112. Partnership as a growth strategy

Dear Erik,

We have an identical method for development. We first try out new concepts ourselves and, if these are viable, we roll them out within the organization. The new influx of staff is educated internally by a mentor, usually starts at a junior level and has a career path to Managing Consultant/Branch Manager, CEO and the possibility to become a partner.We also planned to expand internationally in this way. Ambitious and successful recruitment consultants from Slovakia and Romania were offered Country Management positions in countries where we wanted to set up a new business. We failed in nearly all the countries where we did this. How ever well our colleagues did as a recruiter or sales manager in their own country, they all failed miserably when they became Country Manager. The reason for this was a mixture of a lack of knowledge, experience and guidance.

But we still want to grow internationally. The reason for this desire is that many of our customers are only willing to work with a few selected agencies across Central and Eastern Europe, so we need to be operational in these countries. I also see it as risk diversification.

So it is not possible to grow by starting from scratch in new countries: I no longer cherish this illusion. It is expensive, takes time and brings an enormous amount of risk with it. And as has been shown, it is a process that we do not control.

We are currently applying a number of growth strategies: buying specialist recruiters: in the Czech Republic such as GIT Consult Czech SRO – a specialist IT recruiter with a turnover of almost 2 million euro and a team of 8 people. This is a very good company, which makes a very good match with our corporate culture. In Slovakia and Romania, we are growing organically and the most recent step for further growth that we have taken is to leave the running of the business to our management teams. In the Netherlands, we are growing through partnerships with other agencies and partly by the outsourcing of sales activities to independent agents (if we can fill all our temp vacancies, we can achieve a turnover increase of 250% in 2015). In the UK, we are looking for a strong partner to join us on the UK market, probably in the form of a joint venture.

Central to all of these growth strategies is ‘partnership’. Share to multiply, leverage the knowledge and efforts of like-minded people. Work with partners who control the business in certain areas so you strengthen and complement each other.

I am very curious what this year will bring us. It is certain to be very exciting.

Sincerely,
Gerard