Those beginning outsourcing buyers have matured. Mature buyers today are “better educated than ever before,” says Scott Fraleigh, vice president of managed services for SourceRight Solutions. “Today they want more than someone who can meet SLAs. Today they want a strategic, long-term partner for their talent management.” In addition to desiring access to top talent, mature buyers also want the ability to reduce risk,” Fitzgerald adds.

Matt Rivera, director, customer solutions for Yoh, adds that “improving the quality of the workers” is a key concern from mature MSP buyers. “The hiring manager wants good people who can get the job done. They demand people who will stay for the duration of the project. If they get the right people, they get more value from the use of an MSP,” he explains.

“We constantly have to show value year after year,” says Marc LeClair, senior vice president at Volt Consulting. He adds that mature buyers want annual continual improvement in:

1. Cost savings
2. Process compliance
3. Reduced processing time

The importance of global for mature buyers

Bruce Morton, the chief marketing officer of Allegis Group Services, says global capabilities are now crucial for mature buyers. “Global requirements have always been there. But they have gotten more important over the last three years,” he reports.

Dave Barthel, executive director of human capital solutions for Allegis, adds that the statement of work (SOW), which is deliverable-based services, has become an important component for mature buyers. LeClair adds SOW talent is a “source of great cost saving” because historically “this is the largest source of rogue spending because the clients are buying a deliverable. Do you need five senior people or five junior people? Are you sure you are not paying the junior people at the senior rate?” MSPs and their vendor management systems streamline SOW work and shed light on their true costs.

A challenge mature buyers have is “engaging the non-employee populations,” says Rivera of Yoh. “Too often they are not integrated into the workforce. Mature buyers need to extend their brand to their contingent workers. You can’t ignore 20-30 percent of your workforce,” he observes.

Morton says the work of MSPs is converging with the recruitment processing outsourcers (RPOs). “Today there is a move to total talent management. The buyer knows the talent it needs. But what is the best mix of full-time and contingent labor?” he explains.

Fitzgerald of Kelly OCG adds, “Today mature buyers don’t want to look in the rear view mirror. They need to look out the windshield. They need an MSP to help them manage their talent. Mature buyers want to bring HR, procurement and the business users together to work with talent holistically.”

Advice for newbies

Beginning buyers have different challenges. Rivera of Yoh says newbies need to understand why they are moving to an MSP model. “Are you trying to control cost? Get better quality? Improve compliance? Standardize processes or adopt new technology? Know the answer to this going in,” he offers.

Morton of Allegis says these buyers need to build a cross-functional team to craft a solution. Business users, the legal department, IT, legal, finance and of course HR and procurement all need to play a part. “You need to have all the planets aligned because the MSP will touch every one of them,” Morton explains.

Fitzgerald of Kelly OCG says “you can’t forget the IT department because using an MSP means integrating a pretty hefty IT program,” i.e. the provider’s vendor management technology.

Morton adds the selection process should “focus on overall value not just cost.”

New buyers may need to have a strong change management program since business users who have been hiring contingent labor their way for a long time now have to adapt to a centralized approach and the provider’s vendor management software. “Don’t let up. Keep pushing for change,” Fitzgerald advises. Rivera of Yoh points out that, “many MSP programs fail because management does not mandate use of the program. That way you will end up with the same decentralized mess you started with.” He says without executive buy in, compliance can be as low as 25 percent.

After the team selects an MSP, it has to create a governance program using the same cross-functional players, notes Morton.

Next: Part 5: How buyers use MSP analytics to make business decisions

The growth of this new kind of worker is changing the way companies outsource their recruiting. Now, companies are likely to turn to a managed service provider (MSP) for help because finding contingent labor, then recruiting, deploying and paying them is different from issuing standard paychecks and a W-2 at the end of the year.

