Phenom Acquires EDGE to Enhance Workforce Intelligence for Professional Services, IT Services, and Global Capability Centers

The complex nature of talent planning requires a more unified solution for identifying and connecting business goals to talent needs – and then sourcing best-fit talent externally or internally. Professional services organizations, IT services, and global capability centers (GCCs) have historically faced additional challenges due to unpredictable client resource needs, further complicating the talent planning process.

To empower these organizations and strengthen their ability to hire, develop, and retain talent, we have acquired EDGE, a leading AI-powered resource management and talent mobility platform.

Integrating their technology into our Intelligent Talent Experience platform – including AI-driven resource planning and robust ontologies that have been market-tested by some of the world’s largest GCCs – expands the capabilities of our workforce intelligence solution, empowering organizations to create and execute workforce planning across talent acquisition and talent management.

Here’s a short video from our CEO & co-founder speaking about the acquisition:

The Traditional Way of Reacting to Hiring Surges Is Failing GCCs

The unpredictable nature of GCC client needs has traditionally led to a reactive staffing approach: bringing in contractors to handle surges in work and tight deadlines. While this strategy offers flexibility, it comes at a significant cost, steadily eroding profit margins as competition increases and customers demand better pricing.

The strategic solution lies in building a strong bench of talent that can dynamically adapt to shifting business needs while maintaining cost efficiency. However, doing this at scale has been difficult because it requires comprehensive visibility into the capabilities of talent. Traditional manual approaches and conventional technology that isn’t AI-centric have fallen short, proving inadequate for the complexity and scale of today’s talent management needs.

Phenom + EDGE: Experience the Intelligence, Hire from Within

EDGE has cracked this code for the global capability center market with robust ontologies that power AI-driven resource planning technology – allowing these large organizations to gain a more accurate and complete understanding of existing talent, and where employees can be moved to meet business needs. By combining these capabilities with the power of Phenom’s intelligence, automation, and experience, business leaders will have access to robust engagement tools that allow them to create detailed workforce plans and prepare resources for future needs at the organizational, departmental, and team levels.

EDGE ontologies have been refined through thousands of talent interactions to deliver highly contextual recommendations for the GCC market. This, coupled with their unique automation framework, has helped companies achieve:

• 16-day reduction in internal fulfillment cycle time

• 21% increase in the number of demands fulfilled internally

• 36% increase in supply visibility

• 28x increase in the number of contractors replaced by existing staff

“Phenom has been on our radar for several years due to their focus on AI and talent intelligence for a variety of HR applications across different industries,” said Sharath Hari, Vice President at the Everest Group analyst firm. “This acquisition is a logical next step to support their verticalization strategy.”

As our sixth acquisition, the EDGE software will be integrated into our platform’s codebase, strengthening our AI capabilities and Talent Data Platform – ultimately enhancing the personalized experiences delivered across talent acquisition, talent management, and strategic workforce planning.

With Phenom Workforce Intelligence, many of the world’s biggest organizations are getting greater visibility into talent supply and demand. Phenom X+ (generative AI) copilots give HR leaders the flexibility to use natural language inquiries to create executable workforce plans. Additionally, a flexible automation framework alleviates manual outreach, enabling HR to engage managers and teams regularly and keep them aligned to timelines and deliverables that meet the needs of talent plans.

All data flows seamlessly to the talent acquisition group so they can hire externally where needed, ensuring the business stays on track to meet talent goals. All of this is powered by robust data integrations and standardization to keep tech stacks tightly aligned and support the highest quality AI for talent planning.

The Growth of the GCC Market and India

The GCC market has been exploding, especially in India where over 1800 centers work with some of the world’s largest organizations. As these centers consistently prove their strategic value across diverse business functions, their customers are increasingly expanding their scope of engagement – ultimately intensifying the need for exceptional talent.

To support our growing customer base, we continue expanding our operational footprint in India, with offices in Hyderabad, Vizag, and Bengaluru. Large India-based enterprises are experiencing the value of Phenom’s purpose-built AI and comprehensive workforce intelligence solutions, which will now include advanced resource planning.

To learn more about Phenom Workforce Intelligence, book a demo today.