How Acquiring This Company Helped ADP Grow Its Business

At the June CB Insights Councils session, ADP Chief Strategy Officer Don Weinstein offered an inside look into the company’s acquisition of freelance talent management platform WorkMarket.

But acquiring the company wasn’t always part of ADP’s strategy.

The human capital management giant initially set out to develop a way to verify workers’ employment claims via an established vetting process.

ADP sought to develop a “Universal Work Record,” which could benefit employers looking for a trustworthy resume, and workers looking for an efficient way to present their credentials.

As ADP pursued this idea through its discovery process, a major key weakness was revealed: this record would only be relevant for workers who change jobs frequently.

After returning to the drawing board, research revealed a new, potentially valuable market: freelancers — workers who change jobs frequently.

ADP’s initiative pivoted towards a new idea: Helping corporate HR departments (the traditional ADP client) administer freelance workers, who are often hired and managed outside of the HR process.

This pivot resulted in an internally-built application well-loved by users, but generating a critical mass of users would be expensive and time consuming.

The final pivot was the acquisition of WorkMarket — a company ADP had met during the discovery process. The process and its pivots made ADP a smarter, more targeted acquirer.

The result looked nothing like the original idea, but the process helped the company avoid costly mistakes and opened an entirely new customer set.

Councils members gained deep insight into the story first-hand via a case study presentation and live Q/A session focused on the obstacles, lessons learned and keys to success in the process.

If you’re an SVP or higher from a company with $1B or greater in revenue and could benefit from experience-based insights from leaders like Don, consider an annual membership in our executive-level peer Councils. Apply here.