Today there are more contingent workers to find. Lisa Fitzgerald, senior director with the contingent workforce practice of Kelly OCG, says Kelly conducts an annual talent management survey. The survey labels anyone who is not a full-time employee at one company a free agent. This year the number of free agents jumped to 44 percent of its survey sample, up from 26 percent in 2010.

Fitzgerald says if an outsourcing buyer today asks Kelly to place a full-time person, it’s common for the company to ask the outsourcer to invite the second and third candidates to join its contract labor pool.

The Changing Workplace

Bruce Morton, chief marketing officer of Allegis Group Services, says today “employees have a different social contract with their pay masters.” He says if you met a traditionalist, the generation that is the parents of the baby boomers, or boomers themselves, they will say, “‘I work for X. I’m an engineer.’” Today, however, “people have more loyalty to their skill than their company. They will say, ‘I am an engineer. X corporation is enjoying my company right now.’”

Adds Teresa Carroll, senior vice president of the MSP practice globally for Kelly OCG, “Today people manage their own careers. They find their own access to job opportunities and they promote themselves.”

Morton adds that contingent status has “lost its stigma.” Before, if someone said they were a temp worker, “people assumed they couldn’t get a proper job. Today it’s a career and lifestyle choice.”

In addition, Scott Fraleigh, vice president of managed services for SourceRight Solutions, notes many people have been downsized in this recession. On August 4, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there were 8.4 million involuntary part-time workers. Like it or not, they are adding to the contingent labor pool.

Why some employees don’t want to work full time

“People with marketable skills have the ability to work on a contract basis,” explains Fraleigh. For example, engineers with cloud experience and coders proficient in HTML5 and/or mobile technologies are in top demand. Fitzgerald of Kelly OCG adds professionals and subject matter experts are also hard to find. “In today’s economy their skills are more important than ever,” she explains. “People chose this track because they feel like they are in demand.”

Demand means premium pricing. Often these specialists can command higher paychecks moving from project to project than they could working for one company.

Many of these people are married to a spouse who has a full-time job with health care, notes Carroll of Kelly OCG. That gives them the freedom to have a less traditional career path because their spouse is providing the needed benefits.

The millennials

Another group that typically doesn’t want a full time job is the millennials, people born from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. Wright says these workers “don’t want the same job for 30 years. They want to be challenged. They want access to technology. For them, contract work is an attractive alternative, especially for IT professionals,” he points out.

Dave Barthel, executive director of Human Capital Solutions for Allegis Group Services says today the average worker changes jobs multiple times by the time he or she is 28. “Changing job is exciting for this group. They want to be on the bleeding edge,” he explains.

Technology made this possible

Technology is accelerating the move to contract labor status. Today independent contractors can visit virtual communities to see the opportunities available. “People are more connected than ever before with LinkedIn and Facebook,” says the SourceRight executive. These online communities make it much easier to suss out the next opportunity.

Next: How do MSPs actually work? What benefits do the outsourcing buyers actually receive?

In order to meet these needs, Allegis Group Services provides three distinct service offerings that can be delivered individually or in combination to meet every human capital or workforce management need that your company may have. Each service is comprehensive and fully customizable to align with your goals for a world-class workforce that is built to lead your company into a successful future.

Allegis Group Services’ Workforce Management Solutions help companies manage the entire spectrum of processes and systems that requisition, procure, manage and pay a contingent workforce and staffing supplier community. Our solutions encompass more than just the automation of these processes through a technology system. They include the entire solution design, process optimization, active cost management, reporting analytics, performance management, overall program oversight and sharing of best practices from the other highly successful programs we design and manage.

Service Lines

RPO – Recruitment Solutions from Allegis Group Services. Allegis Group Services has succeeded with world-class organizations by providing flexible solutions that significantly impact their recruitment function with results. Our recruiting culture and passion to succeed on every assignment is unparalleled in the industry and always assures that our client’s goals are achieved.

