to strengthen their offerings in areas like Talent Management and Business Intelligence.  Established talent management vendors are expanding their application footprints to encompass more and more functionality be it applicant tracking or learning management.

In many ways the trend towards integration can benefit customers, as it typically eliminates (or at least dramatically reduces) the need for complex, and often custom built integrations to pass HR information around the various systems.

But even as the big ERP providers get bigger, and the Talent Management vendors expand, there remain areas of the HR and talent landscape that neither will likely ever consume. Important technology supported functions like background checks, candidate assessments, or complex workforce scheduling.

These 'edge' products and the processes that they support are often vitally important to the success of an organization and