News and Views
Welcome to our latest edition of Influence’s News and Views!
How is 2019 going for you? As Autumn is officially here the Temp recruitment process will start to become incredibly demanding with long hours, immediate contract fulfilment requests as well as staying on top of the normal day to day workload. Luckily, with Influence’s streamline functionalities and processes, as well as the daily workflow dashboard which helps you keep on top of your day and measure your progress, work life shouldn’t be too stressful.You can find some great tips to in our knowledge database here but we have also found this lovely article on ways to manage stress over the busy periods. Why don’t you let us know what you do in-house to counter the long days? Article
We have grown… Meet our new Influence team members below.
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Demitri Bell has recently joined Influence as our Business Development Consultant. Demitri has a recruitment background so is ideally placed to identify with clients’ requirements and areas of pain with their current systems. |
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Michael Ryan is the newest voice on the Influence Helpdesk. Michael joins us with a solid technical support background, gathered from years of experience in the IT industry. |
Q&A with Martin Parkinson. A quick fire round of Q&A with Influence’s Managing Director and Founder, Martin Parkinson
What does your day to day look like? The role of MD is very varied – from overseeing the financial side of things to web development, business planning, guiding the company within the market to where we need to be. It’s a great role as I get to interact with every department on a daily basis.
Where did the idea of Influence come from? Darren and I started Influence in 2002 by writing bespoke CRM systems. Our first customer was a recruitment agency and that’s how we started within this industry. We decided we didn’t want to dilute what we had done by tailoring it to other industries, but to just focus on one industry, recruitment, and make it the best available. We also knew, by focusing on solely recruitment, we would advance quicker. We invested huge amounts of time and research within the sector ensuring that we were able to cater to our customers with more industry knowledge and understanding of their requirements, as well as being able to pick up and predict trends quickly and most importantly, identify the recruiters areas of pain and therefore, cater to those within our product.
How do you feel the market has changed since Influence begun? It has changed quite a bit to say the least. In the old days, the recruitment agencies would have a database but it was all about their book of candidates which was vitally important to their success both with clients and in placings. Each recruiter’s book was their own property and was their prized possession and very private to them – with the advent of Social Media, LinkedIn etc… the market place has become a lot more open, and competitive. Rather than just looking at a candidate’s suitability, it’s now also about the business of recruitment as an entire process – the staff the client currently has, whether the candidate has the tools to fit in as well as the knowledge and the capacity to do the job properly and efficiently. It’s a harder market now – back in the day you had to really headhunt and search out good candidates, now, with Social Media at our fingertips, you can find people within minutes so it’s about providing them with the best opportunities and making the life cycle more efficient for both candidates and clients. Influence comes in to provide the work flow and the tools to do all this effectively and proactively.
How does Influence keep up with all the industry changes? We are always looking at the market place, looking at what’s doing well and what isn’t and we can therefore guide and focus the product within the market at the right levels for the right people. We can tailor Influence to specific verticals so if a market is going well, and it needs specific functionality from a software product we can verticalise it quickly and provide market solutions specifically tailored to their industry sector. We self educate on a constant basis through networking, client connections, industry shows, research analysis. Influence isn’t just a product to find candidates, it’s a workplace solution encompassing every level of staffing and client engagement put together by industry specialists and client feedback from individual emails, ongoing Helpdesk enquiries and feedback requests to name just a few.
What are the most important things to you when looking at the future of Influence and the business as a whole? We want to ensure that we are always looking at the bigger picture of the industry as a whole ensuring we are at the forefront of trends and sector-led movement. I think partnership is also a really important word for Influence – we pride ourselves on our close relationships with our clients, we take time to get to know their businesses individually, what makes them tick, what makes them successful, and where they need the most support from us. We don’t just throw a piece of software at them – it’s tailored to their every need and then once implemented followed up with solid training and support for all clients and their staff ensuring that they are getting the most out of their system to not only streamline their business and their working days, but also make sure each user has a good understanding of Influence for their specific job role. Internally though, we want to ensure that we maintain our great reputation as good employers and our staff are happy and feel they have a solid progression pathway with Influence!
Training Training Training – we cannot emphasise how important good training is with any product. Influence is a database product tailored to your needs – we would be delighted to talk with you about the benefits of training for all your users making sure that you are getting the most out of your Influence software. If you think you would benefit from additional training then please call sales or email sales@influence-it.com
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