Executive Search and Management Recruiting from InSearch Worldwide. InSearch Worldwide has built a Management Recruiting solution on 20+ years in the executive search industry. Our solution is designed to meet each customer’s need for either senior-level professionals or individuals with qualifications that are difficult to identify in the marketplace. When you choose InSearch Worldwide for your executive search needs, you’re working with a team with specialized expertise in the following:

• Attracting pivotal talent on a global basis
• Actively sourcing passive job seekers
• Providing a positive candidate experience
• Recruiting across major functions (HR, Technology, Marketing, Operations, Legal, Finance, etc.)

Distinctive Capabilities

Allegis Group Services^® Inc., an operating company of Allegis Group^® Inc., provides human capital and workforce management solutions to customers in a wide range of industries across the globe. Our offerings include Managed Services (MSP), Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), Executive Search and Consulting Services.

Whether you’re looking to optimize the use of your contingent workforce program, outsource your organization’s recruitment needs or want to analyze key market trends to better serve your business needs, Allegis Group Services can help. Through distinct service offerings, we employ industry best practices and our experience to assist our customers in maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of their workforce programs.

Allegis Group Services at a Glance

• Year founded: 2001
• Revenues: AG 2010 revenue- $6.4B
• Employees: 524
• Service lines: RPO, MSP, Executive Search, Consulting Services
• Headquarters location: Hanover, Maryland
• Locations of global delivery centers (active on six continents): London, Toronto, Frankfurt, Bangalore, Beijing

For More Information

Telephone: 877-247-4426
www.allegisgroupservices.com

Awards and Recognitions

• GM Supplier of the Year ‐ 2011 (GM Award Video)
• Microsoft Premier Vendor Status ‐ 2010
• Rockwell Collins Presidents Award ‐ 2009

Now that is changing on the RPO front. Many of the service providers are forming strategic alliances with RPO service providers on other continents. The goal: to provide buyers with better candidates faster because of their deep contacts in and vast knowledge of specific local markets.

“For years outsourcing buyers wanted a global solution, but it was only a catch phrase for RPO service providers,” says Randy Gulian, CEO of allegistalent². “Today buyers can actually get a global solution.”

Sue Marks, CEO of Pinstripe, says successful recruiting is by definition local. Local may mean city to suburban, state to state, country to country or region to region. Partnerships such as her firm has with OchreHouse “give buyers the benefit of an integrated process, cultural fit, technology, and metrics coupled with local expertise and talent channels. Today there is a competitive race for top talent. Companies can’t hire the best talent if their service provider has a generic solution with no local ties and doesn’t know the local customs.”

“Global outsourcing buyers want a consistent candidate experience and uniform reporting from one global brand,” adds Bruce Morton, Executive Director of allegistalent². He says these buyers want consistency, “which is hard to get from a multiple of partners.”

U.S. RPO service providers that are leading this trend include allegistalent², Pinstripe and OchreHouse, and SourceRight Solutions and Hays plc, among others. Here is the story of how these alliances developed and what they can do for outsourcing buyers.

“Two years ago you could cobble together a solution with different providers in different regions,” says Gulian. “Buyers won’t accept that today. They want one provider, one message, and a standardized candidate experience.”

allegistalent²

Talent² started in 2004 in Asia as a search firm and eventually it extended its services to RPO, becoming the first RPO in Asia Pac, according to Morton. “We noticed we were missing out on some local deals because the decision makers were elsewhere,” says Morton. He estimates 70 percent were in either the United States or the UK. “That got us thinking. We wanted to both protect our business and grow our market in Asia. We had to either grow our own or find a partner,” he recalls. “Allegis Group Services was the natural choice.” Allegis Group Services is the RPO and MSP division of the Allegis Group, one of the largest privately held recruitment firms in the world.

Allegis Group Services and Talent² had some global clients in common. And because Allegis Group Services had already built a relationship with Andrew Grant, the Managing Director on the Talent² side, they formed a partnership in 2010 to cover the globe.

