discover better executive search software Included in this booklet are case studies from a selection of customers who have all recently moved from FileFinder to Invenias. Read on to find out more about the positive impact Invenias has had on their business and their ability to serve their clients.
Norman Broadbent
Sheffield Haworth
The Mulsanne Partnership
Highfield Human Solutions
Daubenspeck & Associates
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www.invenias.com LONDON | READING | NEW YORK | KUALA LUMPUR | SYDNEY
The Re-branded Recruit as they prepare x Headquartered in the UK
with an extensive international footprint
x Over 30 years experience
of placing people in key positions
x AESC Member Firm x A company committed to
equality: CEO Sue O’Brien awarded an OBE for services to Gender Equality in January 2014
x Practice areas include;
Consumer, Private Equity, Financial Services, Energy & Natural Resources, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Leisure & Travel, Retail, Professional Services, Technology, Media & Telecoms
Norman Broadbent’s CEO talks about turning around the brand, recruiting new people and embracing technology. Today, and for decades, Norman Broadbent has been renowned and respected for the insight offered by its employees. However, five years ago this was not the case. In 2008, as current CEO Sue O’Brien says, the business had lost its way; “it had been shrunk to a core team that was still delivering excellent work for a very minimal number of clients, and therefore should really have been a standalone partnership.” Seeing an opportunity, Garner acquired the company to re-launch it as a PLC. O’Brien says: “The strategy behind acquiring the business was largely around wanting to get a brand that had good recognition at board level, it had a very fond remembrance in the minds of executives that had either been placed by the organisation or had indeed enjoyed some of the insights, skills and advice that the people within the business had delivered in its heyday which would’ve been probably 15 years earlier.” Having got the name, O’Brien and her team went about turning it round, to have it seen, once again, as a contender; “hiring was interesting. There were a number of people in the first year that would never dream of working with us because they felt it was a tired brand. Within a 12-to-24-month period most of those people were saying “can I come and have a coffee?” So the ability to really turn around the brand and create it as a challenger worked exceptionally well, but we are probably just as fussy about who we hire for ourselves as we are about who we help clients hire.” Having put the Norman Broadbent name back on the map and brought in a highly regarded team Sue and the company could focus on the tools they use. And as they started to look for international growth, executive search software provider, Invenias, allowed the company to guarantee all its offices would be kept in the loop, regardless of location.
Sue O’Brien OBE CEO
www.normanbroadbent.com
“One of the things that was important when we started to look at Invenias, as we were going through international growth I wanted a real time system that was cloud based, so if we were going to open in a new location, or if we were going to look at agile working, and home working it would be something that we could look at doing very easily. “That was absolutely key for us because we were going to be working on the same clients, across a number of geographies with a number of offices, if you work in a silo, you don’t need that, we don’t work in silos so we need the real time info, so for Norman Broadbent it was crucial.” “It’s an additional tool we use that gives us an edge, if you look at the US, if we’re in the west coast in LA, if you look at the time difference, I couldn’t have
ter can rely on Invenias e for the future a system that didn’t have a live update, if they’re addressing stuff overnight, when I wake up the next morning and they’re in bed, I could accidentally phone the same candidate about something else if we didn’t have a live system so if you have a global business that operates the way we do you need to have that coverage. O’Brien says as well as helping with the company’s geographical reach, it has also proved to be effective for multiple parts of the business. “The beauty about the Invenias system is you can utilise it for the executive search model where it’s all about the intensity and insight of one individual, but then it can equally be as efficient for Arcus Global Partners (a Norman Broadbent sister company) which is actually about a broad, generic database, of a number of people but similarity of data.” And, perhaps most importantly, Invenias has also allowed the company to be prepared for the future. With a world that is only becoming more reliant on technology, Invenias has helped Norman Broadbent prepare for changes in the market rather than find a solution after a change has occurred.
“As we were going through international growth I wanted a real time system that was cloud based.”
“There are a swathe of board executives that are probably much more technologically savvy than they ever expected to be five or ten years ago. For me, in leading a business you have to anticipate the market. Not react to it.”
