HR Tech Another Success: Part I

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, NelsonHall

HR Tech was again a very worthwhile investment of my time. Here are some highlights of the new Outsourcing Track presentations I attended:

• Cisco Uses RPO to Help Hire Up to 15,000 a Year:Using a hybrid co-ownership model, the Randstad Sourceright recruitment team works alongside the Cisco recruitment team to provide services including sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding. Services provided are primarily in the Americas, but may expand into EMEA and possibly Asia where Randstad Sourceright has a presence. Using the hybrid model, Cisco has been able to cut its $120m talent acquisition spend in half.
  • Mark Hamberlin, VP HR Global Staffing, Cisco
  • Rebecca Callahan, President RPO, Randstad Sourceright
• Ericsson Outsources Global Payroll in Manila:Ericsson issued a RFI to 25 vendors, then created a short-list of 5, and ultimately selected Talent2. Managed payroll services provided by Talent2 for Ericsson in Southeast Asia and Oceania include 4,500 employees in 12 countries, which prior to outsourcing had 12 different payroll processes. Manila is the shared service center. Major benefits obtained by Ericsson thus far include: reduced risk management, minimized complexity of dealing with local tax laws, and ease of expanding into new countries.
  • Mark Howes, HR Director Asia Pacific, Ericsson
  • Mary Sue Rogers, Global Managing Director, HR Managed Services, Talent2
• Whirlpool Leverages RPO to Transform Talent Acquisition:Pre-RPO recruitment was decentralized and lacked consistency and methodology in its sourcing approach. Business partners were also spending a lot of time doing transactional work including screening and reviewing resumes. Kenexa’s RPO services include: sourcing, screening, administration, candidate management, creation of employment value proposition, and management of the candidate experience primarily in North America with some testing in Europe. KPI’s include: time to fill, quality of the candidate slate, diversity slate, and end-user satisfaction.
  • Lynanne Kunkel, VP of HR, Whirlpool North America
  • Rudy Karsan, CEO, Kenexa

Here are highlights from my RPO meetings:

• Pinstripe and Ochre House: Pinstripe has won 12 new RPO contracts YTD and its partner Ochre House continues to win new contracts in EMEA including North Africa and the Middle East as a result of its acquisitions of TAAHEED and Carmichael Fisher in early 2012.
• ManpowerGroup Solutions: New contract wins YTD include 40+ RPO deals globally in 20 countries. It has also expanded existing clients into new geographies including a U.S.-headquartered firm that expanded into China and Southeast Asia and a Spanish-headquartered firm that expanded throughout Europe and Latin America.
• Randstad Sourceright: Currently with ~100 RPO clients, it won 18 new contracts YTD. Four of its new wins are global deals as a result of the merger of Randstad and SFN Group, which was completed in September 2011. Its fastest growth has been in the mid-market.
• The RightThing, an ADP Company: Total RPO client count is at 80+. YTD wins include several enterprise and mid-market clients with ~50% as new clients and ~50% as existing ADP clients that added RPO services.
• WilsonHCG: Primarily serving large and mid-size clients, WilsonHCG also has small clients with <500 employees. The company has a 94% satisfaction rating with candidates and hiring managers across clients.

Stay tuned for my next blog where I will discuss additional meetings I had with Patersons, IBM, Hogan Assessments, SHL Assessments, Secova, ADP, Equifax Workforce Solutions, HireVue, and JobVite.

In the meantime, NelsonHall just published its fourth global RPO market analysis.

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The Sun is Rising on HRO in Asia Pacific

As an “emerging market” the Asia Pacific (A/P) has more and more A/P companies become forces in the global marketplace as buyers and as producers – providing growth opportunities for product and service sales for companies headquartered in other regions (usually the West).

Do be aware that the markets for services like HRO already exist and are served by local and regional providers. Hence, new entrants offering unfamiliar brands to A/P buyers will need to assess their competitive value propositions for this vast, yet very localized market with a wide range of languages, price sensitivity, and HRO needs.

One of the largest A/P regional HRO service providers is Talent2, which offers payroll, RPO, traditional recruiting searches, HR administration, learning, talent management, and HR advisory services. Talent2 has services in 31 Asia Pacific and Middle Eastern countries, and its FY 2011 (ended June 30, 2011) revenues were AU$360m, up 26% from FY 2010. In operations since 2003, the company has ~1,700 personnel with offices and service centers spread across the region.

Talent2’s growth over the years had been organic, until 2008 when it added acquisition as a growth strategy and subsequently bought PCA in Japan, a payroll outsourcing and HR consulting provider. In 2010, it acquired Singapore-based Zapper Services with payroll outsourcing and HR administration in 14 A/P countries, adding ~1,000 clients, including multinational corporations (MNCs).

Having an available range of technologies and services is a benefit, especially when there are clients that are expanding their businesses for the first time and need a foundation of basic HR services with a high degree of subject matter expertise. This is also the case for large clients in mature markets looking for top quality and performance at a lower cost. Talent2 has multiple payroll offerings and other services to mix and match to meet the specific needs of clients of many sizes, verticals, with employees in one country to pan-national or global, using a broad range of languages and onshore and nearshore locations.

ADP and NorthgateArinso are two major global players that have been in the region for many years. As the A/P HRO market expands, more players will be looking to gain a foothold. With growth in many areas and services, Talent2 will need to focus its own value proposition and investments to maximize its regional advantages against what will be an even more competitive market. A sign that the company is ready to do just that is the addition of Mary Sue Rogers, one of the leading lights in the HRO community and previously the global leader of HRO for IBM. Rogers recently joined Talent2 as the Global Managing Director of HR services including payroll, HR advisory, and learning services.

No matter where the sun sets, at the end of the day, succeeding in emerging markets is the same as achieving HRO success anywhere: provide high-quality, high-performance subject matter expert services at the optimum price that solves business problems and delivers business results.

Linda Merritt, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

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