In their first outing together, they bid for and won together possibly the largest multi-continent RPO deal bid out last year. It was an all- encompassing engagement for one of the largest financial services companies in the world. They formed the global implementation team with members from both Allegis Group Services and Talent² and deployed over 150 recruiters across the globe to manage the engagement.

“Our RPO business was pretty global already,” recalls Gulian, “but the obvious hole for us was APAC, so deciding to work with Talent² was easy. They are the 800-pound gorilla there. And we both wanted to further expand into Europe” he says.

Morton says allegistalent²’s “U.S. learnings” from their original deal helped the firm develop more global offerings. allegistalent² now has a central global project management office. Once it gets an assignment, it adds the requisite local nuances.

Pinstripe and OchreHouse

Marks says Pinstripe’s exclusive strategic partnership with OchreHouse allows them to “meet the global needs of companies that have varying numbers of openings in many different countries.” A typical engagement, she says, would be for a U.S midmarket company that has a large number of U.S. jobs to fill and then lower volumes in 15 different countries.

The executives of Pinstripe, which is based in Wisconsin, and OchreHouse, which is based in London, met at the HRO conference in New York in 2009. Marks says there was a cultural match; even better, their operating model was the same. The two decided to go to market together to meet buyers’ global needs. “We won our first deal shortly after we formalized the partnership. We continue to add clients who need a global recruiting footprint,” she says.

Pinstripe and OchreHouse have just added a third member to their partnership: Career International to cover China.

“Our clients (and we have several now) get the depth and breadth of our global and local knowledge,” says Marks. “We know the Americas, they know Europe, and our APAC partners know their regions. We know the talent challenges and, most importantly, where the talent pools are.”

She says mature outsourcing buyers already have centralized HR processes and technology. “They’ve already done the work on the core and know what’s important.” Now they want “worldwide reach with in-country expertise.”

SourceRight Solutions and Hays

Florida-based SourceRight Solutions formed its partnership with UK-based Hays plc last March. “It is increasingly important for companies to more narrowly define who they are trying to attract,” says Rebecca Callahan, SourceRight President. Alistair Cox, CEO of Hays, adds, “As markets around the world recover, multinational companies are increasingly looking for recruiting experts to help them find the quality people they need to build their business in every country in which they operate. Our decision to partner with SourceRight Solutions allows us to meet those needs.”

How the partnerships work

Gulian says the key to success in these strategic alliances is to be sure they don’t become “a marriage of convenience.” allegistalent² found embedding executives in each other’s companies helped both standardize processes and encourage business development. Morton, for example, has moved from Sydney, Australia, to Stamford, Connecticut, to work in the former Allegis Group Services office.

In addition, the RPO holds various client and functional group meeting every other week in a different part of the globe. Executives from both organizations attend.

Gulian says it also helps to know your partner well. “Andrew Grant and I tend to be aligned in our thinking and approach. Both of us were willing to mute our egos in talking about what was the better approach or outcome for the client. There have been no disagreements on our goals, and we have both learned from each other’s approaches to a particular issue. With us, a disagreement on approach lasts for five minutes. It’s resolved and the resulting solution is better than either of us could have fashioned by ourselves.”

However, cost and efficacy issues aside, risk management is one of the most important (and perhaps least understood) value-adds of the RPO arrangement, especially when the definition of risk includes not just potential financial loss but also the potential downside in such areas as legal compliance, attracting and retaining talent, geographic and regional differences in recruitment practices, employee liability, and the company’s brand.

1. Legal compliance

In terms of mitigating risk in recruitment-related legal compliance (i.e., Form I-9, EEO, and background, and credit checks), RPOs are the experts. Not only can an RPO recommend and implement fully compliant sourcing, application, and interview and selection processes, but they are also adept at creating and maintaining all the required record-keeping and analysis.

In some instances, the RPO can even propose solutions for remediating past non-compliance (for example, if “applicant flow” has not been properly documented — or if it hasn’t been tracked at all — the RPO might be able to assist with recreating past applicant flow using existing data).