“That’s why Invenias, for me, meant anticipating what the market would move to at a point when most others were saying the digital life will never permeate in the executive search world, that’s nonsense.” “I run a business that is in executive search, I need to make sure that I’ve got a digital answer to my business irrespective of a traditional view of what we do for a living.” This article is taken from HR Grapevine | October 2013
x Designed for executive
search firms, specialist recruitment companies and enterprise recruitment organizations
x Enabling effective delivery
of assignments, stronger relationships with clients and candidates and transformation of the productivity of search operations
x Easy to use cloud-based
desktop and mobile applications
x Invenias serves thousands
of users in over thirty countries across the globe
www.invenias.com
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Invenias Solution allow Search for Talent x Founded in London in
1993
x 10 international offices in
global financial centres
x 120 professionals across
Europe, USA & Asia Pacific
x AESC member firm x Ranked number 1 for UK
specialist firms 2012/2013 by Executive Grapevine
x Focus on the global
financial services industry across all sectors
Sheffield Haworth talk about implementing the right technology to support a growing international business Sheffield Haworth is a leading global executive search, interim management and human capital advisory company. The firm focuses on the global financial services industry across all sectors and is ranked by Executive Grapevine in the UK as number one for specialist executive search firms for 2012/2013. With more than 120 professionals across ten international offices, Sheffield Haworth is a truly international company operating in all the major financial centres in Europe, the USA and Asia Pacific. As such, the key requirement for its technology platform is to allow consultants access to reliable, consistent data in real time, wherever they are based in the world. Sheffield Haworth felt their existing recruitment database no longer supported their global business and aggressive growth plan. They found that users were frustrated by the lack of technological development and were looking for a platform that supported the way that they wanted to work, whether it be in the office or on the move.
Having carried out a comprehensive review of the software currently on the market, Sheffield Haworth concluded that Invenias was their preferred solution, meeting the specific criteria they had set.
JJacquii Hancock H k
Group Chief Administrative Officer
“We were looking for a cloud-based solution, we’d had nearly 20 years of using legacy software and with that you get an inevitable decline in usefulness as your hardware gets older and then needs to be replaced – something that isn’t an issue with a cloud-based system,” says Richard Watson, Group IT Director. But it wasn’t just the cloud-based nature of Invenias that has convinced Watson. “The big selling point for Invenias is the way that it sits within Outlook,” he continued. “Everything else that we looked at was either browser- based or worked as a separate app or program. Invenias is a very natural work flow because what do you do when you first switch on your PC in the morning? You open up Outlook and check your email and as part of that, with Invenias, your database opens automatically so it’s just a more simplified work flow and a more natural way of working.” Furthermore, Sheffield Haworth found that even though the software works straight out of the box, Invenias was flexible enough to allow them to tailor the software to reflect the way that they work.
Richard i h d Watson Group IT Director
www.sheffieldhaworth.com
“We selected Invenias not only because of the quality of their product, but because they are constantly looking to innovate and adapt, meaning that we can be confident that we will have the best technology underpinning our business both now and in the future,” said Jacqui Hancock, Group Chief Administrative Officer.
ws Sheffield Haworth to Across the World “An example of this was responding to our requirement to support a large International workforce with a platform that offered fast and consistent performance across the world through the development of their Global Synchronisation Technology. This allows Invenias to run synchronised copies of our database in cloud data centres across America, Europe and Hong Kong, providing our users with a responsive and shared platform wherever they are working which allows us to operate as a truly global team. “ Watson commented: “It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, you get a quick connection to their data centre and you also get live data from your colleagues ten time zones away.” This fits in with Sheffield Haworth’s aim of shaping the future of the search industry by investing in a mobile, cloud-based solution. “Our consultants need access to consistent, accurate data. With Invenias, they can now be confident that our data is synchronised in real time across the globe, and that it is always accessible from their desktop or mobile device,” said Watson. A key benefit of implementing the system has been the ease of use and quick rate of adoption across the firm. “The initial feedback is that the users are enjoying the experience and finding, certainly the tracking of email and therefore the search process a lot easier,” said Hancock.
All of this has met with the approval of Mike Hammond, the Group’s Managing Director. He said: “Our extensive client base in the financial services industry continues to strive to employ the best talent, both regionally and globally. “In order to increase our international reach across key geographic markets, we require the best technology available in the marketplace to facilitate our strategic growth plans. We look forward to Invenias providing the technology platform to further that growth.” This article is taken from HR Grapevine | June 2014
“It doesn’t matter where you are in the world or what device you are working on, you always get a quick connection to their data centre.”
