Randstad Sourceright Extends Its Innovation Streak with Talent Velocity: How’s That?

Randstad Sourceright, the global staffing and workforce solution of Randstad Holdings, recently announced its launch of Talent Velocity, an innovative, internal talent acquisition, candidate engagement and client relationship/collaboration platform. Over the next several months, the solution will be completely rolled out worldwide across the Sourceright RPO and later, to a lesser extent, within the MSP.

While noteworthy in and of itself, Talent Velocity is only the latest of a number of innovative steps Sourceright has taken in the past few years. Moreover, there is also an important backstory in which Sourceright US seems to have become a key focal point for the execution of a broader Randstad innovation strategy.

What Is Randstad Sourceright?

Sourceright, officially formed as part of Randstad Holdings in 2001, provides a range of human capital management solutions, including “RPO, MSP, ICC, Recruiting and Talent Acquisition, Payroll & Independent Contractor (IC) Solutions and Career Transition Services.” A global provider, Sourceright profiles itself as follows:

• 70+ countries served
• 220+ RPO programs
• 140K annual permanent hires
• 550+ managed services programs
• $8.7 billion spend under management
• 2,500 talent experts

With a philosophy that emphasizes the human side of human capital management (“human intelligence advantage”), Sourceright has also demonstrated a technology-driven innovative streak over the past few years.

Randstad Innovation in Gear

As noted above, Sourceright’s own innovation activities are linked to broader Randstad Holdings innovation strategy, including investments of the Randstad Innovation Fund.

The Randstad Innovation Fund was founded in 2013 as the “strategic corporate venture fund” of Randstad Holdings, investing in online platforms, big data analytics, machine learning, sourcing, screening and selection tools. To date, the Innovation Fund has made substantial investments in 15 technology companies, all starting with an investment in the pan-European online freelancer marketplace twago.

In June 2016, Randstad Holdings fully acquired Twago (our coverage: Randstad Acquires Online Freelancer Platform twago: A Watershed Moment in Contingent Workforce Management?). And less than a month later in July, Sourceright announced it had adopted twago to serve as its freelancer management system offering (our coverage: Randstad Sourceright Leverages Recent Acquisition twago as FMS). Then separately, In August 2016, Randstad Holdings announced its surprise acquisitions of job board Monster (see our coverage Randstad Agrees to Acquire Job Board Giant Monster: Scary or Smart?).

Back in 2015, Sourceright announced its launch of Talent Radar, “an advanced analytics and recruiting intelligence platform that helps employers leverage data from multiple systems to support informed talent decisions.” Then two years later, in 2017, Sourceright announced its Global Talent Innovation Center in order to accelerate “the development of innovative technology to help some of the world’s largest companies tackle talent recruitment and management.”

It is important to point out that Sourceright’s Talent Innovation Center was not only about developing technology solutions, it was also very much about the strategic leveraging and integration of other Randstad technology assets. The Talent Innovation Center, it was explained, would build on Randstad Sourceright’s proprietary Talent Radar analytics platform and “combine Randstad Sourceright’s existing technology platforms, with those from Monster and Twago, to advance digital hiring strategies.”

Fast-Forward to Talent Velocity

In March 2018, achieving a significant new stage in the whole innovation process, Sourceright announced Talent Velocity, an innovative, internal talent acquisition, candidate engagement and client relationship/collaboration platform. Per the announcement, Talent Velocity brings together “AI, machine learning and predictive technologies into a single, integrated digital platform.”

The solution was designed and built within Randstad Sourceright’s Global Talent Innovation Center, and many of the key components are solutions of companies which the Randstad Innovation Fund strategically invested in or acquired over the past several years:

• Gr8 People: CRM and recruitment marketing platform
• Montage: on-demand video interviewing and scheduling software
• Wade & Wendy: AI chatbot for candidate interviews and engagement
• Twago: freelance management system (see February Hot List)
• Rolepoint: online employee referral
• Checkster: automated reference checking
• HackerRank: online talent community and assessment for programmers
• Pymetrics: gamified psychometric assessments
• Brazen: online recruiting and networking events
• Crunchr: workforce reporting and people analytics

While Talent Velocity leverages the GR8 People solution as the application backbone, it also “builds on Randstad Sourceright’s proprietary Talent Radar analytics platform, which translates raw data, market trends and industry insights into predictive talent acquisition and retention strategies that help organizations solve difficult recruiting and business challenges,” according to the press release.

Perhaps the best way to get a real sense of what Talent Velocity is and does is to check out Sourceright marketing video (while not something we would typically recommend, in this case, it seems like a good idea).

Conclusion

Clearly, Talent Velocity is much more than just a new software solution. It also represents the culmination of a deliberate innovation strategy at Randstad already underway for several years. (Note again, the Randstad Innovation Fund was established in 2013.)

It should also be noted that while Sourceright (in the U.S. market) appears to be a key focal point of innovation, it does not represent the full scope of the strategy. By way of example, Randstad Japan has introduced an online staffing offering based on Gigwalk, one of the Innovation Fund investment recipients. In addition, Twago recently announced that it had launched its own standalone enterprise solution, twago enterprise.

Nearly two decades into the 21st century, innovation and the appropriate incorporation of technology are no doubt critical to the success of established staffing and human capital management solution businesses. In this respect, Randstad is making an impressive showing. And given Spend Matters’ core focus on technology and innovation, going forward, we will definitely be paying attention to technology and innovation within Sourceright and across Randstad Holdings.  So expect ongoing observations and additional commentary.

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