The potential risks associated with legal non-compliance are fairly significant. Liability can include monetary fines and other sanctions such as future monitoring of a company’s hiring practices by a governmental agency. In some areas (Form I-9 compliance, for instance), non-compliance can expose the company and/or its employees and officers to criminal prosecution.

2. Attracting and retaining talent

Many quality employed candidates are staying put until things pick up. They are not actively job hunting and thus are off the market; at the same time, quality candidates who are out of work find themselves heavily courted and scooped up fairly quickly. The talent war continues.

RPOs are positioned to have a pulse on the candidate market and niche recruitment, including tapping into the passive candidate pool of applicants (which is often where the “super stars” are found), thus helping ensure companies hire the right candidates.

The risk of hiring the wrong candidate goes beyond the overall replacement costs for an employee, which can range anywhere from one-third to one-half of an employee’s salary. Bad hires result in higher turnover, lower productivity, bad morale, and are a disruption to the operation.

3. Geographic and regional differences in recruitment practices

It’s often difficult for companies hiring staff in different U.S. regions or in other countries using internal resources to stay current — and compliant — with constantly evolving local employment trends and laws.

RPOs that do business in different regions have a working familiarity with local labor markets and help mitigate the risks associated with doing large-volume, multi-region, and multi-country recruitment.

Caution: some RPOs are not truly global but, instead, subcontract work when they don’t have a presence in a particular region or country. This can be fine, but employers must to do their due diligence in qualifying the sub as well as the RPO they retain.

“Some providers can exaggerate degrees of operational viability and maturity in regions, so be sure the true global presence and scope of the contract is well defined,” counsels D. Zachary Misko, Global Director at KellyOCG, a talent management solutions provider.

4. Employee liability

When hiring needs flex up, employers often augment internal recruitment resources with temporary employees versus hiring more in-house staff, which can be costly and risky, especially when hiring needs flex down and the company has to terminate them.

However, temporary employees and agencies come with risks of their own.

“Some employers count on temporary staffing firms, which could imply a co-employment situation. With the RPO model, there is always clarity regarding the employer and employee relationship,” explains Kathleen Quinn Votaw, CEO, TalenTrust LLC, an RPO specializing in the small to midsize market.

Indeed, some longer-term temps have successfully argued that they were, in fact, employees entitled to the same terms and benefits as regular employees.

The RPO arrangement helps mitigate against these kind of risks.

5. Brand

Poor recruitment practices not only make hiring and retention more difficult but, in the long run, can also result in the unintended consequence of harming a company’s overall brand (image).

Companies turn away more applicants than they hire. Declined candidates can be ambassadors for an employer (“I wish I had gotten that job; it seemed like a great company”) or an employer’s worst nightmare (imagine an applicant declined employment with your company tweeting “they treated me like garbage. Rude. Place looked dull as dishwasher. Wouldn’t take job if they begged me!”). This kind of buzz can make it difficult to attract top talent.

Such buzz can also bleed over and hurt a company’s overall brand. (Think WalMart and the negative PR caused by its well-publicized employee violations. Many shoppers boycott the chain because of these issues).

Not only can RPOs handle the nuts-and-bolts portion of recruitment but, by utilizing best practices and their real-time knowledge of what others in a client’s market, industry, or space are doing, they also can help better promote the client’s employee brand throughout the recruitment process.

Accordingly, when evaluating RPO or other recruitment options, companies are wise to look more broadly at the pros and cons of the various arrangements so they can include in their evaluation not just costs but also risk management and avoidance.

