Mercer on the Move

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

This week I attended Mercer’s always well managed and informative analyst forum in Boston, MA. The meeting was focused on the talent consulting line of business.

Talent Management on the Rise

Mercer research indicates that human capital issues are a top CEO concern and managing talent is becoming a board of directors’ issue, moving beyond the traditional CEO succession planning and compensation to overall talent and workforce planning. The new Mercer Talent Barometer Survey, which was introduced at the 2013 World Economic Forum, reports that 60% of the 1,200 global companies surveyed are investing more in talent, but only 30% feel that their workforce plans are highly effective.

The business of talent has become both exciting and disruptive, with possible new entrants, globalization, media, innovations, and opportunities. (Talk about new entrants, eHarmony is considering getting into the talent matching game!)

With a possibility of double-digit growth, the talent group looked at how to grow across the talent value chain by expanding its services, tools and technology offerings for talent, rewards, and communications to increase growth and leverage Mercer’s depth of experience and capabilities.

The answer will become apparent over the next few months as more packaged solutions are launched that combine consulting, information, and technology to meet the needs of clients that want a less-customized consulting approach with “off-the-shelf” packaged and reusable services and tools.

Workforce Planning Versus HR Analytics

Some elements that will be leveraged are already mature and solid revenue producers. Surveys, benchmarks, and analytics for compensation/total rewards and job structures are a more than $200m line of business. Globalization of the revenues is already well on its way, with about equal distribution from North America, Europe, and emerging markets across 57 countries.

Instead of focusing on HR analytics, Mercer is emphasizing data acquisition and integration, data modeling, as well as data visualization as it applies to a wide range of workforce and data that drives business results. This may mean a consulting and outsourcing services engagement, it may mean workshops and training, or self-service use of integrated SaaS technology platforms with one or more Mercer products.

Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast

There are a lot of moving parts in Mercer’s strategy to create an integrated talent solutions portfolio.

It is brought together under the go-to-market Talent Impact label that includes new and existing products and services to forecast, engage, mobilize, reward and assess talent. Behind the scenes Mercer will be streamlining its own architecture into fewer and more integrated technology platforms to support the new offerings.

There is a lot to be done in a short time, but that is in alignment with the “think big, start small, and move fast” philosophy of Orlando Ashford, senior partner and president of Mercer’s talent business. Mercer is on the move!

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here.

Global Clients Join Analysts at Futurestep Showcase

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

Congratulations to Futurestep on a job well done! The company brought several clients to the entire analyst event as well as Futurestep leaders from EMEA, APAC, including China and New Zealand, North America, LATAM, and all functional leaders.

Korn/Ferry

Parent company Korn/Ferry CEO Gary Burnison shared his perspectives on leadership including how employees want to be part of something where they can grow and be stimulated and what Korn/Ferry can do to better work with clients and help them make their business successful; it all boils down to its people! Korn/Ferry understands that companies focused on people outperform the market in terms of growth by linking its business strategy to its talent strategy.

Futurestep Offerings / Capability

Continuing its people focus, Futurestep CEO Byrne Mulrooney talked about a new career development tool called Forte. Career development is a top reason why employees stay with a company. Forte will be deployed throughout Futurestep starting with the top 100 people. Futurestep has also begun to market Forte globally to complement (but not replace) talent management platforms.

Regional and practice RPO leaders talked about how Futurestep makes a difference including its focus on:

• Understanding customer needs: per a recent OI RPO client satisfaction survey, Futurestep achieved top ranking in understanding client needs; I believe a leading factor is that a high percentage of Futurestep employees sit on site with clients
• Sourcing, assessments, talent communications/employer branding, contract management, technology, the recruitment process, vendor management, and metrics
• Its ~800 professionals in 20 countries organized by industry sectors with specialists including:
  • Life sciences
  • Financial services
  • Consumer/retail
  • Technology
  • Industrial
  • Government/public sector
• Building talent communities in all RPO contracts at no extra charge
• Using analytics with a dashboard to look across all RPO clients for benchmarking purposes.

Futurestep’s analytics, included for all new clients and to be added for existing clients by Q3, allow users to:

• View detailed data and trends including productivity, job placements by job type and gender, the top seven markets for the top seven functions, etc.
• Perform predictive analysis, e.g., top sources of hires.