x Designed for executive
search firms, specialist recruitment companies and enterprise recruitment organizations
x Enabling effective delivery
of assignments, stronger relationships with clients and candidates and transformation of the productivity of search operations
x Easy to use cloud-based
desktop and mobile applications
x Invenias serves thousands
of users in over thirty countries across the globe
www.invenias.com
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Investing in the Late Invenias to Suppor x Founded in 2006 by Adam
Saunders and Anthony Barry
x Boutique Executive Search
Firm
x Focus on International
Financial Services and Technology markets
x Provider of market-
leading data analytics, solutions and consultancy services
The Mulsanne Partnership discuss the importance of investing in the latest technology. Formed in 2006, The Mulsanne Partnership is a boutique executive search firm focusing on the international Financial Services and Technology markets. Priding themselves on the ability to provide clients with an executive search service that is underpinned with market leading data, it is absolutely key that there is a reliable technology platform in place that allows access to data in real-time, from anywhere in the world. The efficient recording and retrieval of accurate data is therefore incredibly important to Mulsanne and, as such, they felt that their existing search database wasn’t able to meet their developing requirements. When the company decided it was time to invest in new software, they carried out a comprehensive review of the available options. Adam Saunders, Founding Partner, said: “We spent a lot of time looking for the right partner, which is not as easy as it sounds. “This is because a lot of these software firms cater very broadly for recruitment and so much of the functionality tends to be surplus for us. Finding a system which moves quickly and doesn’t tie you up in administrative or repetitive functions, and is also largely focused on the pieces of data you need to store – and get access to quickly – was key.” Mulsanne drew up a detailed list of requirements and received presentations from several firms. They felt Invenias stood out because the product looked like a sleek and intuitive tool, designed to fit into the changeable landscape of financial services and executive search. Saunders said:
“Many of the other solutions seemed to be built on foundations of older platforms and lacked the simple elegance of Invenias.” Adam Saunders Founding Partner
mulsannepartnership.com
“The Invenias team which presented to us gave the impression that they genuinely understood the application of data in today’s market and, crucially, our use of that data in servicing our clients. Additionally, you want to know that you’re paired with a company where their ambitions and growth plans can sustainably support the growth of your own business.” “We’ve chosen the Invenias cloud-based solution so we can work off our smartphones and iPads. We’re able to access all of our data whenever we need it and we can add real-time data to the system from our devices too.”
est Technology from rt Business Growth Mulsanne has been using the Invenias software since mid-2014 and is very impressed. “It has been a hugely positive experience already. I don’t think there’s been a single person who hasn’t said that we have leapt forward noticeably from where we were with our previous system to where we are now with Invenias.” “The benefits have also been obvious to me on a number of occasions when I’ve been out with clients or with candidates where I’ve been able to get hold of whatever information I want at the time. The speed and convenience of this data retrieval is immeasurably valuable.”
Saunders is convinced that it is the in-depth working knowledge of the industry that makes Invenias excel in the executive search market. “There is no point talking to a supplier that doesn’t understand your industry and these guys do; they get it. We’ve recently added a number of areas to our business; the fact that we’re growing and our needs are changing was an important factor in our decision. The ability that Invenias has shown to effortlessly support this growth is another big tick in the box.”
“There is no point talking to a supplier that doesn’t understand your industry and these guys do; they get it.”
Mulsanne is a provider of market-leading data analytics, solutions and consultancy services, with an international search practice. In Financial Services, Mulsanne specialises in all asset classes and products within securities, investment banking, wealth and asset management globally, covering institutions from Tier 1 investment banks to smaller buy-side houses. In Technology, Mulsanne’s expertise focuses on the Financial Technology space. This article is taken from Recruitment Grapevine | October 2014
x Designed for executive
search firms, specialist recruitment companies and enterprise recruitment organizations
x Enabling effective delivery
of assignments, stronger relationships with clients and candidates and transformation of the productivity of search operations
x Easy to use cloud-based
desktop and mobile applications
x Invenias serves thousands
of users in over thirty countries across the globe
www.invenias.com
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Invenias offers Reduced Costs an x Founded in 1983 x Ownership acquired by
Sherilyn Shackell in 2001
x Executive search and talent
management services on a global scale
Sherilyn Shackell hesitated when she first considered switching to a new search software provider. Now she sees reduced overheads, better productivity…and regrets not making the leap sooner.
x Based in the United
When you’re a long-standing, legacy client of an executive search software system, says Sherilyn Shackell, CEO of Highfield Human Solutions, you tend to be willing to pilot a large number of upgrades and development features aimed at better aligning technology with people.
x AESC Member Firm
Yet, over time, and over the course of multiple system changes, patches and technical work-arounds, she recalls, it’s easy for a firm to amass a rather large number of candidate and client records and a sense of being beholden to the legacy system, even as using it becomes more burdensome to the researchers and consultants it’s supposed to serve.