Mike Marino is a senior-level HR consultant (and “reformed” employment law attorney) with a specialization in RPO and HRO implementation/management.
www.mikemarino.com   mmmikemarino@aol.com

Drivers for change

Several current trends as to service demands from buyers of outsourcing services will change service providers’ offerings and required expertise. Those demands will also necessitate a change in buyers’ approach to services decisions. ADP cites the following drivers for these demands:

1. Government-directed/mandated controls across the North American and EMEA markets in the areas of finance and data privacy
2. Government healthcare mandates, especially the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)
3. Changes in workplace employment laws
4. Services that consolidate and standardize systems and processes across geographic boundaries (thus requiring that service providers have a core competence in managing regulatory requirements in and across markets from which they operate)
5. Changing workforce demographics and user expectations (for instance, a growing reliance on new technologies such as mobile applications/devices, social networking/collaboration, and 24/7 access increasing an anytime-anyplace approach to performing work)

One of those drivers stands taller than the others. “We believe that the industry’s ability to effectively respond to the changing global regulatory environment will be the most important change that service providers will need to respond to in the next five years,” says John A. Haslinger, Vice President, Product Marketing at ADP.

There will be consequences with these five market forces, whether from buyers’ demands or regulatory changes. Terrence McCrossan, Division Vice President, Marketing & Strategy at ADP, believes consequences will include:

• Increased emphasis on cost control, reporting/analytics, process efficiency, and flexibility
• Increased demand for improved decision-support tools to assist employees, managers, and executives in making informed choices regarding workforce management, employee development, employee engagement, cost management, and total cost of ownership
• Necessity (especially for large organizations) for thinking globally and solving productivity issues globally rather than taking region-specific approaches

Regarding the globalization demands in recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), Angela Hills, Executive Vice President at Pinstripe, says enterprise clients want a partner that can scale with them globally “even if they begin a partnership exclusively in one theatre of the world.”

She predicts the five market forces described above (especially changing workforce demographics), combined with economic uncertainty and slow recovery, will propel growth in RPO. Recruitment outsourcing also meets buyers’ demands for solutions that switch fixed costs to a variable-costs model.

The need to ramp up recruitment after the recession, combined with the tremendous unpredictability in workforce demand and need, will also drive growth in RPO.

Katrina Menzigian, Vice President, Research Relations at Everest Group, an advisory firm on global services, says service providers increasingly will face the need to drive true business value for clients. “In HR (and in other areas of outsourcing such as finance and accounting, IT, and procurement), providers already established their ability to successfully deliver operationally compelling solutions,” she says. “The source of competitive differentiation going forward will be linking outsourcing outcomes with a client’s overall business objectives. HR clients from first-generation deals continue pushing for more value, increased savings benefits, and outcome-based pricing models.”

Impact on HR outsourcing from U.S. healthcare reform mandates

ADP expects an increase in HR outsourcing, especially over the next two years, due to the U.S. healthcare legislation and the significant complexity and reporting requirements it creates. McCrossan predicts the increase will occur especially in payroll, HRMS, health and welfare benefit administration, time and attendance administration, and leave administration. The increase will come from companies of all sizes that are already outsourcing some HR functions as well as those that have not yet outsourced.

He adds that the effort to conform to the PPACA requirements will lead to employers standardizing HR policies, plans, and processes related to employee benefits and workforce management in order to facilitate reporting and compliance.

On the provider side, Haslinger says the market forces will cause a shift to pay-as-you-go as the predominant service model as providers seek to standardize services onto Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms.

Six decision-making risks

What risks will buyers of outsourced HR services face in their decision-making over the next two years? Pinstripe and ADP cite the following risks:

1. Choosing the most effective model (standardization, customization, local or global, and single or multi-process scope)
2. Finding the domain expertise needed to manage change and drive consistency globally across an organization
3. Ending up with a payroll service provider with limited scale or expertise in a particular market or region
4. Being motivated to sign an RPO contract that places a higher premium on flexibility rather than on aligning the proper resources; focusing on flexibility can lead to ending up with a provider that has challenges in scaling to meet a buyer’s growing needs
5. Taking a “procurement” approach to an RPO decision; Hills warns this can lead to “devaluing the more subjective and ‘soft’ factors in decision making”
6. Missing the opportunity to create real process improvement when implementing the outsourced solution because of not giving enough attention to change management

Navigating the changing HR service provider landscape

Menzigian points out HR providers are entering and exiting the market due to increased demand on core competencies, broader sets of capabilities, and differentiation.

