Plateau's Annual Insights 2008 User Conference Hits all the Right Notes with Global Customers

Industry Experts, Visionaries and Leading Organizations Converge at Annual User Conference to Discuss the State of Talent Management and Share Industry Best Practices; Zion’s Bancorporation, Capital One, The U.S. Department of Agriculture and The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Recognized for Talent Management Innovation as Plateau Customer Excellence Award Winners

Arlington, Va. - 18 September, 2008 – Plateau Systems, a leading provider of talent management software, services and solutions, today announced the successful conclusion of its 13th annual Insights user conference. With more than 450 attendees from 160 global customer organizations, this year’s conference - held earlier this week in Phoenix, Arizona – marked the largest user conference in Plateau’s history.

Aptly themed “Blazing the Talent Trail,” this year’s conference was hotter than ever as Plateau customers and event-goers from around the world joined with colleagues and peers to exchange best practices, share success stories and lessons learned and network with fellow Plateau users. This year’s multi-track agenda featured keynote presentations delivered by Plateau executives, customers and guest speaker Dr. Robert Ballard, customer and partner breakout sessions, an interactive Buzz Panel, hands-on learning labs and Plateau product and services tracks, providing attendees with a broad range of opportunities to learn and engage with industry experts and other Plateau users.

Customers were also invited and encouraged to schedule one-on-one meetings with Plateau experts to discuss strategies and specific best practices around deploying and leveraging Plateau’s industry-leading products and services to drive increased business performance. Additional highlights from Insights 2008 included:

• The release of Plateau Talent Management 5.8 Service Pack 5, Plateau’s flagship talent management suite that delivers powerful and flexible talent planning and succession management capabilities through the Plateau Talent Management Suite. The release arms Plateau customers with innovative ways to achieve their business goals through managing and developing talent, fostering employee growth and retention, and measuring the effectiveness of their talent management initiatives.


• Renowned ocean explorer and guest keynoter, Dr. Robert Ballard, received a standing ovation after an awe-inspiring presentation highlighting the symbiotic relationship between technology and people. During his presentation, Dr. Ballard discussed the impact technology has had on exploration, and showed how technology is bringing important discoveries to schools, desktops and living rooms around the world, enabling others to connect and learn in real time. Dr. Ballard is most famous for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the wreck of the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. Most recently he discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2003.


• Customer keynote presentations from Mary Tilley, HR Leader, W.L. Gore and Associates and Connie Linardakis, VP and Chief Human Resource Officer, Zions Bancorporation. Mary Tilley’s presentation focused on how W.L. Gore is using Plateau to its unique organizational structure and complex processes around managing, assessing and rewarding W.L Gore associates. Connie Linardakis discussed how Zions Bancorporation’s is leveraging Plateau’s integrated platform to unify and streamline the organization’s talent management applications and processes while maintaining autonomy for multiple subsidiaries.


• Plateau’s inaugural Buzz Panel, a lively discussion about current trends and perceptions in talent management, software-as-a-service, and the economy’s impact on talent management. The panel featured well-known talent management experts and personalities including Human Resource Executive Magazine technology columnist Bill Kutik, Josh Bersin from Bersin & Associates, Accenture’s David Smith, and Nathan Swanson from ThinkPanmure.

“The record attendance at this year’s Insights conference demonstrates that talent management has become a strategic corporate imperative and competitive advantage for virtually all organizations,” said Paul Sparta, Chairman and CEO of Plateau. “By bringing our customers together at Plateau’s annual user conference, we are providing a forum where they can openly exchange information with their peers, engage with industry experts on business trends, and meet one-on-one with Plateau executives and experts to discuss strategies and best practices around using Plateau’s solutions to meet their corporate goals. This interactive dialogue inspires innovation and generates ideas that our customers can apply within their organizations, and it provides us with valuable feedback we can leverage to extend Plateau’s talent management offerings and industry leadership.”

