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CEO, Rishabh Mehrotra, on How Avionté is Revolutionizing the Industry with Platform Staffing Technology
42 Plays1 year ago
Avionté, a recognized leader in staffing technology, has recently unveiled its groundbreaking vision with the launch of a complete, end-to-end staffing platform. This innovative strategy began with the acquisition of WorkN's mobile talent solution, seamlessly integrating the company’s robust ATS with a comprehensive mobile talent app. With the addition of SimpleVMS in 2023, Avionté has solidified its position by establishing a seamless integration from VMS to ATS and mobile, digitizing the entire workflow to support the whole staffing ecosystem – from employers to agencies to talent, and back.
But platform staffing isn't new, and its adoption has sparked controversy within the industry. Early "talent platforms" faced criticism for their perceived lack of quality and service, often bypassing staffing agencies. Avionté, however, takes a different approach, marrying the high scalability of talent platforms with the human touch of traditional models, effectively placing the recruiter at the center of its platform.
Join Dan Mori, Managing Partner of the National Independent Staffing Association (NISA) and Staffing Mastery, as he sits down with Avionté CEO, Rishabh Mehrotra, to explore how the company is pioneering platform staffing while upholding quality, compliance, and value – and why this approach is poised to revolutionize the industry!
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Transcript
Platform Staffing Growth and Economic Impact
00:00:00
Speaker
Staffing industry analysts have recently stated that platform is actually growing at a remarkable 58% per year, which significantly outpaces traditional staffing firms, especially with some of the recent economic volatility. But for people like me and my peers in the industry that have been around long enough, we recognize the word platform as
00:00:23
Speaker
A controversial word. I've been around long enough to where I witnessed the introduction of several of these so-called platforms or talent platforms into the marketplace. And the results weren't pretty. They were suspect and they could certainly deliver volume.
00:00:40
Speaker
But the quality and the service were lacking. And their value proposition and pitch to the industry was, hey, we can get you more people faster. But I think they failed to understand what users of these platforms really wanted. And that's quality employees. And they certainly failed in that area.
Aviante's Strategic Focus on Platform Staffing
00:00:58
Speaker
So looking at some of the big news out there today with Aviante, who is one of the leading providers of staffing software in the industry,
00:01:06
Speaker
and they're choosing to make the platform staffing a core strategy for the future of their business. I'm just curious, why is that? And what sets their vision apart from the past attempts to build out a platform? And to find out, I'm actually going to speak with Aviante's CEO, Rishab Mahotra, to learn more about Aviante's distinctive vision for the future of staffing.
00:01:35
Speaker
Hello, I'm Dan Morrie and I have the distinct pleasure of hosting this episode of the Digital Edge. And I am also the managing partner of Staffing Mastery and the National Independent Staffing Association. And in these roles, I connect with and coach staffing leaders and I help them elevate the success of their businesses by installing the right systems that help them scale, grow and succeed. Now, Aviante, one of the two largest players in the staffing industry has been really, really busy this year.
00:02:06
Speaker
They have actually done a number of things that they've shared on their product roadmap. First was launching their mobile talent platform. This was an absolute game changer. And this actually allows talent to apply onboard track time, get paid all from their mobile phone.
00:02:22
Speaker
Huge advancement. In Q3 last year, they announced their merger with Simple VMS, which was controversial for sure. But Simple VMS is actually one of the most satisfying VMSs in North America, meaning staffing agencies really enjoy working with them and they're tailored for high volume staffing, which is the first merger of an ATS and a VMS in North America. So I thought that was really interesting that they were actually rolling that out.
00:02:53
Speaker
And even more recently, Aviante began publishing new thought leadership focused on end to end platform staffing, which I thought was a curious term because we've talked about ATS forever. And then it was the tech stack and now it's evolving into the platform, which personally I think is a little more fitting.
00:03:11
Speaker
But here, if you think about the platform they're building, they're promising to better connect employers, staffing agencies, and talent on a single platform. And it's caught the interest of a lot of staffing industry thought leaders, and there's becoming a lot of buzz around this.
