Since last year or so, what we (Me and other recruitment consultants) have observed that many new recruitment consultancies have come up in almost every cities of India, being a new HR consultancy they are charging very less OR Fixed recruitment charges from the company for recruitment and as a result many established consultancies are facing problem to get new business or loosing old clients as the companies / HR Managers are negotiating on consulting charges and forcing to lower even from 8.33% which i personally feel is unhealthy, cant we (HR Consultancies) have an association like all other business have where a minimum recruitment charges are Fixed for all..
Dear Seniors pls guide us on the same
From India, Vadodara
5Dear Seniors pls guide us on the same
From India, Vadodara
Dear Savlihr,
Competition in recruitment field was there all along, not that it has started in the recent past.
There are some inherent pluses and minuses of every business. Let us think from the buyer's point of view. If am I to hire recruitment services of some recruitment company then on Kraljic Matrix, in which quadrant will I place these services? Obviously in "Leverage" items or "Routine (non-critical)" items.
Your major challenge would be how to convert your services so that you have place in "Strategic" or "Bottleneck" quadrant. Getting into "Strategic" quadrant is almost impossible. Therefore, while providing your services, you need to create a business model where you need to provide niche services. In this area there is less competition.
I had similar problem in the field of training as well. Soft skills training comes under the quadrant of "Routine" and "Leverage" items. You get more volume but then earning per day is quite less. But then my knowledge of "Purchase Management" came handy to me and I started providing training services that come in "Strategic" or "Bottleneck" quadrant. Now when I provide my training services I command price and do not get swayed because of the competition.
Ok...
Dinesh V Divekar
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
From India, Bangalore
Competition in recruitment field was there all along, not that it has started in the recent past.
There are some inherent pluses and minuses of every business. Let us think from the buyer's point of view. If am I to hire recruitment services of some recruitment company then on Kraljic Matrix, in which quadrant will I place these services? Obviously in "Leverage" items or "Routine (non-critical)" items.
Your major challenge would be how to convert your services so that you have place in "Strategic" or "Bottleneck" quadrant. Getting into "Strategic" quadrant is almost impossible. Therefore, while providing your services, you need to create a business model where you need to provide niche services. In this area there is less competition.
I had similar problem in the field of training as well. Soft skills training comes under the quadrant of "Routine" and "Leverage" items. You get more volume but then earning per day is quite less. But then my knowledge of "Purchase Management" came handy to me and I started providing training services that come in "Strategic" or "Bottleneck" quadrant. Now when I provide my training services I command price and do not get swayed because of the competition.
Ok...
Dinesh V Divekar
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
From India, Bangalore
Dear Dineshji,
Thanks for your valuable input and guideline, I agree with you that to avoid / stay ahead in competition one has to specialize in providing niche services or unique product, but in our case we are a generalist HR consultancy who provides recruitment services to mainly Engineering / Manufacturing Company / IT Company, so can you pls guide us how we can avoid this unhealthy competition as we are not looking to lower our consultancy charges as we are providing high quality resumes only (Our success rate is like atleast 4 candidates are shortlisted from 5 resumes sent to our client)...
Pls guide us...
From India, Vadodara
Thanks for your valuable input and guideline, I agree with you that to avoid / stay ahead in competition one has to specialize in providing niche services or unique product, but in our case we are a generalist HR consultancy who provides recruitment services to mainly Engineering / Manufacturing Company / IT Company, so can you pls guide us how we can avoid this unhealthy competition as we are not looking to lower our consultancy charges as we are providing high quality resumes only (Our success rate is like atleast 4 candidates are shortlisted from 5 resumes sent to our client)...
Pls guide us...
From India, Vadodara
Hello savlihr,
To take what DVD mentioned further, Recruitment or Training or Generalist HR consultancy AREN'T the only fields where competition exists.
Competition exists IN EVERY FIELD YOU CAN NAME--& GLOBALLY too.
It's for the new entrant to figure-out how he/she/they can add /project USP(s) to handle the already-established players AND for the established players to figure-out on how to tackle the new-entrants [if you think of it, just as you--an established player--has issues with new-entrants, you can bet your last penny that they too would have similar issues with established players from their perspective, except that they would be different from yours'].
