I recently had an in-depth conversation with a leading expert in the financial services industry about how large, well-established companies should react to the rise of the tech firms.
The expert shared several fascinating insights that every large corporation should consider, regardless of their industry.
Two comments, in particular, stood out:
- Innovate quickly: The highly ambitious tech companies are well-funded, extremely nimble, and are chipping away at market share. Well-established firms can no longer rely on old product lines for future performance so they must innovate quickly which is not part of their DNA.
- The workforce is evolving: Top university graduates used to aim for a career in the biggest companies or in consulting. The reputational damage suffered by many companies after various crises has turned young talent away from established companies and, instead, towards the fast-moving world of tech and entrepreneurship.
Large companies must use the collective power of their employees in a much more clever way if they want to survive the upcoming tech upheaval.
One HR software business is helping these large companies do just that with its single view of everything in one place: skills, experience, accreditations, preferences, goals, feedback and more – meet Adepto and its Total Talent solution.
Before we dive into the discussion, I recommend that you visit Adepto’s website. The site has a lot of useful talent management information but, also, the background video on the home page will make you smile!
Adepto – A Cutting-Edge Talent Management Platform
I recently spoke with Chris Milligan, CEO at Adepto, to learn more about their business and about the talent management platform itself.
Let’s hand things over to Chris. . .
What does Adepto do? Who are your ideal customers?
The world of work has changed.
Organisations need to adjust from a traditional to a dynamic workforce.
Adepto’s technology enables this, by helping organisations to build a Total Talent community of all worker types including internal full-time, contractors, freelancers, vendors and everything in-between.
We put people at the centre, not the process, enabling organisations to focus on the work or project that has to get done – not someone’s employment status.
Our SaaS product is a distributed HR platform that enables organisations and their managers to better build, find, organise, and mobilise agile teams while cutting costs of recruitment and workforce management.
Through Adepto, organisations get complete visibility over their Total Talent with everything in one place: skills, experience, qualifications and ambitions. Helping them put the best people on the right jobs – building the workplace of the future.
We work with many organisations across a wide range of industries, from professional services to engineering and Government institutions.
Our vision is for Adepto to be used by all organisations, in all sectors, creating a single solution for all Total Talent management.
What are the typical outcomes companies get when they use the Adepto platform?
Once the Adepto platform has been set up and launched, clients have a single view of all the talent available, internal and external; past, present and future.
Clients have a single view of all the talent available, internal and external; past, present and future.
This has benefits for their resourcing, project management, recruitment and procurement – also improving retention, internal mobility, diversity, flexible working and even re-skilling / up-skilling.
Ultimately, using Adepto allows organisations to become much more agile and competitive – and be able to respond to changing markets and globalisation. They can better serve client needs and attract more new business.
Adepto allows organisations to become much more agile and competitive.
Marketing agency Article Ten, for example, uses Adepto’s platform to manage its freelance resources more effectively.
The team can take on new projects more quickly, without associated fixed costs rising.
The company can also pitch for new business, assured that a freelance resource is available on-demand.
AECOM uses Adepto to power its contingent network.
Through Adepto, AECOM is building its employer brand by engaging with its contractors.
This network of high-quality external talent caters for the increasing variability of AECOM’s workload, helping it adapt to upturns and downturns in the market.
Since implementation, the Adepto platform has onboarded over 60 hiring managers and 700 contractors.
How did you get your first few customers?
Adepto’s early customers were and still are innovators and early adopters, recognising that existing systems/processes in their organisations weren’t keeping up with the business pace of change.
By investing in the journey towards Total Talent, our customers partner with us over the long term, shaping how the Adepto platform develops.
What are your main marketing channels for getting new customers now?
Adepto uses many different channels to fulfil its marketing objectives of educating the market about the Adepto meaning of Total Talent.
We do a lot of education through articles published in industry publications and speaking at events.
Complementing this is our social media presence, a newly revamped website and other digital marketing activities.
Our partner network also provides us with marketing and sales opportunities.
The HR industry continues to evolve at a rapid rate. What change and challenges do you see now and in the future?
HR faces some monumental changes and challenges as automation, digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI) gathers steam.
There is a huge need for HR to become more data-driven, which will require new skills within the department.
HR practitioners must upskill in digital and data skills, and develop a culture of continuous learning. This will enable them to realise the opportunities offered by new technology like Adepto, whilst avoiding gimmicky or redundant solutions.
Any tips on interesting people, websites, tools, podcasts, or books that HR businesses should check out to grow faster?
Some of the people that HR professionals should keep up-to-date with are Josh Bersin and David Green.
Also, look at myHRfuture.com that covers a lot of emerging HRtech developments and debunks some myths.
As for books, the Power of People by Jonathan Ferrar is a good read to understand people analytics in more detail.
Data-Driven HR by Bernard Marr is also recommended as an introduction to becoming more skilled in using data and recognising its use cases.
