OrderWork wages war on IT skills crisis in the UK

OrderWork, the trading website for IT skills, has announced the successful recruitment of over 1,000 vetted IT firms as suppliers. An additional 400 suppliers are registered on its sister website, Skills Finder which is run in partnership with Microsoft. Since its launch last summer, OrderWork has grown exponentially to trade over 1500 jobs per month.

OrderWorkís flexible proposition challenges the traditional outsourcing approach, which has often been viewed as an expensive and inefficient solution requiring long periods of commitment. The website allows skills to be traded on a job-by-job basis rather than for a set period of time. When demand for IT skills peaks, the íbuyerí can call upon a wide base of specialists, while in quieter times no longer suffers from over-capacity.

OrderWorkís supplier network now provides rapid UK coverage even in hard-to-reach areas such as the Highlands and Islands. This offers IT firms a cost effective way to deliver nationwide service as opposed to scaling up with expensive and far-flung in-house engineers. Instead the call out becomes a routine, inexpensive job for a local supplier that represents the company. Suppliers are vetted and every job is rated to assure high quality of work

OrderWork enables us to maintain the high levels of after sales service demanded by consumers and small businesses in todayís fast moving world, said Peter Northwood, Service Development Director, DSGi (Dixons Stores Group). We are excited to work with OrderWork because we can augment our permanent teams with expert, local, vetted suppliers to serve our customers right across the UK.

We have been a registered supplier on OrderWorkís website for the last 6 months and so far have completed 57 jobs, ranging from small scale upgrades to more complex installations, said Alan Surry from Thurrock PC Services With around 70% of our resources being used at any one time, OrderWork offers us a new revenue stream by allowing us to share our additional capacity with those who need it.

OrderWork was founded by two entrepreneurs, Neil Bradford and Toby Strauss and is being used by businesses of all sizes across the UK. In addition to its partnership with Microsoft, the company this month announced a deal with DSGi (Dixons Stores Group International), who will use OrderWork to source IT skills to serve its customers.

Since setting out last summer we have seen a steadily rising number of jobs matched per month, said Neil Bradford, chief executive officer of OrderWork. We are dispelling the myth that outsourcing is a clumsy option and are challenging the notion that there is a skills crisis in the UK at all. There is likely to be someone out there with the skills to suit, in the right location ñ itís just a question of finding them.