q1 market insight business change
TRANSCRIPT
www.badenochandclark.com
Market insightBusiness change
2015 Quarter 1
04 South East
06 Midlands
ContentsBusiness change
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Badenoch & Clark’s business transformation, projects and change team experienced an interesting year in 2014. The move from Q4 2014 to Q1 2015 marked a turning point as both the economy and level of confidence returned.
This shift has been particularly evident in the interim space, which has seen sustained growth in the requirement for business transformation specialists, together with a subtle change in the skills required of them. The driver for this appears to be a clear move away from ‘change for remedy ‘ towards ‘transformation for growth’.
Roles in demandA number of core themes are beginning to emerge, as evidenced by our regular dialogue with both candidates and clients. We have seen a steep increase in interim project & programme roles which require a “Communications” angle. Our clients are recognising (that in complex organisations) there is an increased need to communicate their messages around transformation properly. This is a niche cluster of people, and can prove difficult for clients to attract talent in these areas.
We have taken on an increasing number of assignments where we are retained to build projects and change teams from scratch. Using our internal consultancy expertise, we are able to advise and evidence experience of identifying skills gaps and key areas for our customers to recruit. Many clients are playing “catch up” from a delivery perspective versus strategy/vision.
Supply vs. demandChallenges in supply vs. demand lie most clearly in the PMO space. There is a huge drive (both permanent and interim) to recruit PMO professionals. There are more mid-tier jobs at £40k - £60k (permanent) which has created a vacuum in skills, with many candidates having multiple offers, ultimately driving up the average salary in this area.
The digital sector remains an area which consistently demands high quality interims. We identified this early last year and our dedicated digital/media team continue to progress with new clients that have come to us based on our knowledge of the best people available for such contracts. Retail / FMCG clients have featured more so in Q1 2015 than ever before. The key reason for this is due to an increased focus on aligning business or product teams with the overall strategy. Partnership was the most regularly used word last year and this looks to continue. Candidates with experience in brand-oriented organisations have seen greater success in the recruitment process. Rightly or wrongly this is down to the clients expectation that there will be a “softer landing” from a cultural perspective. This in turn has created a greater demand for sector-specific candidates which (when not readily available) has increased our time to hire.
South East
The digital sector remains an area which consistently demands high quality interims.
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Midlands
Several themes dominate the employment market at the moment. After several years of austerity, businesses are positioning themselves for rebound and this is visible in several key areas.
After redundancies and restructures at the start of the economic challenge, organisations are now keen to position themselves for growth and this means increasing their permanent bench strength.
The drive from above is that Businesses and managers are still under pressure to do more for less; so continuous improvement, efficiency drives and process improvement environments continue to drive organisations and recruitment.
Sector experience
In the financial services sectors, industry experience is vital. These organisations continue to recruit heavily, especially on regulatory and compliance projects and programmes, which continue to dominate this area.
The energy and utilities companies are also recruiting heavily; several of these organisations have restructured recently meaning that the market has benefited from an influx of highly skilled industry specialists. Industry regulation and competitive advantage like ‘smart metering’ continue the drive for recruitment across this sector.
Digital change
Digital transformation and improved accessibility is driving a large number of change projects at the moment. Aside from the technical skills required to drive change, many businesses are now splitting their IT Project divisions to reflect the distinction between IT related skills and more generic, people and process related change skills. This is often referred to in the industry as business projects/change, as opposed to technical or IT projects.
Traditionally, project & transformation roles have sat within IT (due to the nature of what’s driving the change). Now, many businesses are restructuring their project & programme delivery functions to ensure behavioural and process change in conjunction with technical change. This ensures better delivery, increased change management, and ensures the benefits of the project or programme are realised.
There is also competition from large shared service centres that have been set up across the region or are moving into the region - RAC, ATS, Adecco, DTZ, UTC, Rentokil, Severn Trent, Lafarge Tarmac, Deutsche bank, Lloyds and National Grid. These centres require huge efficiency and improvement drives, coupled with the people required to set up relocations of this scale.
Candidates with experience in agile project management are in higher demand but short supply, particularly those who are qualified. This is because these projects promote adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery and continuous improvement, and encourage rapid and flexible response to change. These skills are increasingly desirable for businesses that need to see results quickly.
Candidates with experience in agile
project management are in higher demand
but short supply, particularly those who
are qualified.
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© Badenoch & Clark 2014. All rights reserved. The information contained in this publication is intended for general purposes or guidance only. It does not purport to constitute professional advice. Badenoch & Clark accepts no liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein.
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