Futurestep Clients

Of all analyst events I’ve been to this had the highest number of client attendees and case studies combined with presentations and dialogue around the table. Clients talked about why they outsourced, why Futurestep was chosen, benefits received to date, and what they would like to receive in the future. For example:

• An APAC client is going to use Futurestep for internal candidate hiring next
• Another client is looking to enhance its employment branding
• A North America client plans to expand globally with Futurestep including in EMEA
• A MNC client changed providers because it found Futurestep to be more of a consultant and partner.

Case studies provided examples of documented benefits obtained by clients including:

• Reduced agency hiring
• Cost savings
• Reduced time to hire, including time to deliver a short list of candidates
• Hiring manager satisfaction, etc.

Summary

I was impressed by the ability to speak directly with clients and Futurestep leaders across all regions and to learn about Futurestep’s capabilities.

Can HRO be Social, Smart, Quick, and Effective?

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

Smarter Workforce and Smarter Commerce are the two major themes of this year’s conference for customers and business partners at IBM Connect 2013.

IBM is Messaging, Managing, and Delivering

First, I want to complement IBM on the clarity and alignment of its strategy with action. I have not seen this level of aligned organization and action across such a large and complex corporation before.

Building out under the Smarter Planet umbrella, IBM is bundling its many products and services, coordinating internal research and development, making targeted acquisitions, working across product and organization lines, and communicating clearly in its go-to-market campaigns. Given the great number of successful Smarter Workforce client case studies being presented, the proof points are already building to show business value can be delivered.

Smarter Workforce Supports Smarter Commerce

Smarter Workforce and Smarter Commerce are each separate service lines that can be coordinated to achieve greater business impact. Each is a combination of the IBM Platform for Social Business (social networking, social analytics, and social content) bundled with other new and existing products and services. Under the hood is a myriad of product lines making it work operationally, all tied together by messaging:

• Smarter Workforce: Activate the workforce to improve productivity and unleash innovation
• Smarter Commerce: Delight customers to increase loyalty, advocacy, and revenue.

Balance Individual Focus with Collective Value

Jonathon Ferrar, IBM vice president of Smarter Workforce, talked about the need to be social, smart, quick, and effective. Other words that were used a lot included community and relationships. Connecting communities of practice and building relationships, not for social intimacy, but for learning, leveraging, and leading to delighted customers and achieve business success.

Embedded throughout the social aspects of the services is a focus on the individual user that takes into account ease of use, mobile device access, points of need, and other behavioral aspects that are built in to increase collective business value creation.

Kenexa is Key to Smarter Workforce

The Kenexa acquisition closed in December 2012 and it is already being integrated into current offerings and it will be a key to plans for enhanced Smarter Workforce services as early as the second half of 2013:

• Kenexa’s software platforms for recruiting and learning will be used for RPO and learning BPO services as well as integrated with the social business platform
• Kenexa’s behavioral science expertise will be used to inform leadership, organizational, and talent management services and add to the analytics component.

IBM’s HRO services will be impacted by the changes. New options will be available to existing and new clients as talent management, learning, and RPO are brought together.

A lot of complexity remains to be managed, but it would be great to see IBM set a new high bar for making its services, client workforces, and HRO social, smart, quick, and effective!

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here.

The CedarCrestone HR Systems Survey and HRO: Part 1

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

Lexy Martin, CedarCrestone’s research and analytics vice president, debuted the 2012-2013 HR Systems Survey at the HR Technology Conference. I always enjoy pouring over this research, particularly now as it is in its 15^th year and is full of trends and insights into what is happening with HR technology. The findings are especially interesting this year as we see the emergence of newer technologies come into usage and high expectations for the future growth of HR SaaS HRMS, analytics, social, and mobile technologies.There is a lot of good news for HRO service providers and HR technology vendors. As we know, technology investments have seen some lean years recently. This year, the survey of 1,246 respondents from HR, IT, finance, operations, and executives indicates that 50% of large and medium-sized organizations will be increasing HR technology spend for 2013. Interestingly, the largest increase will be from organizations outside of the U.S. and Europe (59% to 44%).

