“Best of Breed” vs. Single Vendor

Having visited numerous organizations as an advisor I have seen the phenomenal advantage talent managed well can be.  From that perspective, it is clear to me that organizations looking to grow and dynamically adapt to rapidly evolving markets need to pursue solutions that are extremely flexible and in no way present barriers to motivation, performance, and innovation.  The best of breed approach allows organizations to hand pick the best technology to enable each piece of the talent management system, thereby affording maximum flexibility.  Does the approach have downsides…absolutely namely a much more complicated vendor evaluation process, more complicated integration situation, lack of data unity, inconsistent user experience, and greater total cost of ownership.

Given that listing of downsides, my position may seem illogical, but not all of the issues listed are equal.  For two decades organizations have focused on efficiency, squeezing a penny here and a penny there out of the system. At first, it was good, there was a lot of waste to account for, but over the long term the efficiency focus has resulted in the homogenizing of talent management practices.  Talent managed well can be a phenomenal competitive advantage, unfortunately homogenized talent management practices to little to manage talent and a lot to administer talent, which are two totally different things.

What do you think?