Hills expects that new leaders will emerge in the RPO space “as buyers’ growing sophistication causes buyers to shift which criteria they most value.” She also anticipates a lot of mergers, acquisitions, and exits in the space. Provider consolidation can cause declines in operational effectiveness when integrating acquisitions, she warns. To ensure effective service delivery, she says buyers should prepare for this possibility and maintain open communication and clear management of expectations.

Buyers need skills in understanding the factors that go into building outsourced solutions, or they will need to use consulting/advisory firms. “Solutions range in complexity, and understanding the factors is key for trying to make a multi-year buying decision,” says Hills. “Due to the large volume of firms that will enter the RPO space, we will see fragmentation in outsourcing solutions, making services more like traditional staffing augmentation than outsourcing.”

Key factors that buyers should include in their HR and RPO provider-selection criteria over the next five years include the following:

• Provider’s financial stability – is it enough to allow the provider to invest, grow, and compete?
• Global regulatory compliance expertise
• Domain expertise in the outsourced HR function enabling the provider to improve efficiency and quality, thereby lowering costs over the long term
• Proven long-term commitment to the HR space (consider the degree to which HR outsourcing is the core business of the provider)
• Organic growth as a cornerstone of an RPO provider’s growth strategy (this may provide the most dependable services to buyers as the provider landscape shifts)
• Integrated and consistent service delivery worldwide
• History of successfully delivering high-quality scalable solutions

Hills adds an insight unique to RPO provider-selection criteria. “Buyers should recognize what will truly drive success of a partnership and also what is unique and quirky about their organization and needs. Therefore, they should seek a partner that will be the best fit for that uniqueness and where the buyer wants to go. Sometimes the safest choice is not actually safe at all as the safe provider may not help the buyer stretch as an organization to fully achieve its potential.”

McCrossan at ADP advises buyers they should solicit the input of industry advisors and analysts that “have an informed view” of the HR outsourcing space. Buyers should also ensure an appropriate amount of time for discovery during the RFP process.

We want to be the world’s leading provider of global HR solutions and the trusted partner of HR decision makers. We help HR executives optimize their HR service delivery – reduce cost, improve quality, become more agile – through smarter processes and more efficient technology, supporting key HR areas such as workforce administration, multi-country payroll, benefits, recruitment, learning, self-service, and talent management.

NorthgateArinso is uniquely positioned to help companies realize true HR value. We combine a focus on customer value with years of experience in HR consulting, HR outsourcing and HR technology. This is the core of our business and why we are recognized as a leader in the global HR solutions market.

Our 8,000 employees are dedicated to delivering excellence through HR consulting, HR outsourcing, and HR technology. As a recognized global HR services leader, we have offices in 35 countries on five continents, supporting customers in more than 100 countries.

Service Lines

• HR Outsourcing provides an HR platform to overcome administrative challenges and HR complexity. It includes outsourced infrastructure and provides 20 global delivery centers available 24/7 in 20 different languages.
• HR Consulting is an SAP HCM consulting practice, which claims to be the world’s largest. It includes: application management, strategic and tactical reporting, management solutions, HR portals and operation reports. This division has completed over 1,000 implementations, and this has led to a series of add-on SAP products that speed up the implementation process.
• HR Technology combines SAP HCM and Web 2.0 technologies to develop software and enterprise contact management.