Plateau also hosted its second annual Customer Advisory Board meeting comprised of Plateau customers representing a wide range of industries. During the meeting, members from global organizations met with Plateau executives to discuss the state of talent management and provided expert insight into how talent management is perceived within their organizations, how they are using Plateau’s solutions to drive business value within their organizations and how Plateau can continue to support their talent management initiatives.

Customer Excellence Award Recognition

Insights 2008 also served as the backdrop for Plateau’s Fifth Annual Customer Excellence Awards honoring customers who have demonstrated innovation and success in leveraging Plateau's software to meet business challenges. Conference attendees selected the final winners from a competitive field. Winners were announced at the Insights Evening Gala sponsored by Satyam. This year’s Customer Excellence Awards winners include:

• Capital One for Best Business Solution


• U.S Department of Agriculture for Best Overall Use of Product


• Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for Best Launch to an Organization Under 10,000 Employees


• Zion’s Bancorporation for Best Launch to an Organization with Over 10,000 Employees

“Our customers continue to impress us with the innovation they demonstrate and enthusiasm they exude around their talent management initiatives,” said Shelly Heiden, Executive Vice President of Global Operations at Plateau. “With so many companies using our talent management solutions in ways we never imagined, it has become increasingly difficult to pick a few that stand out from the pack. This year’s winners have each demonstrated creativity and ingenuity in leveraging Plateau’s solutions to create value and achieve their corporate goals. We are pleased to recognize them as this year’s Customer Excellence Award winners.”

###

About Plateau
Plateau is a leading provider of talent management software, content and services designed to increase workforce productivity and drive business success. Plateau’s award-winning software is powering talent management initiatives across some of the world’s most successful organizations, including the American Red Cross, General Electric, the Internal Revenue Service, Capital One Services and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Industry analysts at Bersin & Associates, Forrester Research and other leading information and technology research and advisory firms continue to recognize Plateau’s leadership in delivering best-in-class functionality, technology and customer satisfaction. Plateau is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia and has offices across the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit http://www.plateau.com/.

Plateau Systems Introduces Next Generation of Flagship Talent Management Suite

Expanded Features in Plateau Talent Management Enhance Planning Capabilities and Real-time Visibility into Talent Management Operations

Arlington, Va. - 15 September, 2008 – Plateau Systems, leading provider of talent management softwaresoftware, services and solutions, today announced the latest release of its flagship talent management suite, delivering powerful and flexible talent planning and succession management capabilities through the Plateau Talent Management Suite. The release arms Plateau customers with innovative ways to achieve their business goals through managing and developing talent, fostering employee growth and retention, and measuring the effectiveness of their talent management initiatives.

Plateau Talent Management 5.8 Service Pack 5 (SP5) provides key enhancements in several areas of the suite including improved talent management planning, enhanced real-time visibility into talent management operations and additional learning evaluation capabilities. With these expanded features, Plateau customers can better maximize their company’s talent, make more informed decisions and more effectively and accurately measure the value of learning for both the individual and the company. Highlights of Plateau Talent Management 5.8 SP5 include:

• An expanded Talent Profile that includes additional information from Plateau Talent Management and employee social interests and communities, giving you a more complete picture of your company’s talent.
• Dynamic Talent Pools that broaden succession planning capabilities to enable talent identification, risk assessment, team building, internal recruiting and bench strength development.
• Plateau Report Designer – a fully integrated robust reporting tool that allows for interactive reports to be built using a visual design environment, giving you greater control over the layout and content of your reports with full application security and without third-party reporting software
• Enhanced survey features and additional reports that complement exam functionality in Plateau Learning, allowing a more comprehensive understanding of training effectiveness.
• Enhanced global commerce capabilities with full support for multiple currencies, which allows companies to manage content pricing and costs in a global deployment.