Industry Shift: Express Adopts Aviante's Platform
00:03:28
Speaker
But no news was more noteworthy and in my opinion disrupted than what came out last week when Express, which is the fifth largest staffing organization in the world, made the public announcement that they are actually moving their operation, their staffing technology operation to the Aviante platform.
00:03:48
Speaker
And if you look at these press releases, the word platform and the concepts of platform staffing were all over it. So they're seeing that platform staffing is the way of the future and they're buying into it. And I think that's remarkable.
00:04:03
Speaker
But seeing all of this and seeing all this fast action really made me wonder what is going on at Aviante. So I want to talk to the person in charge. I want to talk to the CEO, Rishav, the man that I see speak from the stage at Connect every year and outlay this massive vision and understand what is going on and is this news of express affirmation of what they're building and is it a harbinger for what's to come in the staffing industry.
00:04:30
Speaker
And it is my distinct honor to welcome Risham Hautra to the Digital Edge Podcast and talk to you about platform staffing and your vision for Aviante and what you are doing for the industry. So Risham, thank you so much for being here. And if you could just tell me just a little bit about yourself to get acquainted with the audience, I would appreciate that. Dan, thanks for having me back here. Always a pleasure. And thanks for your generous comments to kick this off. Quick background for myself. I've been at Aviante.
00:05:00
Speaker
Unbelievable over a little over three years now and very excited about the three years that we've had a chance to both transform our beyond day, but also working with our customers and help transform their journey and now moving towards this platform staffing. My background has been in software and HR tech software throughout my career. One of the first companies I founded was the first portal software company.
00:05:27
Speaker
trying to provide work-life balance for people in the workplace. I've subsequently built a leading FSA HSA platform that's not part of ADP, and then subsequently built one of the largest payroll providers in Asia, headquartered out of Australia, in a company called Ascender, and that's now part of Ceridian.
00:05:46
Speaker
Uh, but the one common thread that I've always had is I always believe that technology is a means to an end and technology as a thread to help simplify and improve people's lives. And that's, that's kind of a common thread I've held here at Aviante as we think about whether it's the lives of recruiters, talent, or even employers. And how do we simplify the lives using technology? So again, thanks for having me here.
00:06:10
Speaker
I'm super excited.
Insights from Rishab Mahotra, CEO of Aviante
00:06:11
Speaker
I think today contingent labor is one of the most exciting places to be in the labor marketplace and it's a privilege for us at Avionte to play in the space.
00:06:22
Speaker
I agree with that and I'm grateful for your time because I always view you as one of the industry's true thought leaders and great visionaries out there. That's doing some things that is fascinating, sometimes a little polarizing. And that's what I want to get to the bottom to today, hopefully. But I want to talk about this announcement, Richard, you architected a staffing platform that caught the attention of one of the major players in the staffing industry, not just in the United States, but globally.
00:06:52
Speaker
And I want to know very specifically, is this new partnership really a signal that platform staffing is the new technology standard that staffing and recruiting agencies should build their business on? Well, first, I just wanted to say that we're really honored to work with Express. They are, as you said, leading global provider. They're also leading thought leaders in this industry and we're privileged to be working with them and they're just absolutely great to work with.
00:07:21
Speaker
The short answer to your question is absolutely. I think this is a game changer in the industry. And let's talk about why, because I think we need to go a level deeper to truly try to understand what we're talking about with platform staffing and why I think this would make a difference. So I'll start with a little story when I was at ASA last year.
00:07:41
Speaker
One of the senior folks at ASA said, you know, staffing has always been about two to three percent of the labor workforce. And that's been the case for 30 years. And so the question that I had is why? The contingent staffing gig workforce has grown significantly over the last decade and is expected to get to about 30 percent of the labor force.
