May 12 2010
IMD International – How to achieve responsible procurement
The 5 Cs of Going Green – How to achieve responsible procurement. By Corey Billington : http://www.imd.ch/research/challenges/TC042-09.cfm
Apr 21 2010
HSZ MEDIA interview with Rolf Heeb: Moving forward after the great recession (II)
Rolf Heeb is founder and CEO of AIMS International – Germany, which has offices in Neuss/D?sseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich. In 2000, Mr. Heeb?s firm, IFM, became the German partner of AIMS International and in 2002 he became a board member of the organization and, later, regional head of the EMEA Region. He was appointed president of AIMS International in 2007. Today AIMS can be found in over 50 countries on five continents and it has more than 90 offices exceeding 350 consultants. In the following interview, Mr. Heeb discusses the AIMS global network and how the search industry will climb out from under the Great Recession.
Many of your competitors tell us that business in general was off 40 to 60 percent in 2009. Now that the numbers are in, what can you specifically tell us about last year? Just how bad was it?
The range between countries is very big. From less then 10 percent to up to 50 percent. Based on the numbers we have in so far it seems that we are overall off by 30 percent compared to 2008 for 2009.
Last month it was reported that the U.K.was also coming out of recession — was that a surprise to you that the U.K. would lag America and other parts of the world?
No, it was not a surprise to me. Since we have seen how our business in the U.K. developed over the last 18 months it would be a surprise to me if we would see a major positive change there within the next 12 months.
Financial services has clearly been the top producing sector for the recruiting market worldwide until the downturn. Is it coming back to life yet? Which parts? And where?
Financial services is already back but it is returning more slowly, as expected. This market segment always has been a major contributor to our business particularly in the financial centers of the world but also in emerging markets. Currently we see major international banks investing in people in remerging markets but it is much too early to talk about a trend.
What lasting impacts, both positive and negative, might this recession have on the recruiting business?
Additional services beside recruitment will be developed by more and more search firms. This might become a competitive advantage particularly against smaller, local search firms which are not able to provide these services.
Some of your colleagues have said that more clients are now looking at the whole talent management process as they plan to rehire workers. Do you see this?
Yes, we see this trend. Even in the recession clients invested in these processes.
Clients have told us that the downturn has provided an opportunity for headhunters to help improve their businesses. How?
We were involved in a number of cases where we helped clients to develop the preferred supplier concept but also in questions like centralization/decentralization of recruitment management.
Are there better ways of doing search, Rolf? Of working differently with, and for, clients?
I don’t’ know whether other ways will be better but there might be developments towards additional methodologies like market mapping, creating real top talent pools etc. These are not 100 percent new but they might become more and more important.
Where do you see this profession in five years — will it continue to move away from providing simple placements of workers to something more abstract like assessment and leadership development? We’ve all seen the move into these new areas but it has been slow to materialize. Is it in these areas and others where we might expect to see the primary growth to come?
Definitely there will be a trend towards additional services built into the search processes and/or as additional services but I see two groups of search firms going in different directions. One will develop these services with an international scope and a real service focus and others only occasionally developing it.
What are some new human resource management areas we might expect to see headhunters dive into in the coming years?
I would expect to see management audits and business coaching becoming services headhunters will dive into more and more. These services are not new to the market but they are new to a lot of headhunters.
Apr 14 2010
HSZ MEDIA interview with Rolf Heeb: Moving forward after the great recession (I)
Rolf Heeb is founder and CEO of AIMS International – Germany, which has offices in Neuss/D?sseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich. In 2000, Mr. Heeb?s firm, IFM, became the German partner of AIMS International and in 2002 he became a board member of the organization and, later, regional head of the EMEA Region. He was appointed president of AIMS International in 2007. Today AIMS can be found in over 50 countries on five continents and it has more than 90 offices exceeding 350 consultants. In the following interview, Mr. Heeb discusses the AIMS global network and how the search industry will climb out from.
You’ve returned recently from your global partners’ meeting in Prague — we’ve been told that ‘weathering the downturn’ was going to be on top of your agenda there. Tell us what was discussed and what did you learn?
The most important topics discussed were the different economic situations in the world and the effects on our offices and how we might position ourselves in 2010/2011. We see different situations in different countries. In some countries the business is already back to where it had been in 2007/2008. Some other countries are in the process of recovering and some are still suffering a lot. From a global perspective we decided already in July 2009 not to cut our global infrastructure but to make changes in the local offices where it was necessary. We have seen in the last couple of months that global companies are much more open to discuss global preferred supplier agreements at this time than ever before. They see those framework agreements as a chance to streamline their processes and become more efficient in their recruitment efforts on all levels.
What’s happening within your recruiting firm network as a result of this long and drawn out downturn? How, in fact, have your global partners weathered the storm around the world? And which markets are up and which are down at the moment?
Our cross boarder business is already improving and has been for some months. Therefore we are continuing our growth strategy. This means that we are adding new countries and new offices to our global network. The most difficult areas are still South America, some West European countries like the U.K., Spain and Portugal. Countries like India, China but also some Western European countries like Germany are on a positive track.
How has the recruiting landscape changed in Germany, the U.K., and other top world markets for your firm? What about among your overseas partners in other locales?
In a lot of markets several local or regional competitors disappeared and the international operating search firms have very heavily reduced their organizations. Local search firms which survived did have more and more competitive disadvantages because clients focused their remaining searches on less search firms. In some countries we were able to hire some of the best people who were on the market because of these developments. Since we also provide Talent Development Services in a lot of countries our partners had additional offerings to our clients. In some overseas regions like South America where business declined we also had to adjust our organization.
Are there ways to help find competitive advantage for clients as we come out of recession?
We have the impression that clients used the recession to focus their recruitment needs on less providers meaning that they negotiated worldwide or regional preferred supplier agreements. We have seen clients which did internal calculations showing major efficiency savings internally. The major focus was not fees paid to search firms but to make internal processes more efficient.
Speaking of coming out of recession, do you expect the downturn to last a bit longer — are you thinking perhaps halfway through 2010? Or beyond?
In most countries we see light at the end of the tunnel. In some countries it is brighter than in others. Our cross border business in the first three month of 2010 is more than double compared to 2009. That is a good sign that the second half of 2010 will be even better. Unfortunately there are some countries which will not profit from these developments in 2010, but I think it is safe to say we will see all regions improving with time.
Part 2 of the interview will follow on April 21st.
Mar 25 2010
AIMS International New Parter in Japan
Dear Clients, This is to inform you that we are happy to welcome our new partner in Japan.
Please find all relevant details here.
Axel Lieber
Managing Director
Landline: +81 (0)3-4550-2680
Mobile (global): +81 (0) 90 5325 4585
Skype: axel_lieber
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/axellieber
Find out more about us in Japan at www.progress.biz
Best of luck to Axel and his team and best success as members of AIMS International.
Mar 8 2010
Strategy of Innovation Leader's Summit – A Summary
AIMS Human Capital celebrated their 15th anniversary with the landmark event Strategy of Innovation held on February 22nd at Sheraton. The Leaders? Summit aimed at gathering forward thinking business people and supporting them with leading edge advice on how to handle challenges so that they discover new winning approaches that help them be competitive and grow dynamically. The special guest speaker, Mrs. Jill Hellman, who has traveled the world and worked with CEOs and other C-level executives of Fortune 100 companies, presented in an invigorating way 7 winning moves that according to in-depth studies proved to have the greatest impact when it comes to corporate innovation. More
