A digital transformation is measured in years, and in that time, you’ll need to hire dozens, if not hundreds, of contingent IT resources. Sure, your systems integrator will bring plenty of top-tier strategic talent to the table, and you’ll likely move some of your own team over to the new program. But you’ll still need to bring on quite a few people with highly specialized expertise to round things out. Many enterprises will take the same approach to filling these roles that they use other circumstances: their procurement team will reach out to a traditional IT staffing agency—it might even be the same one they use to staff the IT help desk. But a digital transformation is not business as usual, and the situation demands its own approach.
Traditional IT staffing agencies can be great solutions if you’re looking for more commonplace skills and you want to cast a wide net. But when it comes to finding people with highly specialized expertise in SAP S/4HANA, Oracle, Salesforce, etc., you’re going to have to sort through a stack of hay to find the needle. And for the next several years, every time a new need crops up, you’ll be in the same position, reviewing dozens of resumes, going through countless interview cycles, and still not finding the expertise you need.
A better solution is to form a long-term, strategic partnership with an enterprise performance partner that can provide the right expertise, at the right time, for the appropriate investment.
Here are just a few ways an enterprise performance partner can lighten your load.
These types of programs are complicated and have tons of dependencies. You might not know exactly what types of expertise you need or when you’re going to need it. As an enterprise performance partner, Baer has supported programs like this many times—in fact, some of our team members have even led them. We understand the project requirements and technology, so we can talk with you about the outcomes you’re trying to achieve and reverse engineer what you’ll need to get there. Then, we can proactively line up potential expertise before you need it instead of reacting to an immediate and potentially hard to fill request.
At Baer, we proactively build long-term relationships with proven expertise—people who have previously held the types of specialized roles you’re looking to fill and who we’ve placed before. And if they are newer to us, our understanding of the technology comes in handy when it’s time to pre-screen them. It means we sort through the hay to find that needle, so you don’t have to. You’ll get a short list of resources who are truly qualified and meet whatever other criteria you have. It’s a precision approach that will save you a ton of time and effort.
When the success of your program depends on the success of dozens of contingent resources, you need a partner that’s willing to stay engaged and support them—and you—with whatever it takes for everyone to be successful. A traditional IT staffing agency isn’t set up to do that. At Baer, we believe that by staying in the loop and working through any changes to the program that might impact the contingent team, they are more engaged, you have less churn, and your program stays on time and on budget.
Since a digital transformation takes years, you won’t hire your contingent workforce all at once. You’ll need different types of specialized expertise at different times, and surge capacity at others. If you’re working with a traditional IT staffing agency, you’ll have to bring them up to speed about your program and explain the nuances of each role each time. But if you establish a long term relationship with an enterprise performance partner, not only will they have that history, but they’ll also know where you’re headed and what you’re going to need next.
Filling a seat is easy, but at Baer, we want to do more than that—we’re looking to build a connection that lasts.
Unlike typical technology staffing companies, Baer is a true enterprise performance partner. We have a deep understanding of the scope of enterprise digital transformation and the highly specialized skillsets you will need at different stages of the process.
To learn more about how Baer can make a positive impact on your enterprise transformation, please reach out to btrout@baergroup.com, Executive Vice President, Sales, or Jeff Lewis, Senior Client Executive, at jlewis@baergroup.com.