The top HR technology initiatives for 2012-2013 include:

• Business process improvements and innovations
• Talent management processes and automation
• Service delivery improvements
• Business intelligence/workforce metrics.

While the greatest growth over the next three years is expected for workforce analytics/planning (142%), social media tools (81%), and service delivery (57%), it is important to remember that adoption of the more common technologies is not at 100%. HR administration is highest at 95%, but service delivery applications, which include employee and manager self-service is only at 49%. Check the full report for results by size and industry. For example, large enterprises have higher adoption rates, and industry varies with early adopters seen in high tech, financial services, and retail and late adopters seen in higher education and public administration.

Key Observations

• A shared services delivery model that includes an HR help desk application and self-service delivers the highest level of efficiency to enterprises and saves at least 15% in administration costs
• Basic workforce management technologies including time management self-service, absence management, labor scheduling, and labor budgeting can grow operating income faster
• An integrated HRMS and talent management solution can yield up to 33% higher revenue per employee.

The survey is not about HR outsourcing, but it sure applies. Between the HR technology initiatives, state of adoption of HR technologies, and evidence of results who better to help a client out than your friendly HR service provider!

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here.

Kenexa’s Analyst Day and 7th World Conference – A Winner: Part 1

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

Kenexa’s October 16^th analyst day included:

• A conversation with CEO Rudy Karsan
• Product overviews
• Business unit highlights
• A customer panel
• One-on-one meetings with executives including Rudy and CMO Tim Geisert.

IBM’s acquisition of Kenexa, which is expected to close by the end of the year, could only be talked about in limited discussion. Kenexa employees will be integrated during 2013. Initially, IBM’s RPO business will be integrated into Kenexa’s RPO business and will be named IBM Kenexa RPO. The group will report into Rudy, who will then report into Alistair Rennie of IBM. Phase 1, occurring through 2013, will be business as usual with IBM as a new source of business for Kenexa, a very large channel. Phase 2 will be integration into IBM.

In addition to RPO, key assets Kenexa brings to IBM include SaaS, innovation, and the ability to get big data into IBM’s warehouses (e.g., Kenexa has 100m employee touches a year globally). Kenexa’s 2015 revenue projection will be doubled with IBM’s added social capabilities and analytics (IBM will demo this at its conference in January 2013).

Below is an overview of Kenexa’s new products and services that were presented by the respective product manager. The presentations also included videos and a one-page user-friendly brochure.

• RapidHire: 2x BrassRing’s high-volume hiring module (ideal for the retail, restaurant, and hospitality sectors)
• 2x Onboard: used in ~50% of contracts (including many global deals for cost savings and compliance), improves the employee experience (with mobile access available) by:
  • Making introductions before the employee’s first day
  • Helping new hires understand the culture
  • Conducting employment eligibility verifications for new hires
  • Providing new hire surveys, which can be scheduled at any time
  • Assisting internal employees and contractors who have been transferred
• 2x Perform: includes performance, succession, and compensation management
• Learning: includes a new social LMS, content management, and Hot Lava to develop content on all mediums (i.e., tablets, mobile devices, and PC’s)
• Engagement: highlights include a mobile feedback application that can be used for immediate feedback from meetings / events, employee surveys, and 360 degree feedback
• Global Talent Management: clients include Shell, Exxon Mobil, Walmart, BP, Yum (in China), and Huawei (in China); 2012 sales included the suite of recruitment, learning, and performance management; EMEA sales grew 40%, mostly from competitor conversions
• Compensation Management (part of 2x Perform): added ~500 new compensation clients YTD 2012 including Ernst & Young, Cox Enterprises, and Cracker Barrel.

For more information on these products and services, please see my prior blog entries, Kenexa’s vendor profile, and the NelsonHall database.

Kenexa is also continuing to develop its survey, assessment, and leadership development capabilities with recent contract awards including Amazon, Campbell’s, and Cargill announced October 16^th.

Stay tuned for part 2 later this week, which will include RPO highlights.

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here.

The Parable of IBM and Kenexa: Part II

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

It’s common for major HRO announcements to be followed by a conference call, and sometimes one-on-one briefings are also offered for analysts as in the case of the IBM and Kenexa deal.  Naturally, the NelsonHall HRO team including myself, Gary Bragar, and Amy Gurchensky took advantage of both opportunities.  

