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Nikki Edwards

Nikki is a Principal Research Analyst at NelsonHall and a member of the HR Technology & Services practice. Nikki covers HR services research in the areas of Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), Managed Service Programs (MSP), Total Talent, and Learning.

Next Generation RPO 2019

Customer Perspectives

by Nikki Edwards

published on Sep 25, 2019

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Report Overview:

NelsonHall's client perspective of Next Generation RPO Customer Perspective consists of 26 pages.

Who is this Report for:

As part of NelsonHall’s most recent RPO research project, Rethinking Recruitment Process Outsourcing for Competitive Advantage, we interviewed 18 of the leading RPO providers globally. Also, the research included a survey of these vendors’ clients from across geographies and industries, of different sizes, and with a varying scope of services and levels of maturity in their sourcing of RPO services.

NelsonHall conducted client reference interviews to cover several focus areas to gain a comprehensive understanding from the client perspective, including their experience as a buyer of RPO services in the current marketplace. This survey was specifically designed to understand not only the perception of vendor performance in meeting client needs currently but also their ability to meet clients’ needs in the future. The survey focused on the following key areas:

  • RPO services usage, satisfaction, and future suitability
  • Benefits derived from RPO services, their importance and vendors’ effectiveness in delivering them
  • Vendor capabilities and their importance to the client
  • Overall client satisfaction
  • Client future expectations and vendor ability to meet these future requirements.

For each of these focus areas, we asked clients to rate various attributes, including services used, benefits sought, benefits importance, service satisfaction, vendor approach, and overall performance satisfaction.

Key Findings & Highlights:

Rapidly changing business circumstances, along with PESTLE (political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental) continue to prevail in 2019. Priorities for organizations focus on addressing talent shortages, embracing technology and tools (digital transformation), and the need to be more agile. 

RPO vendors have adapted to the changing market by offering more choice in RPO models/programs and bundling their expertise into consultancy services (selling these as standalone advisory services or as part of an RPO program).

Over the next few years, the RPO market will become even more complicated, as the impact of PESTLE factors, the global talent shortage, and the advancement of tech/tools intensify. There will be a more focused drive towards total talent solutions (blended permanent and contingent hiring) – a more holistic approach to talent acquisition – which will require a cultural shift by organizations to think differently about how they source talent.

RPO vendors were chosen for their talent acquisition expertise (in geographies, industries, skillsets, etc.), the sense of partnership/level of trust, technical expertise (advising on tech/tools), level of agility, geographic footprint, and their reputation. However, clients felt that vendors need to improve in some service areas.

Clients felt that vendors were not meeting their future requirements in several areas, including service delivery across multiple geographies, the ability to scale, and provision of data/analytics. If vendors are to win client support in the future, those improvements will need to be made. 

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