ENTERPRISE HR BUYER INTELLIGENCE
Our buyer intelligence is informed by ongoing conversations with senior enterprise leaders through roundtables and leadership communities.
The 9-box grid has survived several generations of HR transformation because it offers something enterprise organisations still need: a simple way to force a conversation about performance, potential and succession. But simplicity is starting to become the problem.
In recent UK HR roundtable discussions, senior people leaders repeatedly questioned whether a model designed for slower, more linear careers can still describe talent in organisations where roles change quickly, skills become obsolete faster, teams are flatter and employees increasingly expect visibility over how career decisions are made.
That is an important buying signal for talent technology vendors. The opportunity is not to tell HR that the 9-box is old. Most buyers already know its weaknesses. The opportunity is to show what a better operating model looks like when the organisation still needs calibration, succession discipline, fair decisions and a credible way to connect people with future work.
Vendors that position the answer as a prettier grid, a bigger competency library or an AI score risk missing the real problem. Buyers are questioning the assumptions underneath the model itself.
The buyer problem is not the grid. It is what the grid can no longer explain.
The most useful signal from the discussion was not that every HR leader wants to remove the 9-box. They do not. Some still value it because it creates structure where talent conversations would otherwise be inconsistent or dominated by individual manager opinion.
What is weakening is confidence that a static placement can carry enough meaning on its own. A person can be labelled high potential in January and be working in a materially different role by September. A manager can mark someone as low potential because the employee does not want the manager’s career path. A field employee can be assessed through a framework designed around head-office visibility. A capable specialist can be undervalued because the model quietly assumes that upward management progression is the definition of potential.
For vendors, this means the sales conversation should start with the decision the buyer is trying to improve, not with the framework your product happens to support.
If your platform digitises the old talent conversation without improving the decision, the buyer may see technology rather than transformation.
Enterprise HR still wants structure, even when it distrusts the old structure
A common mistake in talent technology positioning is to treat dissatisfaction with the 9-box as a mandate for complete freedom. The roundtable suggested the opposite. HR leaders remain uncomfortable with unstructured manager judgement because it can create bias, inconsistent standards and talent decisions that are difficult to defend.
One participant described an environment without structured performance and potential assessment where managers were effectively making unchallenged calls about development and succession. The concern was not nostalgia for ratings. It was the absence of a common language for making decisions.
This is where vendors can add value. A modern talent platform should not simply remove boxes. It should help the organisation establish a more defensible evidence model around performance, skills, aspiration, readiness, values and future role requirements.
The buyer needs enough structure to compare, calibrate and act, but enough flexibility to reflect how work is changing.
Skills-based talent management sounds attractive. Buyers will still ask what the skills lead to.
The shift towards skills-based organisations featured strongly in the discussion. It is easy to see why. Skills can feel more current and actionable than an abstract judgement of potential. They can help organisations see capability gaps, identify adjacent talent and build development around work that needs to be done next.
But ‘skills-based’ is becoming one of the most overused phrases in HR technology. For an enterprise buyer, a large skills ontology is not automatically useful. The real question is whether the organisation can turn that information into better workforce decisions.
A buyer may want to know whether your platform can identify a person’s relevant skills without asking employees to maintain another profile, distinguish verified capability from self-declared confidence, connect skills to roles that actually exist, show readiness rather than keyword similarity, and keep the model current as jobs change.
That is the commercial difference between a skills database and a talent decision system.
Transparency is becoming part of the product requirement
The roundtable also surfaced a tension that vendors should not underestimate: employees increasingly expect more transparency about talent decisions, while many organisations are still uncomfortable showing people how they have been classified.
Some HR leaders argued that honest conversations about performance, aspiration and development can build trust. Others recognised that transparency only works when managers are capable of explaining the decision constructively and the organisation has enough psychological safety to support the conversation.
That means transparency cannot be solved with a settings toggle. If a vendor offers employee-facing talent profiles, readiness scores or career recommendations, the buyer may ask what the employee will see, how the recommendation can be explained, how disputed information can be challenged, and what happens when the manager disagrees with the system.
The stronger proposition is not ‘complete transparency’. It is explainable talent decisions supported by a clear operating model.
Manager capability may decide whether your platform succeeds
Technology can make talent information easier to see, but managers still carry much of the decision burden. The roundtable repeatedly returned to the quality of manager conversations, including the difficulty of giving immediate feedback, discussing potential honestly and managing expectations around progression.
This creates an important buying criterion. If your platform requires managers to become expert assessors before it produces value, adoption risk rises. If it simply automates manager bias, the risk is worse.
Vendors should be ready to show how the product supports calibration, prompts evidence-based discussion, reduces recency and visibility bias, helps managers prepare difficult development conversations and distinguishes aspiration from presumed potential.
The best talent platforms will not try to replace managerial judgement. They will make that judgement more consistent, more informed and easier to challenge when necessary.
Buyers want talent data that leads to action
Another useful signal was the move away from talent exercises that produce a map but no movement. Several participants focused on what happens after assessment: development, role readiness, succession, feedback and clear next steps.
One organisation described a live list focused on growth roles, competency requirements and self-referral with manager sponsorship. The interesting point is not the exact process. It is that the talent mechanism was tied to a concrete organisational need rather than a once-a-year categorisation exercise.
For vendors, this should influence the demo. Do not spend most of the meeting showing how elegantly people can be plotted. Show what the organisation can do differently once the information exists.
