Companies » LatinOcean - Digital Marketing Consulting

Seek’s price hike – A (contrarian’s?) view

Advertising, business, Companies, Job Boards, recruitment, Search, Sourcing No Responses »

Apr 012012

You must have also been following the thread re. Seek raising their prices and how unfair that is in the context of the recruitment industry being in uncertain times, etc.

The main charge: Seek is making a ton of money!

The bastards!

Well, there are a few reasons why Seek’s destiny (read profitability) is not the same as that of the recruitment agencies:

1/. Most, if not all, of Seek advertisers are in the recruitment business. But Seek is not; Seek is in the online advertising vertical. And because of their business model, they’re now driving an NPAT that is 10 times that of the commercially viable agencies (don’t quote me to the cent; I am not running an analyst briefing). There are drastically different economics driving each industry.

2/. Seek’s goods are price-inelastic, which means that changes in price levels will not dramatically change customers’ demand for it. Recruiters as well as hiring companies that need people cannot do anything else other than continue posting jobs. Conversely, companies that are not hiring will not advertise for roles no matter how affordable a job posting is. So why not up the price? If I were a shareholder I would have cheering for a 19% rise, not 9%.

The assumption here is that there is either a belief or hard data that indicates that Seek still gives placeable candidates to its advertisers. Knowing that you’re keen on price-inelastic goods, you better be damn sure that they return to you what is expected of them.

3/. I reckon demonizing Seek is significantly less effective than voting with your feet. Perhaps now (better late than never) is the time to think about what else do you do as an agency or employer to get the talent you need and reduce your dependence on a single source of people.

What if you invest half of you what you spend on Seek on building other sourcing channels? This is what we did when we swapped newspapers for jobs, right?

My clients are all recruitment agencies; none of the guys and gals I have spoken to are overly worried about Seek’s price increase. What they are thinking is: how do continue ensuring my business model works? How do I keep my profitability intact, or how can I better it? Do I need to diversify? Move out of Aus?

Which are the right questions to ask.

LinkedIn, Facebook and the Chinese Market Fallacy

branchout, business, Companies, facebook, linkedin, recruitment, TalentMe, technology, Tools No Responses »

Oct 302011

Over the past few months I have seen Facebook based apps/platforms (BranchOut, Talent.me, Monster’s BeKnown to name the ones I have signed up for and been using/testing) being touted as serious competition to LinkedIn .

The core reasons these and other Facebook-based services are being given a good chance of success against LinkedIn is not their technology prowess or unique business-commercial model; rather they are positively viewed by pundits due to the fact that they are hosted on Facebook, the largest social network at 750 million users (plus).

It is certainly possible that these FB-based systems do have great systems or unique value propositions for its users. These however seem to only come second to the “fishing on the biggest pond” advantage.

There are a number of reasons as to why I am sceptic as to this argument. Mainly, I am reminded of how China was viewed as a market a decade (or perhaps more) ago. I clearly recall many sales, marketing and business development presentations introducing China as a market with 1.3 billion “consumers” (which is as you know their entire population, more or less).

Closer inspection, of course, showed the fallacy of counting every Chinese national as a consumer without recognising their purchasing power, whether they lived in rural areas, etc. The rise of the middle class in China is certainly bridging the gap but it is still necessary to look deeper to understand they real size of the market for specific products or services.

The Chinese Market (size) fallacy reminds me of the volume advantage of the Facebook-based applications better-than-LinkedIn chances of succeeding. Even if these platforms were to grow large, recruiters know well that volume does not automatically imply quality (which drives candidate place-ability).

I am certainly not prepared to write off LinkedIn on the basis on the volumes argument. I’d love for other companies to continue innovating and making it easier for people to find jobs and for recruitment professionals to add more value to their employers/customers. I think this battle will be fought on the basis of benefits and value. I certainly hope so.

If you think LinkedIn is for recruiters only, think again

best practice, branding, business, Companies, linkedin, referrals, technology No Responses »

Oct 202011

LinkedIn for Business Development

Why Facebook will not destroy LinkedIn

business, Companies, facebook, linkedin, Marketing, recruitment, Sourcing, Talent, technology, Tools No Responses »

Aug 162011

Just read the article ‘Why Facebook will destroy LinkedIn’ on ERE .

This is argued on the basis of four core reasons:

- Larger volumes of people on Facebook
- Similar demographic groups
- Recruitment tools showing up on Facebook already
- Better ‘social marketing’ at Facebook

I think the article should have been better titled ‘Why Facebook can be used as another platform to recruit’. Less attention-grabbing for sure, but perhaps more balanced.