Kingdom, with global reach through membership of IMD International Search Group
x Practice focus is on
Consumer, Technology and Service Sectors
“We had our old system for so long that there was such a huge amount of legacy data on there,” Shackell recalls. “It almost became too scary a proposition to make a change. We conjured a lot of reasons why we’d face lots of headaches from migrating it all to a new software platform.” So that’s why Shackell hesitated when her Personal Assistant (PA) first approached her about Invenias, despite the fact that the firm’s legacy software had become a real problem rather than a solution. “Our previous software system was so over-engineered that it was causing us more problems because it had been adapted over and over and over again for decades,” Shackell recalls. Faced with the reality that her firm’s software was becoming an obstacle, and pressed ever more diligently by her PA, who had begun using Invenias for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with great effect to support Shackell’s other business concern, The Marketing Academy, she at last relented.
Sherilyn Sh il Shackell Sh k ll CEO
www.highfielduk.co.uk
“My PA, who is very heavily involved in our search firm, loved it. She was canvassing to move Highfield over to Invenias, and in the end, I just gave in,” Shackell says with a grin. The result? “It’s been brilliant,” Shackell says. “Invenias is transformational. Because of its ease of use, we were immediately able to redeploy our internal resources. The net outcome was that we were able to save one full-time head in research and one in administration and apply their skills to other tasks.” Shackell says she was surprised to learn that an executive search software platform could have such an impact – not only on the search process and how her team works – but also on her firm’s bottom line.
s a Pathway to nd Higher Profits “Invenias is money saving from an administration basis. The reporting is much more intuitive, much quicker. The integration with web applications is huge. The researchers would say the most transformational impact has been the ease of pulling information from other sources,” Shackell observes. “Another benefit is that the time it takes us to execute an assignment has sped up by 20-25 percent,” she adds. “That’s not just measured in research time, but also in our search consultants’ time because they can communicate more quickly and update our records to report on conversations more easily.” What’s more, she adds: “We found Invenias so intuitive that the learning curve was really fast – the new way of doing things – we were able to use it within a day because of the intuitive nature of the system. My fear was that we’d have months of pain making the change. I can look back and with the marvellous clarity of hindsight recognize that I sat on the fence too long and that cost me a lot of money.” Looking back, Shackell says, she recalls making a really radical decision that, at the time, seemed daunting, but with the benefit of hindsight, was a natural extension of her commitment to sign with Invenias.
“Invenias directly links to profitability. It has certainly improved the profitability of our firm.”
“We simply chose not to migrate our old data. That data had grown so old because our consultants weren’t updating it with our previous software, so 95 percent of it was just dead,” Shackell recalls. “So we kept the data on the legacy system’s server for a year, but we learned it wasn’t touched in about eight months, so we left it entirely.” “We do no manual input now because everything is just done automatically through the integration with Outlook, so there’s no duplication of anything – that was not the case with our previous search software,” Shackell says.
The Highfield CEO says she and her team have a much better view about the impact the right technology and user interface can have on team performance and business results. “Invenias directly links to profitability. It has certainly improved the profitability of our firm. I hesitated for two and a half years. The only regret I have is not making that decision years sooner than I did. I’d have had two and a half years’ of higher profits. Invenias pays for itself in spades.”
Shackell adds: “The biggest competitor Invenias has is apathy. If Invenias is head to head with any other system, the product will speak for itself. But it’s the inaction – that’s where I was – that will cost search firm owners if they’re not willing to try something new, something they’ll quickly learn is much better.”
“We found Invenias so intuitive that the learning curve was really fast… we were able to use it within a day because of the intuitive nature of the system.”
x Designed for executive
search firms, specialist recruitment companies and enterprise recruitment organizations
x Enabling effective delivery
of assignments, stronger relationships with clients and candidates and transformation of the productivity of search operations
x Easy to use cloud-based
desktop and mobile applications
x Invenias serves thousands
of users in over thirty countries across the globe
www.invenias.com
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Intuitive Search Softwar Consultants to x Executive search services
Chicago-based Ken Daubenspeck says technology should work around search team needs, not the other way around.
x Based in Chicago
Ken Daubenspeck has been a fixture in the Chicago executive search market for more than 30 years, and his firm, Daubenspeck And Associates, Ltd., is part of the IMD International Search Group and a member firm of the AESC.
