Services&Suppliers Sales/Recruitment
S
taff turnover is all part and parcel of running a business. Internal promotions and people moving on can leave gaps in your workforce that need to be filled. But finding the right candidate takes time, and
in today’s increasingly busy world time is not always on hand. Recruitment companies take the stress out of the recruitment process by carefully selecting the best people for the client’s role, and presenting them to the company, all while placing equal emphasis on client and candidate care. For companies looking to set up a sales team, there are companies that exist to provide outsourced teams of experienced sales personnel with national account expertise and effective management without the cost and commitments of an in-house sales structure. Below are two companies that cater for these
requirements.
OSS is a managed team of agents with a portfolio of principals that cover many categories in the Toy, Arts and Craft markets. The company has six agents and two national accounts specialists to cover the independent and multiple customer bases; the company covers the UK and Ireland and manages over 500 live accounts. The company has grown at over 40% year-on year. Established five years ago, OSS has
worked closely with its principals to offer an integrated solution to generating sales, developing accounts and offering support for administration, order processing and back office processes. The company works to various briefs from developing the independent retailers through to Toymaster members, garden centres, department stores and online retailers. Our principals’ ranges do not conflict, but complement each other. The principals OSS currently works with are Amscan, Simba Smoby, Artstraws, Tarema and Knorr Prandell. The OSS concept works for the retailer as the company has a portfolio of principals that cover a number of different categories that can be presented in one meeting. Many of its customers buy from more than one of the principals for the convenience, but also in the knowledge that OSS will manage each of their supplier’s accounts in the same professional way. OSS still believes that a face-to-face meeting builds trust and helps to win and develop business. For its principals, OSS has many years of
experience and trade contacts that deliver a simple solution to targeting new business as
94 Toyworld
well as offering a regular call on existing accounts. The OSS model has always been based on making life easier for all and to remove the distractions that detract from sales, the core objective. OSS manages the relationships with the principals, helps with the order process, produces working templates for administration in order to reduce paperwork and channel the day- to-day demands of working with a number of diverse principals into one clear point of contact. 01159 878 229
info@oss-ltd.co.uk
As a specialist recruiter for the toy and nursery markets and co- owner of the boutique recruitment company Tinderbox Consultants, Rowena Shorey, director, places equal emphasis on client and candidate care. Her aim is to carefully select the best people for the client’s role. Invariably the perfect candidate is not currently available waiting to start their new job, so rather than putting forward a large number of unsuitable candidates, Rowena makes it her business to know your business and that of her candidates to identify which people are looking to move their careers on, requiring confidentiality and trust.
When you consider the average recruitment
cycle takes on average six to twelve weeks, this is a reasonable length of time in which things can go awry if you are not constantly plate spinning and communicating. Some recruitment drives take as long as six or nine months and for senior management roles perhaps a year. Extended notice periods can see the future employer fall foul of finally gaining their chosen candidate because during this time the candidate’s current employer has had opportunity to persuade them to stay, or in some cases a better opportunity is presented to them from other quarters. Whilst disappointing for recruiters and their clients, recruitment companies like Tinderbox will reinvest their time and energy to the search and start all over again as part of the service.
2014 looks to be off to a healthy start for
the recruitment sector in terms of vacancies. Undoubtedly LinkedIn has become the hiring manager’s ally and companies are using this networking tool to hire whole teams through. There remains a degree of scepticism about last in first out and this makes it harder to find ideal candidates who are already doing great things
for their current company. There are some companies who have clear succession plans in mind for their business and are highly selective over their candidate choices, but this does mean future opportunities will arise as internal promotions are made. Part of the issue is that since 2008 many
organisations have had little choice but to run a very lean operation, and those at the top of the chart know career development opportunities higher up are few and far between, meaning those sat below will quickly hit the glass ceiling. Good candidates are not usually interested in swapping like for like jobs, if they are going to move it needs to be for an organisation which can develop their skills, widen their customer portfolio, give them a higher turnover of business to manage or extend their product range experience, and ideally progress them financially. Everyone expects when they change jobs to be able to go up the financial ladder slightly, and one of the issues a recruiter may have to contend with is handling a job offer which is below par of the candidate’s salary expectations. Negotiation is naturally all part of the process, but it must be born in mind that how an organisation acts right at the beginning is likely to set a precedent for how they will act behaviourally. Such impressions can lead to major hurdles or outright rejections, but when a professional recruiter is handling the negotiation often such potential disasters can be circumvented. 01590 674 212
Rowena@tinderboxconsultants.co.uk
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