00:08:02
Speaker
If you look at from an employer standpoint, having variable labor costs is better than having fixed labor costs. And we see it in difficult economic times where it's easier for them to do it. And the short answer for me is around trust and reliability. And so if you think about from an employer standpoint, who are the inclines for
00:08:25
Speaker
All of our staffing customers for the agencies is as an employer at the end of the day that wants to hire someone. And our role in this industry, whether we're providing technology or we're a staffing company, our role is to help put people to work. And the more reliably we can put them to work, the more quality that we can provide there, the better it is for the end customer. And so.
00:08:49
Speaker
If we were able to do that, I think the staffing industry as a whole can benefit to capture a greater part of that contingent labor workforce. Because at the end of the day, there's great value that the staffing agency provides. But if we're focused on just one part of that value
Platform Staffing as a Reliable Labor Supply Chain
00:09:05
Speaker
chain, if we're focused just transactionally, we're not able to provide that reliable supply chain of labor. So I think the first thing is there's market dynamics that create a need
00:09:16
Speaker
to have a reliable supply chain of labor. I want to be able to get people when I want them. I want high quality people and I want them to be able to show up to work. And so when we think about that part of the reliable supply chain of labor, the way the employers have managed this is one, they'll hire more full-time or contingent and then spare across multiple vendors.
00:09:37
Speaker
What we started thinking about more than two years ago when we did the acquisition of WorkIn was that ultimately staffing is a two-sided marketplace. We've got people that we put to work and we've got employers. But on the people's side, the fact is that there's a greater demand for labor than supply. And even with the economic conditions we've had in the past 12 months, that hasn't changed.
00:10:01
Speaker
We came up with this concept of consumerization of staffing and hence we, you know, acquired mobile platform because in every other part of our lives where we are consumers, we use mobile and we want to make sure that we have a consumer worthy experience when, when we're using this. And so we acquired work in, we've subsequently transformed it to where a employee can go from looking at a QR code, downloading an app, getting interviewed by a bot.
00:10:29
Speaker
talking to a recruiter digitally onboarding, being able to get on a shift and get paid all in one place. And the experience that we've had as consumers of having a singular experience from end to end of our journey is what's required to keep us engaged. And talent is no different. So we want to engage talent.
00:10:48
Speaker
to be able to be part of that workflow. And that's one part of that marketplace we build. And if talent is engaged, they'll keep coming back. And if they're going somewhere where they're not engaged, where they have difficulty in onboarding or difficulty in being able to get a job, then they're just not going to go there because they have choices. So that was really important for us to create
00:11:09
Speaker
the mobile platform as a full part of the solution along with the ATS. And then last year, as you mentioned, we acquired simple VMS because ultimately the employer side and getting a job into your ATS and to talent and automating that full workflow is going to be very important in terms of managing that supply chain of labor. So we can predict how many jobs are going to be coming in. We don't have to spend the time on the manual process of figuring out.
00:11:36
Speaker
We can automate that end-to-end interaction between employer and talent and reduce the time that it takes to fill a job, improve the probability of somebody showing up at work, and hence increasing the reliability of that supply chain of labor. So, so that's, that's really why we think that platform and this end-to-end staffing is important. And if you think about it from a customer's standpoint, from an agency standpoint,
00:12:02
Speaker
The agency is able to fill more jobs faster, which means they're going to get a greater share of water from employers. They're going to be able to do it more efficiently. And ultimately they're going to be the winners. The analogy that I use is if you're at Disney.
00:12:16
Speaker
And you're in the fast track line and somebody else is in the slow line. You're going to get more rides because you're on the fast track line. Agencies that deploy a platform are going to get more rides. That means they're going to get greater share of wallet and they're going to be more efficient in terms of how they spend their time. So they're going to be more profitable. And that's, that's really why I think there's a game changer in the industry and we're excited to be a part of it.
00:12:38
Speaker
So I agree with you and there's a lot of great stuff in there. One thing I want to focus on because I feel like for an industry that has been not typically described as being tech forward or tech progressive, I feel like there's a bit of a, I don't want to say leapfrog, but really a sprint forward because there was the ATS, then the tech stack, and then the platform.
