When ARM Consulting needed to update its processes for its multiple clients and suppliers, eploy stepped in with a web-based solution
The Challenge[Martin Grady]Martin Grady, Director, ARM Consulting[Chris Bogh]Chris Bogh, Technical director, eploy
Complementing the technical recruitment side of the ARM group of businesses, ARM Consulting offers a complete outsourced HR solution to clients, from recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) to managing the entire process in the capacity of a master vendor. ARM Consulting selects and maintains partnership agreements with other consultancies and manages the complex processes on behalf of the client.
One of the most important lessons to emerge from the project was the personal approach in our dealings with eploy. They're also good guys to work with. It's important that you're dealing with people who you can have a personal relationship with and understand your clients' needs very quickly.
Martin Grady, Director, ARM Consulting
The challenge faced by ARM Consulting was that its processes were by and large manual, with consultants dealing with CVs through spreadsheets, and the client and the partnership agencies were not able to access any part of the process remotely. Martin Grady, director of ARM Consulting, explained that the company needed to simplify the co-ordination of all the recruitment agencies and offer clients greater accessibility. "We had a tender process and it all happened pretty quickly," he told Recruiter. The winner of the tender was web-based recruitment software company eploy. Chris Bogh, eploy's technical director, said: "ARM Consulting needed a system for multiple clients, which was very feature-rich in terms of its recruitment needs."
Being a multi-client, multi-site master vendor, ARM Consulting also needed a system that could be added to for new clients who might come on board down the line. Bogh said: "When rolling out a multi-tenancy system it is a case of trying to customise it but also trying to make it 'future-proofed'. The system needs to be able to set up completely different processes for the client if needs be."
The Solution
Following the tendering process, ARM were pleased with their choice. "We chose eploy because it was very easy to deal with either onsite [at ARM Consulting's base] or on clients' sites," Grady explained. "It was simple to use - and looked good to use. The simplicity of the system was key." And the time element was also impressive. "It was about four to six weeks from the selection process to implementation," Grady said. Bogh was also keen to emphasise the speed. "It can normally take from four to 12 weeks to deliver the final spec, so we were very pleased," he added.
The result was all the more pleasing as the project was not without its challenges. Although the eploy system, which covers all areas including managing talent pools, agencies, applicant tracking systems (ATS) and other recruiting tools in one system, was "80% there", according to Bogh, it obviously had to be customised for ARM Consulting. "I think we were the first multi-site master vendor having different clients on different sites," Grady acknowledged.
As well as being multi-tenancy - managing several different clients - it also had to deal with around 15 different recruitment agencies, with the difficulties surrounding the handling of numerous CVs continually coming in. As Bogh explained: "Eploy is web-based, so it's easy to adapt to people's needs. We are always able to add vendor management capabilities to the system and tweak it for the needs of our clients."
The web-based system is also browser independent, which means as well as being available on both PC and Mac computers, it is also accessible from any mobile device from iPhones, smartphones, Blackberrys and Androids to any tablet device, making it ideal for clients on the move. "You also don't need any special apps," Bogh said, "as it's accessible through all these different channels."
Grady and his team were certainly impressed with the results. "The system gave us 98% of what we were looking for and then we've worked with eploy to fill in the rest," Grady said. "As for the suppliers it's easy for them to upload CVs - and as soon as a CV is uploaded, it's live."
Bogh has seen the benefits for ARM Consulting, as since its implementation, eploy has been customised to incorporate new clients that have come on board. "Eploy has saved ARM money and time, so they are able to handle more clients," he said. "Their old system was holding them back." Grady agreed, and emphasised: "It has enabled us to win more clients as it's freed up more of our people to do what they do best [find and manage the right people]. We now use it [eploy] as part of our pitch."
It was almost as if eploy took up ARM Consulting's website challenge: 'As someone responsible for how you deploy your firm's resources, you need a recruitment partner who listens before they speak, who takes a detailed brief, and whose solution is defined only by the specific challenge set before them. Challenge us.' It looks as if eploy more than lived up to that challenge.