CultureAmp Buys Analytics Firm: Blueboard Awards Platform Folds
What does the acquisition of an analytics firm by experiential technology CultureAmp and the recent collapse of a 14-year-old rewards platform tell us about where the market sees value creation going forward in the world of employee engagement?Culture Amp Aims to Put Analytics Into Front-Line Hands
Creditor Shuts Down Blueboard
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Culture Amp, an Australia-based employee experience platform, announced that it has purchased Orgnostic, a Serbian-based company that provides a “people analytics product allowing enterprise organizations to quickly identify actionable insights across vast sources of people data. Its powerful data engineering and compelling people insights are delivered in an engaging and easy-to-use platform--equipping leaders with curated data to drive informed decisions,” the company says.
In the meantime, Blueboard, a California-based recognition gifting company, announced that it has immediately ceased operations, leading to a flood of keyword advertising from other recognition firms offering to take over the programs.
RRN media reported earlier this year a slowdown in the employee engagement tech sector as more companies are questioning the value of their employee engagement and gifting programs. It predicted the need for more emphasis on program impact. See RRN: Market Report 2024.
Culture Amp Aims to Put Analytics Into Front-Line Hands 
Founded in 2019, Belgrade-based Orgnostic “will allow vast sets of organizational data to be infused with Culture Amp's powerful AI platform, uniquely trained by people science, to unlock accessible and multi-dimensional people analytics,” says the company announcement. “Culture Amp customers will be able to maximize the value of their existing tools and unlock business-critical insights by collecting, cleansing and synthesizing people data from disparate sources across the employee lifecycle.”
That means the ability to “delve into previously siloed data sources to understand the driving forces behind critical people insights, such as employee attrition, poor engagement, productivity trends, salary gaps and many more.”
Didier Elzinga, co-founder and CEO of Culture Amp says, “The addition of Orgnostic to Culture Amp’s platform offering will make people analytics more accessible for human resources teams, people analysts, and leaders across organizations."
Creditor Shuts Down Blueboard
Of the shutdown, writing on his Linkedin page, Taylor Smith, Co-Founder, explains, “After many months of working on a path forward, Blueboard officially shut its doors Tue., March 12, 2024. While ultimately the secured creditor shut us down, I never should have had us in the position where that was a possible option. The speed of the closure took us by surprise and led to an abrupt, uncoordinated wind-down. Our clients and many reward recipients were seriously affected, and I am incredibly sorry for the chaos that we created.”
He explains that “Blueboard is going through an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (ABC)” to which all inquiries are directed. “Currently the assignee is working with multiple parties on finding a buyer of the company’s assets which could include a way to support these programs in some sense going forward.”
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