00:13:00
Speaker
And when I think about it, when I think of ATS, I think of rudimentary software to get a job done, kind of like a powerful Excel sheet. When I think of tech stack, in my mind, when I've always heard that term, I think of like Jenga, right? It's like the stack that's like it, but if you move a piece, it might disrupt everything else.
00:13:16
Speaker
But when I think of platform, I feel like that's something different. So just really quickly and concisely for the audience here, describe how you view an ATS versus the tech stack that seemed like it was the intermediary step to get us to the platform and quickly describe what an ATS is, the tech stack and what a platform is concisely.
00:13:35
Speaker
ATS is the foundational element. It's your system of record. It allows you to drive all the different processes and interaction. And the ATS was a major game changer because it took it away from spreadsheets and allowed people to automate and get more efficient.
00:13:50
Speaker
The text act then said, yeah, I can integrate these other elements into my ATS. Now I can integrate in background checks or tax credits or this other function. And that had the person in mind that was the agency that was pulling in pieces.
00:14:06
Speaker
When we go from there to platform, it takes it to the next level, which is around the human technology interaction, right? One of the things that we in the staffing industry assumed was talent or labor would come into many offices and then you got placed and you went somewhere.
00:14:24
Speaker
Now talent is also coming in on a mobile phone. And the minute the talent starts coming in as a consumer, the tech stack becomes defunct because a consumer is not going to go to five different apps to get on a flight, right? You go to one app. You're not going to go to a different app to go find a flight and then book a ticket and then pay and then change your seat and so on and so forth because you can do it in one place.
00:14:50
Speaker
The tech stack forces people to go to five different places. It's still giving you automation on every one of them, but it's not giving you that human technology interaction. So the platform gives you that human technology interaction, which improves ease of use. And when you improve ease of use, people will use it more. The example of Uber is very clear. What have they done?
00:15:11
Speaker
they have for one job automated the ease of use from when the customer asked for a job to when the driver says, yes, I'm going to do it. It's made it really easy. And so platform staffing is no different. It's taking the consumer, the person, and using technology as a way to simplify the way they interact with technology.
00:15:32
Speaker
So I agree with that. And I think one thing that was the downfall of early platforms in this industry is they try to Uberize it. And if you think about the magic of Uber, they just created a better communication tool to Halocap. Right. And then they actually created a marketplace for people that wanted some big work to be able to respond to that need. And so that was great.
00:15:55
Speaker
And when people try to apply that same model to the staffing industry early on and go direct to consumer, what they failed to realize is that human beings are the great variable. And there is a necessity for quality control that recruiters have always been an integral part of. And when you try to bypass or circumvent the recruiter, you lose the quality control. So you can go direct to consumer, but what you get is really not going to be the best candidate, not a good match, maybe not the quality of the skills.
00:16:22
Speaker
And technology, in my opinion, I love technology, but it's never going to replace that human element of being able to identify quality and vet candidates for the right culture of their clients. So I do like the fact that you're actually creating a conduit to directly connect your customers to the ATS through simple VMS, and that you're actually creating a lot of output messaging tools like work in and 24 seven and to actually get the message out to the candidates, but you're still leaving intact that quality control piece. In my opinion, I think that's the differentiator that will
00:16:52
Speaker
help the platform you're building be successful where others have failed but with that i mentioned that i love watching you from the stage at connect when you share the roadmap and you share the vision it's inspiring and anybody that hasn't gone to connect to hear this it's worth it alone to go see the session so i've seen you lay out your roadmap the last two years at connect
00:17:15
Speaker
And I've seen working in pixel and simple VMS acquisitions aligned with your vision that you've shared. And you've obviously covered those pieces right now and how they actually build the end to end platform.
From ATS to Platforms: Simplifying Staffing
00:17:27
Speaker
And I would suggest that the move with express is affirmation that you're building the right thing. But what I want to know is what's next? Like you're always thinking out on the horizon. So what is next on this roadmap or what's the next key piece to the platform that the staffing industry can expect to see?
