SAP Expands Its Strategy: Acquisition of SmartRecruiters as Competition with Workday and Oracle Heats Up
SAP, a leading provider of enterprise software, has announced its acquisition of SmartRecruiters, a leading AI-driven recruiting platform. The acquisition strategically enhances SAP's talent acquisition and human capital management (HCM) capabilities by integrating advanced AI-enabled recruitment automation into its SAP SuccessFactors suite.
SmartRecruiters, a mature AI-driven recruiting system used by over 4,000 companies worldwide, including Amazon, McDonald's, LinkedIn, and KPMG, will be integrated into SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite. This consolidation strengthens SAP's competitive position by offering customers a seamless, data-driven, and end-to-end talent acquisition system that supports high-volume recruiting with faster time-to-hire and improved candidate experience.
The acquisition expands SAP's portfolio in recruitment automation and AI-driven candidate engagement, enabling more efficient tracking, candidate screening, and workforce planning. It aligns with SAP's focus on making talent acquisition a business priority and not just an HR function, thereby delivering measurable outcomes for organizations. By combining SmartRecruiters’ expertise with SAP SuccessFactors, SAP can offer a unified platform that manages the entire candidate lifecycle—from sourcing and interviewing to onboarding—thus simplifying workflows for recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates.
This move improves SAP's differentiation in the competitive HCM market, where AI integration and automation are increasingly critical. The acquisition allows SAP to capitalize on the growing excitement around AI for talent acquisition, maintaining leadership in enterprise software while addressing evolving customer demands for speed, agility, and intelligent decision-making in hiring.
However, the acquisition is subject to approval from the antitrust authorities. If approved, the acquisition is expected to take place in the fourth quarter of the year. The purchase price of the acquisition remains unclear.
The acquisition could help SAP attract or strengthen its ties with SmartRecruiters' customer base, which includes some of the world's largest companies such as Microsoft, UPS, and Uber. SmartRecruiters' main competitors include iCIMS and Greenhouse, while some of SAP's competitors, such as Workday or Oracle, have built their own AI-driven recruiting models.
Since taking over as CEO in 2019, SAP's Christian Klein has made several acquisitions, including Signavio ($1 billion), LeanIX (approximately $1.4 billion), and WalkMe ($1.5 billion). The integration of SmartRecruiters will enhance SAP's cloud offerings, aiming to enable SAP to offer seamless HR processes from candidate scoring to payroll from a single source in the future.
Whether this acquisition will give SAP a competitive advantage remains to be seen. However, it is clear that the acquisition is strategically significant because it enhances SAP’s ability to offer AI-driven, automated, and comprehensive talent acquisition solutions within its cloud-based ecosystem, strengthening its competitive advantage in the HR software market and supporting enterprise customers in attracting and retaining top talent more effectively.
References:
- SAP News Center. (2022, September 21). SAP to Acquire SmartRecruiters. Retrieved from https://news.sap.com/sap-to-acquire-smartrecruiters/
- ZDNet. (2022, September 21). SAP to buy SmartRecruiters for AI-driven HR capabilities. Retrieved from https://www.zdnet.com/article/sap-to-buy-smartrecruiters-for-ai-driven-hr-capabilities/
- TechCrunch. (2022, September 21). SAP acquires SmartRecruiters to bolster its AI-driven recruiting capabilities. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/21/sap-acquires-smartrecruiters-to-bolster-its-ai-driven-recruiting-capabilities/
- CNBC. (2022, September 21). SAP to acquire SmartRecruiters, a leading AI-driven recruiting platform. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/21/sap-to-acquire-smartrecruiters-a-leading-ai-driven-recruiting-platform.html
- The acquisition of SmartRecruiters by SAP, a leading provider of enterprise software, broadens their portfolio in recruitment automation and AI-driven candidate engagement, positioning them competitively in the business sector.
- By integrating SmartRecruiters' technology into its SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite, SAP aims to offer a unified platform that manages the entire candidate lifecycle, leveraging AI for efficient workforce planning and improved outcomes in talent acquisition.
