Plateau Delivers Enhanced Talent Management Analytics Offering : Latest Version of Plateau Analytics Offers On-Demand, Actionable Information to Tra

ARLINGTON, Va. (Business Wire EON) July 16, 2008 -- "One can think of different talent management capabilities as levers that managers and executives can use to affect business results. Managers and executives need to decide what levers (or combination of levers) they should pull to achieve the desired business outcome. Once you decide which levers to pull, that should drive how you configure and use the talent management applications," said Jim Holincheck, Managing Vice President at Gartner, Inc..* "Talent management applications implemented by themselves do not provide the insight necessary to determine which levers to pull; they are the levers." Moreover, "to unlock the strategic value, customers need a well-integrated set of talent management applications that provides the data foundation for workforce analytics to help users understand what levers they need to pull to address specific business issues or to drive specific business outcomes."

Plateau Analytics enables companies to more effectively align talent management initiatives with business objectives, and analyze data in various combinations to uncover trends and exceptions related to the impact of specific talent management initiatives on business performance. For example, with Plateau Analytics, organizations can easily ascertain the status of employee certification required by a regulatory change, what competency gaps exist in critical job positions, the total cost of training, employee progress against development plans, and the impact of talent management efforts on employee competency assessments over a specific period of time. Plateau Analytics aggregates this data and consolidates it into high-level snapshots that give executives a big picture view and enables them to maximize the value of their organization's talent management investment.

Comprised of four major components, Plateau Analytics includes a Data Warehouse that stores a copy of all Plateau Talent Management learning and performance data; an Extract and Load (ETL) process that connects to Plateau Talent Management and populates the Data Warehouse; an Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) framework for report creation and management; and more than 35 pre-defined reports. Unlike competitor offerings that pull information directly from the operational databases behind their Talent Management Suite, Plateau Analytics pulls its information from a Data Warehouse, giving it increased ability to display and analyze trends ? including the vital ability to compare and contrast current and past performance, which is only possible through a Data Warehouse. Additionally, by offering pre-built Data Warehousing, ETL, OLAP and reports, Plateau Analytics eliminates costs and time investments associated with custom development and integration, enabling users to achieve faster ROI.

Plateau Analytics offers a number of new features, including:

Performance enhancements, including an updated Data Warehouse and ETL, which has been fully tested with large, complex data sets; Two categories of performance-related reports, including Plans and Goal Completion and Succession Planning; Measure thresholds and custom number formatting, which allows administrators to identify values within one or more measures of particular interest and specify the most appropriate level of precision; An 'All Users' Measure, which provides insight into the total population of users and allows easy comparison within the population that meets the reporting criteria; An ad hoc reporting feature, which allows administrators to create new analysis directly against a Data Warehouse cube; and The ability to save and publish custom reports for other administrators to use and run. "An explicit link exists between talent management, improved productivity and business operations performance," said Paul Sparta, Chairman and CEO, Plateau Systems. "By harnessing their talent data and using comprehensive analytics, all levels of the organization have the ability to make more informed management decisions and truly understand the business impact of their organization's talent management initiatives."

For more information about Plateau Analytics, visit www.plateau.com.

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.

* Gartner, Inc. "Unlocking the Strategic Value from Talent Management Application Investments," James Holincheck, Dec. 26, 2007.