00:17:45
Speaker
Firstly, you mentioned Connect. One of the things that I'd shared at our last Connect, which is all roads lead to the recruiter. So I couldn't agree with you more that ultimately early staffing platforms that failed was trying to automate it and take the human in the middle out of the interaction.
00:18:02
Speaker
The fact is we're dealing with a lot more complexity. We're dealing with a lot more workflow. We're dealing with a lot more nuanced situations that you do need to give the controls in the hands of the recruiter of the agency. The agencies started with a recruiter in mind and that workflow is something that we want to make more efficient through this platform. We want to simplify their lives. We want to make sure that we change the shape of the day where they're moving out of
00:18:31
Speaker
uh, managing relationships with their customers and with, with their talent. And that's what's going to allow them to grow faster as a business and be more efficient. And so as we think about this, where does this go is pulling the pieces together, right? So pulling the pieces together starts with a human interaction where I mentioned using a QR code, a talent can download an app and go through that full journey. The next step of that is.
00:18:57
Speaker
from an employer standpoint, when they want to put another job, it can actually drive that full interaction to be seamless and to be frictionless that allows for us to fill jobs in minutes, not days.
00:19:09
Speaker
that allows the clients that have deployed talent and are able to redeploy talent because they put the right skill matching pieces in place, they can fill jobs in minutes and they can then get ahead of the line, take that fast track to filling a job, getting people to show up to the app and hence grow their business, not only within
00:19:28
Speaker
their competitors, but also growing the overall pie as an industry. So that's sort of where we see it go. And my view to this is we are helping people experience it. We want people to experience what this feels like. We don't want to just talk about it. And in the upcoming conferences that we have, we're going to enable people to experience what I'm talking about here from a platform staffing standpoint.
00:19:51
Speaker
But the other part of it is we want to make sure that we also prove it. So one of the things we've developed is a live ROI calculator. I think about this as you've got the US debt calculator that keeps calculating more and more debt. But we want to calculate the savings in gross margin and the improvements in gross margin that our clients have. And so when we think about automation, when we think about self-service, when we think about optimizing that full supply chain of labor, every one of these activities saves time
00:20:20
Speaker
and saves money for agencies. And so we can use data the clients have to show how much time they're saving and they can real-time calculate what's the value for it. Just to give you a small example, if you have a ratio of 1 is to 14 for a recruiter to assignments that they've placed and you take that to 1 is to 15.
00:20:41
Speaker
That's going to drive four times ROI because you're going to save four and a half to $5 an hour in gross margin. You're going to increase that in gross margin. That amounts to $800 a month. And so when you start looking at the savings that you can get by driving this, and then also the increased share of wallet, the ROI becomes unquestionable for our clients and for the industry. And I love that for many reasons with the owner's hat on, obviously that means healthier bottom line, which is great.
00:21:11
Speaker
But I will tell you the most important reason to me that I think that's great is you're actually giving more economic opportunity to the recruiter. If you're increasing their upward capacity to fill assignments, that means you're actually allowing their gross margin capacity to expand as well. And most recruiters are commissioned based on what they produce. And I think that if you can actually give them that efficiency to produce more, then they can earn more.
00:21:39
Speaker
When you think about recruiters that are really good, sometimes they get poached away by corporate recruiters that can pay bigger base salaries because there's a better economic opportunity, even though they don't want to leave the staffing agency because they love the company. And the fact that this platform can actually give access to more economic opportunity for the recruiter, I think is an overlooked benefit that people should be aware of. But you mentioned something I want to dig into because you were talking about fill orders in minutes instead of days. And instead of one to 14, one to 50, these are bold claims.
00:22:07
Speaker
Forgive me for being skeptical, it's out of respect. But in the past, we've heard these platforms make these bold claims and they've over promised and they didn't really deliver. Honestly, even some technology companies within our industry have made bold claims and haven't always followed through on them. So why do you think Aviante is gonna actually succeed here and be able to deliver on these commitments to the recruiter in the recruiting industry where maybe others haven't been able to pull it off?
