LBB Fairsail: pumping and shaking the HR market

The staid HR market has been shaken up by bold SaaS HR newcomers and Fairsail is one of those market shakers. Despite its size, it is not afraid of going up against the giants and better-funded competitors.

It is not hard to grow on a rising tide and from a low base but revenue growth of c150% over the last financial year still stands out (recognised revenue not billings or run rate). Reflecting the level of business activity, staffing levels have tripled over the past year and CEO Adam Hale says the company could grow faster but it wants to keep cash under control. Prudent growth is refreshing from a pure SaaS company and bodes well for sustainable, and hopefully profitable, performance.

For LBB’s, financial metrics are only part of the mix. Fairsail has several ingredients in its secret sauce. It is dedicated to HR so can concentrate on usability and depth, and is tightly focussed on the mid market of 500 to 5000 employees. The smart part of its market position is that it brings an affordable solution to multi-national mid-sized companies, an expanding target market that is poorly catered for. Businesses are waking up to the need to manage their workforces strategically. Finding that traditional HR systems are becoming more unfit for purpose, they are turning to the new entrants who take a Systems of Engagement-type approach to HR.

Fairsail is a small player in a competitive market so its needs friends. Building on the Salesforce.com Force.com platform puts it within a technology ecosystem but it has also quadrupled its own partner ecosystem over the past year, working with a range of suppliers from specialist cloud integrators such as CloudSense, to larger SI’s. With a gang of SaaS-savy SI friends Fairsail’s opportunities will open up.        

Posted by Angela Eager at '08:49' - Tagged: software   lbb