Fosway Group is Europe’s common number one HR industry analyst. Founded in 1996, Fosway Group works with Europe’s leading enterprises across every sector. They provide advisory and research support to organisations including HSBC, PwC, Shell, Vodafone, among others. With their 9-Grid, which has continually evolved since 2008, they provide a unique talent systems market analysis model that is used to understand the relative position of solutions and providers.
On the 9-Grid, all major European solutions are compared on several dimensions.
What makes Fosway’s 9-Grid unique is that it showcases the areas where certain solutions excel — and makes comparing them an awful lot easier. On the 9-Grid, all major European solutions are compared on several dimensions. It allows organisations to compare different solutions on five different variables: Performance, potential, market presence, total cost of ownership and future trajectories.
‘Talent acquisition is a red-hot market’
“Our research finds talent acquisition to be a red-hot market right now”, said David Wilson, CEO of Fosway Group. “Organisations face huge recruitment challenges, and it is great to see the innovation on offer from vendors to help buyers overcome these challenges. That said, this is a very busy, and rapidly evolving, marketplace. The onus is on buyers to really understand how to build an effective TA ecosystem that delivers real value and impact.”

Strategic leaders are being born
In the 2022 Fosway 9-Grid, we can see new strategic leaders being born. As little as two years ago, the grid did not showcase a single strategic leader within the talent acquisition systems market. Last year’s version saw Avature, SmartRecruiters and Phenom being promoted to strategic leaders. In 2022, two more have been added to the list: iCIMS and VONQ. Two companies that were viewed as potential leaders in the 2021 edition have also graduated into becoming strategic challengers: SAP and Symphony Talent.
#1: Avature

Founded: 2005
CEO: Dimitri Boylan
#2: iCIMS

Founded: 2000
CEO: Steve Lucas
#3: Phenom

Founded: 2010
CEO: Mahe Bayireddi
#4: SmartRecruiters

Founded: 2010
CEO: Jerome Ternynck
#5: VONQ

Founded: 2006
CEO: Arno Schäfer