00:22:33
Speaker
I think it's a great question. It's easy to make the claims. One of the things that I was quoting was actual data from a client that I had a discussion with recently. Let me give you a little bit of how we're thinking about this differently. One, we talked about the recruiters at the heart of it. Second is by using self-service and automation with mobile and making them work in sync. It does drive a level of automation. So imagine me as talent, I'm doing some of the things that
00:23:01
Speaker
Otherwise the recruiter had to do, I've been able to automate it. It gives me more leverage in terms of where I spend my time in the day. But ultimately it comes down to what we were talking about moving from the tech stack to the platform. It needs to be easy to use. We're in the people industry. We want people to work and technology is about people. And so we are simplifying it for the person, whether that's the recruiter or the talent or the person that's sitting on the operation side of an employer to be able to do their jobs more easily. And when you do that,
00:23:30
Speaker
You start having a bit of a flywheel effect to get people to start using the technology. And we're not just making a claim. We're actually going to demonstrate it to our clients day in and day out. We're going to demonstrate it to the industry the next time we have a chance. And in terms of the ROI, we've worked with clients that have used this to work in over a period of time. And the results over a period of time, as they get more used to using the technology, because there is a change management aspect to this, right? You can put the technology in place.
00:24:00
Speaker
day one and you can help people, but it takes a little bit of a mindset shift for that to occur. And as that occurs and you start saying, Hey, I can now go from one to one relationships to one too many. I can use technology to automate certain portions and then be able to figure out who are my top people that I want to place. And I'll spend the time on them.
00:24:19
Speaker
and who are my highest gross margin clients, and I'll spend the time on them. Those are the types of things that you can do to go help improve the overall gross margin that a recruiter can produce to make them do better in their day to day lives. That's really something that we're able to now prove out with the help of our clients who spend some time implementing, learning, and improving along these lines.
00:24:41
Speaker
And I got to believe that Express being the organization that they are one of the largest successful, they did a fair bit of due diligence because changing your technology is not an easy decision. So I got to believe that they did a fair bit of this due diligence. I know for me going through technology changes, it ends up putting a lot of work and stress on the recruiters themselves.
00:25:02
Speaker
and they've got a lot of recruiters. So do you have any insight into how they might have managed that change management process to get buy-in from the stakeholders to get them excited about why this is a good idea and maybe the upside that's there? I think in that sense, Express is no different than others in the industry. Ultimately, they're looking at how can we drive greater productivity? How can we increase the scale of our business efficiently? And those are the things that
00:25:29
Speaker
Dan and others in the industry will definitely diligence. How do we do it? First thing is you look at the efficiency that you get by putting in place an ATS like ours that automates a number of functions that they have. And then when you think about the efficiency that you can get by automating and driving greater self-service, the numbers are unquestionable. And then add the third layer to that. And we've been lucky enough to also part on the simple VMS side when you have employers
00:25:58
Speaker
that are going to be providing jobs that can go directly into your platform and drive that integration end to end. It adds a third layer. So our view on this for recruiters is you can start with just the ATS. We've got the best ATS in the industry and we can just start with that and the ROI is there, or we can add the mobile component. And now you've got a platform that allows you to improve that ratio between recruiter and an assignment and drive
00:26:23
Speaker
the increase in gross margin and we've got ROI to prove that out. And there's a learning that goes with it. We've now figured out how we can drive the implementation of both of those components in one cycle and then train the recruiters of how they can use the platform. So it's no different than putting an ATS. We've done the hard work behind the scene to explain to them, Hey, this is the way you're going to learn a new system. You might as well learn a new system that also has all of these mobile capabilities. So we're allowing people to step into
00:26:53
Speaker
platform staffing, you can go as far to the right of digitization as you want. You can start with the ATS, you can move further. All I will say is that for companies that are deploying the platform as a whole, they're going to get much greater ROI, much greater efficiency, much more of a flywheel effect, and they're going to be able to, in my view, compete better and grow faster in the industry versus others that don't do it.