Distinctive Capabilities

NorthgateArinso possesses the skills, willingness, and ability to help organizations plan for and execute the implementation and maintenance of SAP HR and payroll. In addition:

• NGA has the largest, most comprehensive human capital practice in the world
• Over 1,000 live, successful HR projects
• More than 5,500 professionals
• 100% on-time, on-budget track record
• Large implementation client reference base
• Over 75 shared service / outsourcing clients
• In-depth knowledge of local payroll solutions and all HRM functionality
• Flexible partner, not a massive, unconnected organization
• Outstanding partner relationships with SAP
• 100% on-time, on-budget delivery record
• Zero-failure track record
• Our people and corporate identity, which is key in training, developing, and retaining experts in the competitive market place
• Our focused HRM approach: HR is our core business
• Our total HRM approach, offering a single-source solution for HR leaders/managers
• Complementary, proprietary software products and solutions

Skills: NGA has strong e-HR capabilities, including our QuickStart templates. With SAP-HR consultants in every functional area, NGA has the entire skill set required to answer global HRIS requirements. Our resources will be carefully matched to a company’s requirements to ensure we will fully meet your needs.

References: We have more than 700 successful SAP-HR projects everywhere in the world. ARINSO is honored to have references from companies such as Exxon, Shell, Schlumberger, Renault, TetraPak, and Aventis Pasteur. Our latest wins clearly show that NGA is the ideal partner for an SAP HR project of any size. Among others we can mention are Hershey Foods, Abbott Labs, AIRBUS, SAPPI, and Unilever.

Commitment: Our consultants and management are fully committed to a quality execution of services. We will monitor progress regularly with the customer to ensure our services meet your requirements.

NorthgateArinso at a Glance

Founded: CMC (former Northgate IS) was founded 1969
Revenues: $1020.18 in 2009
Employees: +/- 8,000
Service lines (business processes, IT infrastructure, IT applications): HR Consulting, HR Technology, HR Outsourcing
Headquarters location: Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom
Global and Regional Delivery Centers:

• Americas: Jacksonville, Florida; Topsail, California; Cincinnati, Ohio; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Sao Paulo, Brazil;, Montreal, Canada
• EMEA: Granada, Spain; Budapest, Hungary; Katowice, Poland
• APAC: Dalian, China; Mumbai, India; Bangalore, India, Adelaide, Australia

For More Information

Telephone: (+44) 14 42 23 24 24
Fax: (+44) 14 42 25 64 54
E-mail: info@northgatearinso.com
www.northgatearinso.com

Certifications

• ISO9000 Certification
• ISO20000 Service Management
• ISO27001 Certification (formerly BS7799)
• ISO9001 Certification
• Subject to SAS70 type II audits on data-control, secured access and customer intimacy
• e-GIF
• IITT Gold Accreditation

Awards and Recognition

2010

• SAP Pinnacle Award winner for Business Process Outsourcing in 2010
• Most Innovative BPO Company of the Year in 2010, at the ICT Awards in Manila

2009

• Winner of HR Product of the Year 2009, awarded by HR Executive magazine
• HROA Award 2009 for Best Technology Relationship
• HROA Award 2009 for Thought leadership

2008

• SAP Pinnacle Award winner for Business Process Outsourcing in 2008
• Named “Major Outsourcer of the Year” by Institute of Payroll Professionals (IPP) (2007 & 2008)

2007

• “Enterprise HR Software 2007” award, presented for ResourceLink
• Winner of the 2007 UK Pensions Awards’ special 10th anniversary award in the category “10 Years of Excellence in Pensions Software”

2006

• SAP Pinnacle Award winner for Global Customer Satisfaction in 2006
• Management Today magazine awarded NorthgateArinso B”ritain’s most admired company for the Software and Computing market sector”

“As a result of NorthgateArinso’s Convergys HRM acquisition customers will have more services choices in more countries. They will also have their choice of technology, including an ERP system such as SAP or Oracle PeopleSoft, a NorthgateArinso system, such as its SAP-based euHReka platform, or a SaaS solution, with or without BPO.” Gary Bragar, NelsonHall

Case Studies

Read case studies on Airbus, Schneider Electric, Clariant, and other customers available in the download center on the NGA website: http://download.northgatearinso.com/