I was privileged to be able to write some of the first outsourcing software linking finance, payroll, administration and management information for the recruitment industry more than a decade ago and be involved in recruitment operations and financing for 15 years. I have been delighted to see how this business sector has blossomed.
Since that time but certainly in the last few years since recruitment has boomed and we Brits have become more aware of the benefits of outsourcing, a proliferation of companies providing various levels of funding and administrative support for the temp funding and payroll processing conundrum have appeared in the market.
Clearly amongst those companies are some that have excellent financial pedigrees. some with proven track records and some with a real service focus. I believe that making the case for outsourcing is being done very well by many of them.
The messages given to the sector however can seem to be a little confusing and it is no surprise, to me at least, that confusion reigns. Messages include ìflexibilityî when anyone who has been involved in PAYE knows that not flexibility but accuracy is the only option if temp pay, tax and NI is to be correct; and that ìquality costs moreî when any quality manager will confirm that the costly gold pen which fails to write smoothly, will be lower quality than the cheaper plastic BIC which does a good job!
Reading a recent industry finance publication, I noted that recruiters could buy ìfactoringî or ìinvoice discountingî ìcompleteî or ìtailored servicesì outsourcingî and ìcontrol through shareholdingî, ìflexibilityî, ìhigh qualityî and/or perhaps ìreduced costsî and ì80%î, ì90%î ì100%î ìcash flowî and ìpayrollî. Unless you know whatís needed it can be confusing and I want to keep it simple.
The management guru Tom Peters (whom I probably paraphrase) almost said it all on the outsourcing front when he challenged companies to ask of their internal departments ìAre we good enough to sell this service on the open market? If the answer is ìNoî then the next question has to be why are we buying this service from ourselves when no one else would buy it from us?î
I also like the more rhetorical question for non-catering companies who say they donít understand outsourcing, ìThen why do we hire caterers?î Anon.
If you accept outsourcing as a concept (and everyone in recruitment should) then you just need to understand the basics.
The basics in recruitment are that all start ups and existing temp agencies clearly have need to concentrate on their exciting core sales activities and for accurate, reliable cost effective temp payroll and cash administration to be done simply.
The market is about to pick up. We believe it will welcome clear and simple deals. No surprises then that my company is launching Cash Simply with the new tax year.
If you are a consultant wanting to find out how to start your own business quickly and simply or an existing agency wishing for cost effective outsourcing and cash , give us a call on
0870 1567600 or visit our web site at www.cashsimply.com because the recruitment business is complicated enough.
David Thornhill. Managing Director.
In business, if Cash is King then Simplicity is everything else
.