According to a recent Bersin & Associates research bulletin, The Economic Benefits of an Integrated Talent Management Suite, those organizations with integrated talent management suites had returns on investment up to 250 percent higher than those with standalone systems for performance management, learning management, and recruiting. This bulletin also includes a review of Plateau Talent Management 5.8 SP5 and states, “These features clearly position Plateau for the ’next generation’ of talent management system applications, which integrate the HR-driven needs for management and planning with the employee’s need for social networking, collaboration and expertise location.” To read the Bersin & Associates bulletin, click here.

“The talent challenges plaguing today’s global economy require an integrated approach to talent management that enable organizations to align talent management efforts with their business objectives,” said Paul Sparta, chairman and CEO, Plateau Systems. “The expanded features and enhanced user experience we’re delivering in this latest release of the Plateau Talent Management Suite directly address these growing talent demands, and provide the relevant features our customers need in order to make integrated talent management a reality.”

Dynamic Talent Pools

Successful talent management and succession planning initiatives require an understanding of the characteristics, potential and areas of risk in your workforce and your ability to develop strategies on how to grow and retain talent or mitigate the effects of talent losses. With the expanded Talent Pools functionality in Plateau Talent Management, organizations can use pool-based planning to enhance succession management capabilities and to address broader talent management problems associated with talent identification, risk assessment, team building, internal recruiting and bench strength development.

Talent Pools are created using flexible, multi-dimensional searches of employee talent profiles. Once groups of employees are defined, organizations can manage, track, analyze and associate activities or succession plans with the pool members over time. Managers can use the resulting talent pools as a workbench when considering candidates for new positions and use the Talent Pool’s personalized display capabilities to enhance the decision-making process. Because Plateau Talent Pools are dynamic, additional candidates can automatically be added to the pool as soon as they meet the pool’s criteria. Pools also serve as a launching pad for additional information on each pool member or group of members. Managers can use Talent Pools to review individual members’ talent profiles or group several members together to compare relative competency gaps and compare qualifications. With Talent Pools, managers can group high potential and critical employees based upon performance data from Plateau Performance, placing the focus on tracking, developing and retaining critical employees. To facilitate employee development, managers can assign training and learning activities directly from Talent Pools.

According to the Bersin & Associates research bulletin, “Plateau’s product has now reached the level of maturity and richness that any Plateau LMS customer should strongly consider implementing Plateau’s talent management features before selecting another product.”

The report further states, “Plateau LMS customers who implement Plateau’s talent management software can quickly leverage all of the employee training history, demographic information, employee hierarchy data, and security and domain information in their talent management solution.”

Plateau Report Designer

Plateau Report Designer is an integrated enterprise-class report development platform that allows users to address unique customer reporting requirements. Plateau Report Designer frees customers from the additional expense and provisioning associated with the deployment and integration of third-party reporting tools. The reports provide real-time visibility into talent management operations and help address key questions regarding learning adoption and costs, performance review compliance and a broad range of other operational questions. Plateau Report Designer provides a flexible means to modify standard reports, produce ad hoc reports based on existing reports, create new reports and build completely new reports using a variety of chart styles.

Availability

Plateau Talent Management 5.8 SP5 will be generally available later this month. Additional information on the features available in Plateau Talent Management 5.8 SP5 is available online at www.plateau.com/SP5. For more information on Plateau, visit www.plateau.com.

¹Bersin & Associates, “The Economic Benefits of an Integrated Talent Management Suite,” Aug. 21, 2008, http://www.bersin.com/Lib/Rs/Details.aspx?Docid=10337574.

###

About Plateau
Plateau is a leading provider of talent management software, content and services designed to increase workforce productivity and drive business success. Plateau’s award-winning software is powering talent management initiatives across some of the world’s most successful organizations, including the American Red Cross, General Electric, the Internal Revenue Service, Capital One Services and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Industry analysts at Bersin & Associates, Forrester Research and other leading information and technology research and advisory firms continue to recognize Plateau’s leadership in delivering best-in-class functionality, technology and customer satisfaction. Plateau is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia and has offices across the United States, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.plateau.com.