The Importance of the Platform Within Your Technology Ecosystem
By David Page
Choosing the right software platform is a critical decision for leading staffing agencies. In order to deliver a better customer experience for clients and candidates and be more competitive, agencies are increasingly taking on a wider variety of software applications.
What is a software platform, and why is it so important to an agency’s software strategy?
Think of a software platform as a core business application that provides the foundation for consistent data management and workflows. This sits within the much broader technology ecosystem covering the entire recruit, time, pay and bill process. Platform solutions are systems designed with an open architecture and Application Programming Interface (API) framework that enables easy data integration with a multiplicity of other narrower point solution applications. As an agency grows, or even moves into new geographical markets, it will be the platform solutions that support this growth, even if the ecosystem of other applications is different in different markets or different countries.
So, what really differentiates a platform from a point solution?
In essence, it’s really the ability to scale across countries and build multiple integrations. FastTrack360 is the leading staffing platform solution that brings together the critical business functions of recruitment, time management, payroll and billing with 24/7 online portal access for both the agency’s clients and candidates into one unified online system. These are the core business functions that are non-negotiable for a staffing agency to maintain healthy cashflow, and therefore logically need to be central to the wider ecosystem of point solutions that might be deployed.
Industry growth of 6% annually, tighter margins and faster response times demanded by clients and candidates are all factors that are dictating the increasing use of technology, however, this makes understanding the importance of a foundation platform in the technology ecosystem even more paramount.
Successful agencies are those that have seen good use of technology help them deliver and meet the above pressures. With 74% of attendees at our recent FastTrack Interactive events indicating that technology was the key trend that would further the staffing industry, understanding what technology is available, and how to use it is a must. All this in a more regulated environment, with complex compliance requirements – an issue which 1 in 5 FastTrack Interactive attendees consider to be the #1 challenge facing the staffing industry today.
What part does technology play in recruitment?
Agencies that succeed are agencies that have realised the need for intelligent use of technology and who now need to see themselves as much a technology company that does recruitment, rather than just a recruitment company. A recent CareerBuilder survey found that 72% of staffing firms are expected to increase their technology investment by the end of 2019. Leading agencies have embraced technology and fostered a culture within their organisation that supports ongoing change management. After all, the ever-changing technology landscape means that it is necessary to remain competitive – being adaptive mitigates any risk of being left behind.
The FastTrack360 platform has been designed for flexibility with an Open Architecture that offers integration with bespoke applications via a comprehensive framework of Open APIs. This same API framework supports a growing MarketPlace of pre-integrated third-party applications that can be turned on to build out the ecosystem of value-adding functionality. FastTrack’s Marketplace partners include companies like SmartAI, Broadbean, Google Maps, Secured Signing, WorkPro, Onboarding and more.
While the comprehensive FastTrack360 platform offers numerous value and operational advantages, we recognise that agencies may already have an investment in other front office CRM or ATS solutions. The FastTrack360 Back Office and unique 360Connect technology have been developed to support these customers, offering a single online timesheet, payroll, and billing solution to make your current front office end-to-end. Today we have a pre-built integration with the Bullhorn CRM, with other popular front office recruitment solutions now in development.
If you are in the market for recruitment software, you may find our free guide on selecting the best software for your business a helpful tool. You can find out more here: https://imagine-better.marketplaces.fasttrack.com.au/picking-the-right-recruitment-software