Dive Brief:
- IBM revealed late last week that it sold Salary.com — a benchmarking site where employers and employees can compare compensation data across various industries — back to the original Salary.com founding team, according to TechCrunch.
- TechCrunch reported that IBM said the business ceased to be strategic, and that a company spokesperson said "IBM continually manages its portfolio by identifying and divesting non-core, non-strategic areas within our business."
- The returning CEO of Salary.com said that their service is important to and trusted by employers who need accurate compensation data from other employers in their industries in order to make decisions about compensation strategies.
Dive Insight:
TechCrunch reports that Salary.com went public in 2007 and was acquired by Kenexa, an HR systems vendor, for $80 million in 2010, followed by IBM then buying Kenexa for $1.3 billion in cash in 2012 to "build out more analytics tools for businesses."
"Compensation is complex, and for today's employers to be successful, they need the tools and data that enable them to simplify the connections between people and pay," said Kent Plunkett, CEO of Salary.com, in a statement.
As the compensation category remains underserved, the growth opportunity for Salary is "tremendous," said Plunkett, and they are "eager to steer the company in an exciting new direction and become the SaaS platform of choice for employers seeking the most accurate and reliable compensation data available."