IBM’s Own View

The initial announcement was largely from the perspective of the IBM Social Business group that will add Kenexa’s HCM capabilities to its combination of social media, content management, and analytics. IBM believes that this creates value through the application of social technology to front office processes and generates ROI by creating social networks of expertise that leverage analytic insights to improve business processes. In sum, a “Smarter Workforce.”

It is the Whole Elephant…

In Part I, I compared the various views of the IBM and Kenexa news to the analogy of the blind men and the elephant. The answer is that all of the following interpretations are rationales of the deal:

• Builds upon IBM’s social media, analytics, and professional services including BPO
• Brings valuable software, HRO expertise, as well as talent management capabilities
• Increases competition and cross-selling to both IBM’s and Kenexa’s base of Fortune 500 customers
• Delivers value to C-suite executives, HR executives, and the whole value chain of management and employees.

…and Much More

The IBM Global Process Service’s HRO team was involved from the start and will be deeply involved throughout the integration process. RPO services will be combined creating an even bigger global footprint with new service centers including three in the U.S. Kenexa’s learning platform will be reverse engineered to support IBM’s learning services. There are also other parts of Kenexa that can be kept or spun off such as compensation services, behavioral sciences surveys and assessments, and middle market customers.

Kenexa will be a wholly-owned subsidiary for the first year to allow time to determine the best options for unleashing the full value of the deal. Kenexa brings innovative and collaborative intellectual capabilities and a portion of the value is greater than the “stuff” that can be divided up. Even with Kenexa’s leadership intact, the decisions will be many, with lots of players due to the matrix nature of the services and opportunities adding to the normal M&A complexities.

IBM’s Smart Workforce incorporates the concept of the boundary-less enterprise that works across the “whitespace” between processes and organizational silos. IBM wants to make human capital management an integral part of business operations by enabling people to unleash their talent when, where, and how it is most needed to create measureable value.

We each see the world through our own lens of experience and expectations, and sometimes the truly new and innovative “elephant” is harder to see. IBM and Kenexa can create the truly new and we should all hope they do. HCM, HR, HRO, HR tech, IT, social media, and more will have to raise their game to benefit from the new technology, services, and consulting opportunities. And that is a good thing!

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here.

The Parable of IBM and Kenexa: Part I

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

I have not seen such a range of varied opinions from members of the HRO and HR tech communities as those about IBM’s acquisition of Kenexa. The commentary showed that many were taken a bit by surprise and weren’t sure how to analyze the news that IBM was acquiring Kenexa for $1.3bn.

IBM Bought Kenexa?

The surprise was not the purchase of Kenexa, which was foreshadowed by the acquisition of Taleo by Oracle and SuccessFactors by SAP. It was more about the fact that IBM was doing the purchasing.

A few  thought that ADP might make such an acquisition since it had already expanded its benefits capabilities with Workscape and SHPS and its RPO capabilities with The RightThing, so wouldn’t talent management make sense? Speculation continued, perhaps Mercer, Ceridian, or even ADP would be the target of an acquisition or merger.

IBM itself was considered likely to continue its acquisitive ways with something more in the talent management / HCM space. Likely targets mentioned included Cornerstone OnDemand, SilkRoad, SumTotal, Saba, with a few suggesting Halogen, Peoplefluent, and others. In short, someone is going to buy something else.

The Meaning of the Deal?

What does this mean we all asked, much like the tale of the Blind Men and the Elephant as was suggested by the leading light Naomi Bloom. Early viewpoints on the acquisition included:

• Continuing IBM’s move into social media and analytics
• Continuing IBM’s move into professional services including strengthening RPO
• Disrupting the HCM market and becoming a talent management player
• Delivering value to the HR executive
• Delivering value to the C-suite and bypassing HR
• Primarily being a HRO deal with some software attached
• Primarily being a software deal with some HRO attached
• Upping competition with SAP, Oracle, Salesforce.com, and even Workday
• Selling into Kenexa’s IBM-like customer base of Fortune 500 clients.