00:27:18
Speaker
So I have to come back to the buzz about all the stuff that you've been doing and the upswell of comments and feedback that I'm seeing in the industry. And I'm starting to see this trend emerge, or especially over the last, I would say nine months. And I was talking to somebody the other day, I can't remember who it was that said this, but they made a comment that I thought was kind of profound. And I thought succinctly sums up how most people feel about technology providers in the staffing industry.
00:27:45
Speaker
And this is a common thing, stop me if you've heard this, but my ATS was built by someone that understands technology, but doesn't understand staffing, right? It feels like most ATS providers build technology because they understand technology. But it seems like now, Aviante is building their platform because they understand recruiting and the recruiter.
00:28:07
Speaker
So can you just give me a little bit of insight into where that shift happened and how do you actually stay connected? How do you get the feedback from the recruiter to understand what they really need so you can actually build the tools that meet those needs? I think your first point is a great one. We had a customer tell us, we understand that you know technology, but you get staffing.
00:28:29
Speaker
And that was, I think one of the greatest compliments we could receive is because at the end of the day, we want to understand our client's business and help them do better. And the recruiter is the heart of their business. So the onus is on us to think about how do we simplify the life of a recruiter? How do we help the client be more successful? For me, it frankly goes back to the common thread that I talked about in my background is simplifying the lives of people, right? That's what technology is a means to an end.
00:28:59
Speaker
And so how do we do that? We listen to our clients. We have tools that see what people are using, what they're not using. And then we also try to get some insight in terms of thinking about how do we optimize for the whole system versus a single feature. A lot of the industry is mired in terms of, hey, can I have this one feature? Well, you can have the one feature.
00:29:18
Speaker
And that might drive a 0.01 or 0.1 or 1% improvement in things. But if you took a step back and say, hey, if I automated this entire function, I could get a 2x improvement. And that's what we're looking at is how do we move away from the myopic view of feature and function to thinking about optimizing the whole system.
00:29:39
Speaker
And I think, unfortunately, the technology vendors are equally to blame, are showing the single feature that makes our clients look at this myopically versus, hey, let's think about how are we going to help improve the overall status of our clients? How will we help the recruiter? How will we help our clients win more business? How will we help?
00:29:58
Speaker
our clients be more efficient? How would we help transform? What's the percentage of labor that goes into staffing industry? That's where we are trying to move the industry towards. And I think the way we've structured our products to fit in together, to be componentized, but still fit in as a whole, I think is going to take us on that path pretty rapidly. I think that's great. And one last question I want to ask if people are watching this and they've actually thought about technology in their own firm and
00:30:27
Speaker
maybe they're evaluating it to fill a recruiting need, maybe they wanna see it as a unique value proposition that differentiates in the marketplace, whatever their reasoning is, if they're gonna make a move and they're contemplating platform staffing, how would
Efficiency and Growth in Platform Staffing
00:30:40
Speaker
you, from your executive hat, you've grown a lot of software companies, you've been really successful at every stop, it seems like, how would you advise them to move forward in this market towards the platform?
00:30:52
Speaker
The first thing I would say is that ultimately the leadership of the agency is going to drive how far they go. And so if they truly understand and believe that improved ratios of driving recruiter to assignments is beneficial for their business, that deeper connection with their customers is beneficial for their business, that they'll get more than their fair share of jobs through that. Then I think that there's enough of a compelling reason for the agencies to say, I want to step into this.
00:31:21
Speaker
If all they want to do is start with an ATS and say, I'm going to automate a certain set of features and functions that I have, that'll give you a good level of automation above other platforms that you may have. But if you believe in the things that I talk about from a market standpoint, then you have to go down the path of mobile and we can simplify it for you. We've got single implementation that we can do. We've got customer success that can hold your hand kind of like a trainer. If you go to a gym to help you become an athlete, we can help you down that path.
00:31:51
Speaker
But you get to choose how far you want to go and how does it fit into your business objectives. If a client says, I want to double my gross margin. I want to grow faster. I want to be X hundred million dollar staffing company. Then what are you going to do to drive down that path? And platform staffing is a way for you to get there faster versus any other way that's out there.