x Founded in 1982 by Ken
Daubenspeck
on a regional, national and international level
x AESC member firm x Member of the IMD
International Search Group
x Industries include:
financial services, energy, human resources, information technology, manufacturing, professional services, finance and accounting
Daubenspeck has built a reputation for bringing a unique brand of retained recruitment to clients across all industries and leadership functions. “We’re particularly grounded in the psychology of the search and the human elements involved for clients and candidates,” he says. “Our philosophy of executive search is that each of these human elements have to align in order to make the search a success and the recruited executive a success in his or her new enterprise.” Daubenspeck says access to information has leveled the playing field for firms that engage with clients in multiple industries, enabling generalists to compete more consistently with specialized retained firms. Rather than focus too much on any one industry space, Daubenspeck shares, his team would rather engage more deeply with clients to uncover all the issues that might impact the assignment or a recruited executive’s performance in a new role. “We get to the right candidates, they call us back, and they come to trust us so we can help them decide on the opportunity,” he says. The human dynamics are so critical they require the most focus, says Daubenspeck. It is precisely because of the firm’s intense focus on the human variables related to each new search assignment that Daubenspeck and his team of search professionals gained an appreciation for how their process could be impacted by the software used to manage candidates and clients alike.
Ken Daubenspeck President & Founder
www.daubenspeck.com
Daubenspeck says his firm struggled for too long with a search software platform that required its users to think and behave differently in order to make good use of its features. The system his firm used for several years proved especially rigid. It was cumbersome to use and not responsive. What’s more, it was also very expensive to manage, particularly when modifications were needed. It was not unusual to spend thousands on relatively small changes the firm felt would make material improvements to its operating systems. “We actually lost a recruiter because we required their use of a search software system that didn’t make it easy to input and manage data. It caused that person’s work day to be far more stressful and less productive than it needed to be,” Daubenspeck says. “I know several other search firms with the same system but they just don’t use it because it requires conformity to the developer’s assumptions and process rather than any synchronicity with how we conduct searches.”
re from Invenias enables o take the Lead So Daubenspeck’s firm was essentially left without a reliable software system for nearly five months. It reverted to using Excel and private files on team members’ personal computers. Flash-forward to today, and Daubenspeck says he’s had no formal training with Invenias. The beauty of it, he says, is that Invenias is so intuitive and supportive of search consultants’ current work routines, formal training hasn’t been necessary. “Seldom do you find a software product that is everything it is marketed to be. Invenias is one of those rare software providers who have created a true solution. Rather than requiring the consultant to be a slave to the system, Invenias is an intuitive product that enables us to do our job better,” Daubenspeck shares. “Invenias is very intuitive to use,” he says. “It mirrors how an executive search firm thinks and how the process works. The difference with Invenias is that it works around our information capture and management needs, not the other way around.”
“Rather than requiring the consultant to be a slave to the system, Invenias is an intuitive product that enables us to do our job better.”
Daubenspeck, whose team went live with Invenias in October 2013, says he and his team have gained a whole new appreciation for how simplicity and an intuitive user interface actually invites use by researchers and consultants – thereby paving the way for improved productivity, communication and collaboration across the firm. “Invenias has really stabilized our process. Our people have it open all the time because it synchs with what people are doing and what they’re doing with data,” Daubenspeck says. “It’s simple to use and fully integrated within Microsoft Outlook, and because it’s also integrated with the web, we don’t have to leave Invenias while we’re working, so you have the continuity and seamless experience you’re looking for when you want to keep your focus on clients and assignments – whether you’re in the office or working from a mobile device on the go. I would recommend Invenias to anyone without reservation.”
x Designed for executive
search firms, specialist recruitment companies and enterprise recruitment organizations
x Enabling effective delivery
of assignments, stronger relationships with clients and candidates and transformation of the productivity of search operations
x Easy to use cloud-based
desktop and mobile applications
x Invenias serves thousands
of users in over thirty countries across the globe
www.invenias.com
LONDON | READING | NEW YORK | KUALA LUMPUR | SYDNEY
discover better executive search software
For more information about Invenias or to book a demonstration of the Invenias solution for executive search and strategic recruitment, please visit
www.invenias.com
Designed for executive
search firms, specialist recruitment companies and enterprise recruitment organizations
Enabling effective delivery
of assignments, stronger relationships with clients and candidates and transformation of the productivity of search operations
Easy to use cloud-based
desktop and mobile applications
Invenias serves thousands
of users in over thirty countries across the globe
www.invenias.com LONDON | READING | NEW YORK | KUALA LUMPUR | SYDNEY