IBM’s news crossed many markets including HRO, HCM, HR tech (software, platform, cloud, etc.), BPO, social media, talent management, and financial and market analysts. Each commenter viewed the same information through the lens of their personal perspective and professional interest, much like the blind men touching different parts of the elephant.

With so many options before it, including IBM’s own announced intentions for the addition of Kenexa, the opportunities are new and exciting. Given the inherent complexities, IBM will face many risks as well. Look for more on The Parable of IBM and Kenexa coming in Part II.

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here.

IBM Accentuates its RPO and Talent Management Offering by Acquiring Kenexa

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

Although a bit smaller than the $1.9bn Oracle paid for Taleo (coincidentally at $46 per share as well) and the $3.4bn SAP paid for SuccessFactors, I believe that IBM’s acquisition of Kenexa, a cash transaction at $46 per share or ~$1.3bn and closing in Q4 2012, will have a much more immediate and larger impact than the aforementioned acquisitions.

Both Taleo and SuccessFactors were specifically acquired for their talent management (TM) technology. Beyond the strength of Kenexa’s technology, however, is the provision of TM services including:

• Consulting
• RPO
• Employee engagement
• Leadership development.

According to an IBM study conducted earlier this year, 71% of respondents cited “human capital” as the leading source of sustained economic value, above products and services innovation and significantly higher than technology. Kenexa, as a HCM and TM provider, will compliment IBM’s TM offering, which focuses on the full TM life cycle of attracting, developing, rewarding, and retaining talent. Specifically, IBM’s TM offering includes:

• Recruiting
• Learning
• Performance management
• Compensation
• Succession management.

In addition to its multi-process HRO (MPHRO) offering, which includes TM, IBM also specializes in providing workforce strategy transformation, social technology, and analytics to predict and measure performance.

While RPO is part of IBM’s MPHRO offering, it also provides RPO on a standalone basis to GM. Kenexa’s RPO capabilities, however, will accelerate IBM’s RPO market share, making it one of the largest RPO providers globally with clients headquartered in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Kenexa also delivers RPO services in Latin America including South America in ~25% of its contracts.

Kenexa’s BrassRing technology is one of the two most widely used applicant tracking systems in RPO contracts. Kenexa also brings its Kenexa 2x Recruit platform, which in addition to recruiting and learning contains the following performance management modules:

• Goal setting
• Competencies
• Performance appraisals
• Compensation
• Career development and pathing
• Succession planning.

NelsonHall estimates that Kenexa has more than tripled the size of its RPO business since 2006 with brand name clients including Ford and multi-regional contracts with Baker Hughes and Eli Lilly.

IBM’s price of $46 per share is a 42% premium over Kenexa’s August 24^th close, but it will be well worth it. IBM is getting much more than software technology; it is getting assets, including human talent that can make a HCM difference. IBM’s plan is to combine its approach to social business, analytics, and TM to transform business processes to create smarter workforces with measureable business results. Given Kenexa’s record of growth and IBM’s experience with integrating acquisitions, this sounds like a good plan and a great business opportunity for both companies.

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here.

What do Benefits Administration Clients Want from HRO?

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

What HRO clients want falls into several buyer profiles based on familiarity with outsourcing and organization maturity. The NelsonHall Targeting Benefits Administration (BA) market analysis was published earlier this summer by Amy Gurchensky, and I noticed Amy included differences in client decision drivers by whether they were new to outsourcing or were already experienced in outsourcing. The concept crosses all types of HRO services and matches my running conversations with service providers. Let’s take a look at the following three buyer profiles through the lens of BA:

• Standard buyers
• Experienced buyers
• Progressive buyers.

Standard buyers: otherwise known as first time outsourcers are looking for reduced operating costs, better compliance with regulations, a way to transfer or minimize risk, updated technology and best practices, and improved participant communications channels. Employee and manager self-service and reducing HR administrative burdens are also popular drivers in the initial decision to outsource.

Experienced buyers: otherwise known as second generation outsourcers already have the basics in place and may be ready to broaden the scope of services, obtain more flexible technology, or increase participation in process streamlining to enhance efficiency and improve participant engagement. Changes may include adding new BA services or even consolidating vendors, but it can also include the decision to change to another vendor completely. Cost is still the number one concern, so contract renewals will not be a slam dunk. Providers who are on the ball with changing client needs and increased sophistication should be ready for thorough discussions on price, service, and value.