Also, let's look @ this aspect/situation from another angle--AND I AM TAKING THE EXAMPLE OF JUST ONE SECTOR/INDUSTRY. I am absolutely sure that WE WOULDN'T BE INTERACTING THIS WAY OVER THE INTERNET HADN'T IT BEEN FOR THE COMPETITION that entered [some say belatedly] into the Indian Industrial/Technology scenario in the early 90s. Old-timers in this Forum would definitely be able to place what I am saying here--thanks to the DoT [now BSNL] telecom infrastructure until then, one had to wait for at least half-hour [in many cases for a couple of hours too] just to make a STD call--which all of us take for granted now. And at a much higher cost too.
A fairly recent example could be the state-of-affairs of the Mobile Telephony in India. Do you recollect the average cost/call when mobile telephony was introduced in India around 2000? Definitely not 1-2p/sec. Hope you get what I mean.
Frankly, it's wise to always remember the old doctrine by Charles Darwin:"Survival of the Fittest"--'fittest' as defined NOT by you or me, but by the arena/sphere in which we operate.
The sooner one finds ways to handle competition the better--whether it's established players or new-entrants. And here I am NOT including unethical competition, even though it's pretty common all over.
All the Best.
Rgds,
TS
From India, Hyderabad
To take what DVD mentioned further, Recruitment or Training or Generalist HR consultancy AREN'T the only fields where competition exists.
Competition exists IN EVERY FIELD YOU CAN NAME--& GLOBALLY too.
It's for the new entrant to figure-out how he/she/they can add /project USP(s) to handle the already-established players AND for the established players to figure-out on how to tackle the new-entrants [if you think of it, just as you--an established player--has issues with new-entrants, you can bet your last penny that they too would have similar issues with established players from their perspective, except that they would be different from yours'].
Also, let's look @ this aspect/situation from another angle--AND I AM TAKING THE EXAMPLE OF JUST ONE SECTOR/INDUSTRY. I am absolutely sure that WE WOULDN'T BE INTERACTING THIS WAY OVER THE INTERNET HADN'T IT BEEN FOR THE COMPETITION that entered [some say belatedly] into the Indian Industrial/Technology scenario in the early 90s. Old-timers in this Forum would definitely be able to place what I am saying here--thanks to the DoT [now BSNL] telecom infrastructure until then, one had to wait for at least half-hour [in many cases for a couple of hours too] just to make a STD call--which all of us take for granted now. And at a much higher cost too.
A fairly recent example could be the state-of-affairs of the Mobile Telephony in India. Do you recollect the average cost/call when mobile telephony was introduced in India around 2000? Definitely not 1-2p/sec. Hope you get what I mean.
Frankly, it's wise to always remember the old doctrine by Charles Darwin:"Survival of the Fittest"--'fittest' as defined NOT by you or me, but by the arena/sphere in which we operate.
The sooner one finds ways to handle competition the better--whether it's established players or new-entrants. And here I am NOT including unethical competition, even though it's pretty common all over.
All the Best.
Rgds,
TS
From India, Hyderabad
I think you should ask for right price if you provide quality services or product. Make a rule you wont let your margines down substantialy just to beat your compititors as this may put your business at risk on long term. If multiple products of same quality are offered to customer they will choose one with better after sale service. Also, one should be able to justify their product or service price. If multiple companies provides same services at different prices obiously buyer would be intrested to know why their is price difference and if one could justify clearly what value buyer can get for higher price he is paying then you would be able to connect good clients for long term who knows though they are paying higher prices but getting more value. On the other hand your compititors will struggle in lower margine market. So, shift your focus from compititors to your own business, do swot analysis, take opnion of your clients in form of positive critism/ their requirements and build uniqueness in your service by building good post sale service or lowering assignment execution time or improving anything that you find after collecting necessary inputs to add value to your services and to justify your prices / to justify what value client is getting at your price.
After all bussiness is how quickly you can adapt your services and product with changing market. Those who will adapt with change will survive those who cant they need to find new product and service or New market to survive.
Regards
Sarang
Forscher Consultancy
From India, Mumbai
After all bussiness is how quickly you can adapt your services and product with changing market. Those who will adapt with change will survive those who cant they need to find new product and service or New market to survive.
Regards
Sarang
Forscher Consultancy
From India, Mumbai
Very well explained. There is a requirement of being on toes always to beat the competition with a focus on quality and innovation.
From India, New Delhi
From India, New Delhi
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