00:32:13
Speaker
So you said something that makes me wonder, you said, I think you said single implementation. When I hear the word implementation from my own personal experience, it's sometimes painful and time consuming. What did you mean by single implementation? So we've been doing this for a few years. And one of the things that we've realized is that the change management aspect, you want to do that once. And in order to do that once.
00:32:35
Speaker
we can implement the full platform including all the mobile components we've talked about and the ATS in a single implementation with a single project manager and train the recruiter and the customer of how they can use this. So they don't have to go step by step if they don't want to. They can actually just leapfrog and implement
00:32:54
Speaker
the platform as a whole and get the full set of efficiencies because the learning that they're going to have to do on a new system might as well learn the new system and a new way of doing things at the same time.
Aviante's Streamlined Implementation and Support
00:33:04
Speaker
And so we think that the human aspect, not just of the technology, but how we implement the technology, how we train people, how we hold their hand to be successful, to drive these ratios that I'm talking about as an important component. And we are enabling that as part of the change that we're driving, not just in technology, but in terms of
00:33:23
Speaker
how we implement, how we train, how do we hold their hand, because that's ultimately going to allow our customers to be successful. And you do that with in-house implementation at Aviance? Someone doesn't have to get like a third party implementer to build this out for them?
00:33:35
Speaker
We have a great in-house implementation team and a training team that's trained on all of our products. We have a customer success group that can work with clients, even post implementation of how they can better use this to implement best practices that allows them to scale. Because ultimately it's a journey that we want to be part of with the customer. And implementation is something that we think is a real differentiator because we have it in-house and we can implement both the ATS and the mobile in one go.
00:34:05
Speaker
Honestly, that makes a ton of sense to me because that's the first part of the relationship, right? Once you consummate the contract to do the service, the first part is actually building it together. And the fact that you actually have internal resources that are going to work with your customers hand in hand, you're going to have intimate knowledge about what the customer's intentions are and how they want it built and how to deliver on that. That feels different to me. I like it. Just to kind of summarize what I'm hearing is that you've
00:34:31
Speaker
been with Aviance for three years, you cast a bold vision. There's a lot of people on your team that I've had a chance to talk to that are cautiously optimistic about the vision that you cast and the pace that you run, but they're excited and enthusiastic about it. And when you put your product roadmap on display and you said, Hey, we're not in the ATS business anymore. We're building this platform and we're going to put these pieces together. Some developed organically internally, some through acquisition.
00:34:57
Speaker
but all of them with the thought of the recruiter and reimagining and re-equipping the recruiter with modern tools to succeed today in a way that creates a seamless end-to-end integration between the client, who we in the industry serve,
00:35:13
Speaker
the recruiter that handles all quality control, giving them more capacity and more economic opportunity for themselves and also their agency, but also just better tools, better experience engagement tools for the actual talent to flow seamlessly back and forth.
00:35:28
Speaker
And you're building this platform in a way that includes the recruiter versus trying to circumvent them like past iterations of, of staffing platforms. Obviously the stuff that you shared today, I thought that they were maybe bold claims. You said, no, these are actual data from real case study clients that we're working with. So this is what we're seeing happen. So you're actually getting those gains and the fact that you're building in a ROI calculator so you can transparently display
00:35:56
Speaker
the kind of benefit financially that you're getting through automations, I think is a smart move. And I'm excited. And I really do believe that a company like Express looking to make a move that can be as disruptive as changing technologies can be, the level of due diligence that they did and the level of project management and change management that they're undertaking, they must see massive upside in moving into the platform. And they're looking to really build on that and
00:36:24
Speaker
I, for one, think it's a smart move. So I'm excited about what you're doing in the platform space. I do appreciate the care you're taking of the recruiter, which they are the sun that the entire staffing universe revolves around. I'm glad that you're keeping them in the center. So with that, my friend, thank you for your time today and sharing your insights about this exciting news with Express and really the future of staffing and the staffing platform.