Progressive buyers: or sophisticated buyers may be ready to use the firm foundation they have built with their outsourcer to create the greatest possible business impact. In BA, this may include total benefits outsourcing where either pensions or retirement plan services are combined with health and welfare services under one vendor to:

• Lower total costs
• Simplify vendor management
• Integrate technologies across the services
• Improve the participant experience.

This is the time to bring out the most sophisticated offerings and analytics and focus on business value; leverage the value of benefits in employee attraction and retention; and optimize total program cost. Once again, existing BA vendors will be vulnerable to pricing concerns and client perceptions about the provider’s top-end capabilities and client retention will remain at risk.

As HRO matures and more clients gain experience in managing outsourced services, expect to see client needs change over time. Service providers can and do quickly tell which HRO profile a new prospect falls into by the language used, initial discussions on services, and outsourcing objectives, etc. It can be a bit harder to see when an existing client, even one satisfied with day-to-day services, is moving from one buyer profile to another. For clients new to BA, if you intend or even just hope to move up to the sophisticated buyer level, consider if the vendor who meets your initial needs will also meet your needs as your organization matures.

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here

HRO Confidence Continues to Soar!

Our recently published Q2 2011 HRO Confidence Index indicates that 50% of HRO suppliers, which includes payroll, RPO, learning, benefits, and MPHRO vendors, are much more confident in the HR Outsourcing business over the next twelve months compared to the previous twelve month period.  Thirty-five percent are slightly more confident and 15% are as confident.  The driving factors are two-fold.  The top reason is new contract activity, first reported as the main reason in Q3 2010, and the other reason is increased scope of existing contracts.

In the past, my colleague Linda Merritt and I have written about new contract awards. For this blog, I wanted to focus on the importance of contract renewals, including increases in scope expansions as they are closely following new contract activity as the reason for this high confidence in HRO!

A few examples of recent contract renewals and scope expansions include the following:

• Last week, Genpact was awarded a 7 year MPHRO contact by Nissan to include payroll, recruiting, training, and benefits administration.  Genpact had been providing HR services to Nissan group companies and affiliates.  It has also been providing services outside of HR that included F&A, procurement, collections, customer service, and analytics.  As part of the contract, Genpact acquired Nissan’s HR shared service center in Yokohama, Japan, which handles HR functions for 54,000+ employees globally. The center, renamed Genpact Japan Service Co., Ltd., will serve Nissan, its affiliates, and other Genpact clients.
• In June, NorthgateArinso was awarded a 7 year MPHRO renewal and scope expansion by Fifth Third Bank that I wrote about in my blog on the 23rd.
• In June, Pinstripe was awarded two RPO contract extensions and scope expansions by Johns Manville and Rayonier. For Rayonier, the scope was expanded  from professional hires for one division to include all professional and hourly hiring for all divisions.
  • In April, Aon Hewitt was awarded a flexible benefits contract by Emap, a business-to-business media group in the U.K.  Aon’s Risk Solutions business had already been providng services to Emap.
  • In addition to winning a total retirement outsourcing (TRO) renewal earlier this year with BP America, Fidelity Investments also won a  5 year contract renewal for TRO in North America by HP, adding 162,500 participants from EDS who were previously serviced by other providers.

I believe we will of course continue to see contract renwals, but within the next one to three years, we will see an even larger increase in scope expansions.  Why?  Although buyers are increasing their propensity to outsource, since the recession began in 2008 we’ve seen new HRO buyers treading more lightly to test the waters before diving more deeply.  A common example I see is in recruiting, where a new contract may start out for a particular business unit or geography, but then expand based on client satisfaction and increased benefits to enterprise-wide RPO, similar to the Pinstripe example above. When these contracts come up for renewal and the clients are happy, having  obtained the benefits they signed up for and maybe even had their expectations exceeded, then there’s a good chance these clients will be looking to increase whatever scope they can.

We’ll come back to additional findings and trends in our HRO Confidence Index in a future blog, but in the meantime , NelsonHall clients can view the full report at the NelsonHall website.

Gary Bragar,  HR Outsourcing Research Director, NelsonHall