The Benefits of standardising your Recruitment Agency on a Microsoft Dynamics platform
December 18, 2016 2:29 pmReduced Costs
By standardising on Microsoft technology we can help you leverage the knowledge and skill sets in your organisation. Training is reduced, maintenance and support is reduced. This is all before we look at the operational benefits, for example, time saved in producing Gross Margin or Return on Capital Employed analysis.
Increased Efficiency
Again, simply by implementing systems that are easy and familiar to use automatically provides efficiency gains. Data accuracy and integration means no more time wasted correcting errors and reconciling data between systems.
Reduced Risks
The scale of the Microsoft investment in its products and and in its partner channel means you can draw on a large community of skilled professionals to support your systems. This is one of the incentives to ensure that we provide excellent customer service; we know our customers have a choice, this means we need to be competitive as well as provide exemplary support. And we work together, as a team, as part of your team. There is no culture of blaming the “other” technology for any issues that may arise.Implementation Approaches
Big Bang
There is no requirement for an agency to implement both systems – the Big Bang approach – and it is unlikely that an organisation would deploy both systems as part of the same project as the impact on the business would be great so our advice would always be to phase. However, part of the proposition is that we can help agencies plan their IT strategy to achieve a fully integrated solution on an end-to-end Microsoft platform and therefore to realise all the associated benefits.
Implement Separately
The software is flexible, the approach even more so. You can implement front then back or back then front. You can implement as a hosted solution (Cloud) or on premise; or start as one then migrate to the other; or some and some. One of the many benefits of the Microsoft Dynamics platform is the flexibility of how you deploy and consume the systems.Bring CRM and ERP Together
The Microsoft Connector and other tools developed specifically for integrating Dynamics CRM with Dynamics ERP solutions mean that we can easily bring the front and back office together, even if your installation has been further developed.
Why a single Microsoft Dynamics vision?
Historically the recruitment industry has had three elements to their systems: front office (CRM), middle office (managing the payment of the workers and client invoicing, typically referred to as pay / bill) and a back office account system. Front office and middle office have been delivered by niche players who, like many industry specialists, deliver great functionality but less great technology and service levels as they just don’t have the R&D investment or resources available to companies such as Microsoft. Early entrants to the market have become well established by default, but are now struggling to adapt their product offerings to cloud for example; feedback from existing users suggest that they may also suffer from a poor reputation for performance, reliability and customer services.
Back office accounts tends to be an off the shelf package, ranging from Sun to Sage. Integration is poor, typically manual and reconciliation a continual battle. For most recruitment agency FD’s the question of how much time do you spend reconciling data to produce meaningful, reliable management reports is a painful one.