Can HR identify a critical role with weak succession coverage? Can an employee see the capability gap to a realistic next role? Can a manager find talent outside their immediate reporting line? Can learning activity be linked to readiness? Can the organisation show whether people are actually moving? These are stronger buyer questions than whether a box can be dragged from one quadrant to another.
What enterprise HR buyers are likely to test
| Buyer concern | What it means for the vendor | Evidence that builds confidence |
|---|---|---|
| The 9-box feels static | Do not sell digitisation of the same annual exercise | Show continuous signals, changing readiness and live talent views |
| Potential is subjective | A black-box potential score will trigger scepticism | Explain inputs, evidence, calibration and human override |
| Skills are changing quickly | Static libraries will age badly | Show governance, taxonomy maintenance and role-to-skill updates |
| Managers apply standards differently | Workflow alone will not solve inconsistency | Demonstrate calibration, prompts and bias-reduction support |
| Employees want more visibility | Hidden labels can damage trust | Show explainability, employee views and development conversations |
| Talent reviews often lack action | Insight without movement has weak ROI | Connect assessment to succession, development and role readiness |
How vendors should reposition the conversation
The strongest commercial message is not that the 9-box is dead. That claim is too absolute and does not reflect the buyer discussion. Some organisations still find value in it, particularly where talent processes are immature and the grid provides a starting structure.
A better message is that the talent decision model needs to become more dynamic, skills-aware, transparent and actionable.
Vendors should lead with the decisions they improve. Help the buyer see how the platform strengthens succession confidence, widens the talent pool, exposes capability gaps, makes development more targeted and reduces dependence on a once-a-year manager opinion.
Then show the technology that enables those outcomes.
- Replace ‘AI-powered potential scoring’ with a clear explanation of how the system supports evidence-based talent decisions.
- Replace ‘skills cloud’ with examples of how skills intelligence changes succession, mobility or workforce planning decisions.
- Replace ‘real-time talent visibility’ with proof that the information remains current and leads to action.
- Replace ‘remove bias’ with specific mechanisms for calibration, evidence, transparency and review.
- Replace ’employee career marketplace’ with a credible description of how opportunities, readiness and manager involvement work in practice.
- Do not tell buyers the 9-box is universally obsolete. Some still use it effectively as a calibration discipline.
- Do not imply that AI can objectively determine potential. Buyers are already alert to bias and explainability concerns.
- Do not confuse more data with better talent decisions.
- Do not make employee self-rating the centre of the proposition unless you can explain how quality and consistency are maintained.
- Do not position skills as an end state. Connect them to work, roles, movement and business demand.
The internal champion needs a defensible story
Enterprise HR purchases rarely succeed because one buyer likes the interface. A talent or succession platform can touch HR leadership, business leaders, managers, employees, learning teams, HR operations and sometimes works councils or employee representatives.
Your internal champion therefore needs to explain why the change is worth the disruption. A vague promise of becoming ‘skills-based’ is unlikely to be enough.
Give the champion a stronger case: the current process depends too heavily on annual snapshots; critical roles do not have sufficient succession visibility; manager decisions are inconsistent; employees lack clarity over development; the organisation cannot connect future capability needs to current talent; or talent data is collected but not acted on.
When the buying problem is expressed that clearly, the platform becomes easier to defend.
What vendors should avoid
The replacement also has to work across different workforce populations
Another enterprise reality vendors need to account for is that talent models behave differently across workforce populations. The roundtable highlighted that frameworks can work reasonably well in corporate functions and much less well in field-based roles, where visibility, role structure and manager contact are different.
This matters because enterprise buyers are rarely purchasing for one neat employee population. They may need the same talent strategy to work across head office, frontline operations, technical specialists, sales teams and geographically dispersed workforces. A model that depends on frequent manager observation or rich self-service data may perform very differently across those groups.
Vendors should therefore show how the system adapts without creating separate talent philosophies for every part of the business. The buyer may want different evidence sources or workflows by role population while still retaining common governance, definitions and reporting.
A credible demo should include the awkward population, not only the easiest one. Show how the platform handles employees with limited system access, scarce specialist roles, non-linear careers and people who are strong contributors without wanting management progression. That is where claims of a more modern talent model become believable.
Frequently asked questions
Are enterprise HR buyers moving away from the 9-box grid?
Some are questioning or redesigning it, while others still value the structure it brings to calibration. The stronger signal is a move towards more dynamic, skills-aware and transparent talent decisions rather than a universal rejection of the framework.
What do buyers want from 9-box grid alternatives?
They want a credible way to assess performance, capability, aspiration and readiness, support manager calibration, connect talent to future roles and turn assessment into development or succession action.
Is a skills-based talent platform enough to replace the 9-box?
Not on its own. Buyers still need governance, evidence quality, manager adoption, explainability and a clear link between skills data and workforce decisions.
What should talent technology vendors prove in the sales process?
Show how the platform improves a real talent decision, how information stays current, how managers and employees use it, how bias and disputes are handled, and what measurable action follows from the insight.
Speak to The Leadership Board
If you sell talent, skills, succession or workforce technology, the most useful sales intelligence is knowing which parts of the buyer’s current model are under pressure before the shortlist is formed. The Leadership Board connects vendors with senior enterprise HR decision-makers discussing live talent and workforce priorities.