No longer a temporary fix for a sudden spurt in a company’s workload, contingent staffing has become such a strategic part of the corporate workforce mix that predictions are temps will soon account for more than 20% of the Fortune 500 headcount.
With that growth comes a need for greater sophistication by staffing firms to predict client demand, enhance productivity, and uncover opportunities from the dozens of client and potential client contacts a busy agency makes every day.
That’s what Bullhorn’s newest iteration of its CRM was designed to do.
“The way larger buyers are using their workforce is shifting,” says Gordon Burnes, Bullhorn’s CMO. “There is a trend toward more sophistication.”
Sales CRM is a no-cost upgrade for the company’s enterprise customers; the hundreds of larger agencies that typically have more than 35 employees.
The emphasis for this upgrade is on providing agency managers and leaders a broader view of the sales and placement process to identify client trends and identify successful processes that can be used to improve both sales and service.
“This is really about (a firm) taking an easy to use tool,” Burnes explained, “and then using the data that surfaces up to think more strategically about their resources.”
“Can you forecast revenue by client? By recruiters? By office?” Burnes says rhetorically. With the CRM you can.”
Here’s an example: A client who typically has contact with their sales rep in a split-desk agency, is beginning to more often use a VMS to fill staffing needs. Bullhorn’s CRM provides the transparency into that scenario, Burnes says, that makes it possible for the agency to detect the trend early and formulate a strategy for dealing with the client.
It’s this data analytics component that is the real advance over the existing Bullhorn CRM. That makes it a competitor to Salesforce, which some of the larger staffing agencies use. Because Bullhorn’s CRM was specifically built for employment agencies, it connects both sides of the equation, connecting sales and placement giving managers a more powerful view of the process from start to finish.
The new CRM will will be packaged as part of Bullhorn Enterprise Edition and available in the next several weeks.