This piece, IMHO, assumes that LinkedIn will sit on its hands and let all the wealth of profiles, companies and relationships information logged over the years go to waste. I don’t see it happening

Along these lines, the ‘Facebook is huge’ argument echoes the pitch of job boards sales reps of yesteryear selling eyeballs and traffic. Organisations never needed Unique Browsers; they always needed placeable candidates that allowed agencies to earn a fee, or corporations fill a role. Bits of functionality like LinkedIn Skills which enables self-skills-coding has the looks of a powerful offering to do things like ‘get me 15 developers with android games experience in Sydney’

Similarly, demographic similarities have to be complemented with intention of presence – I go to LinkedIn to generate leads, connect with professionals, and hopefully grown my personal brand. I go to facebook to chat to my sister in Peru, look at pictures of friends and fam, mostly.

I joined Branchout early in their life and was trying to use BeKnown. Kindly, and – this might go for Australia only – we’re at very very early and immature stages of seeing candidate attraction and retention happening on FB. I am not saying it will never happen; rather I am arguing that the social links – which can nurture professional links (e.g. I want to work at Adidas ‘cause I love the brand, and my cousing tells me training for salespeople is great) – are at this stage a huge haystack to look for needles.

I am looking forward to seeing a network, environment, app, etc. giving LinkedIn a run for its money; this will be very beneficial for the market as it will accelerate the pace of offerings. I just don’t see LinkedIn destroyed anytime soon.

Have a good rest of the week.

LinkedIn Infographics a propos 100 mill member milestone

Companies, linkedin, technology, Tools No Responses »

Mar 262011

Myspace trimming and sale

business, Companies, media, myspace, networking No Responses »

Jan 112011

It seemed that the recently reworked Myspace logo was fairly prescient of what was coming for the company in early 2011. The new owners will only have to plug in their own logo in the blank.

If I remember well, News bought it for about 600 milllion 6 years ago, whilst at the same time striking the advertising deal with Google which would effectively fund the acquisition. It would appear that either that has been achieved and then there’s residual value to be ‘bagsed’, or the math is not looking like it will add any time soon.

I am not confident the user base will be patient enough for a Myspace redux, unless it blows their socks off with a new (and I mean a NEW) proposition.

[logo linked from networkeffect]

Recruitment and Virtual Goods

branding, business, Companies, facebook, Marketing, mobile, recruitment, Talent, technology No Responses »

Dec 092010

I was pretty sure I had not bought any virtual goods; I’d rather give a real bunch to the missus instead of getting her a one-dimensional rose on Facebook. Heck I might lose my face if I show with my byte-based present.

I caught a bit of the first day of @leweb a couple of days ago. During the time I watched it was all about games, mobile, social and payments. I won’t be surprised if that’s how it went for the rest of the sessions.

Fact is, I might be the only old-f@art not buying virtual goods. Billions of dollars have exchanged hands, and many companies have become hugely profitable off the back of these ethereal goods. And they all seem to get even stronger sale/expansion outlooks.

Thing is, I think there is a more comprehensive of virtual goods when I said I had not bought any yet.

If you think of software as a virtual good – whether it is a spreadsheet, a smartphone game, or an iTunes track – I guess this means we’re in this virtual commerce exchange for a long time now. The distinctive feature of these goods is that they have intellectual inputs that ‘impact’ the purchaser or recipient. The problem with my earlier definition was that I did not see intellectual inputs on electronic cows (which are totally different to electric sheep, but I digress).

Hopefully, you have agreed with this revised definition of virtual goods and with the fact that you and I have been supporting this economy for yonks. Let me put something else on top of that:

Physical goods – computers, jeans, coffee – have virtual goods in their make up that appeases or satisfy us emotionally, over and above the fact that the computer is fast, that those jeans hold your butt beautifully, or that the coffee is going to wake you up.

I put to you that those virtual goods are encapsulated in what we call ‘brand’. The implicit assumption is that, perhaps over time, you can find the physical features of branded (and great) goods in other white label products. Manufacturing technology, design progress and Japan seem to indicate this is rather plausible.

That was a bit of a long road to assert that the virtual elements of your product/service have the potential to be the source of customer engagement with them.

Where are our virtual goods in recruitment? How do agencies and hiring organisations build in virtual goods that make clients and job seekers react emotionally in their favour?

I guess as an industry we don’t invest sufficiently in these virtual goods. It might be worthwhile considering investing in them as these could be a tangible part of what you call your differentiators.

What will it take for you to consider investment in your virtual goods? Money? Better understanding?

If you leave an insightful comment I will send you recommendation to be an honorary member of Pet Society.

Have a good weekend

Catch up Post

blogging, business, Companies, Marketing, People No Responses »

Oct 132009

Wow, the previous blog entry I made was in March; don’t think I’ve ever left it for so long.

I think – like others – I was sorta kidnapped by Twitter; meantime though a number of things happened in regards to the LatinOcean practice. Allow me to make a recap:

1. Despite the GFC (remember it?) there were a quite a few clients keen to make investments in their staff education, reviewing processes and sprucing up internal and external systems. They were able to take advantage of their revised/lower opportunity costs (e.g. consultants less busy, more negotiation power with vendors, etc.).

2. What also helped us keep a steady path re. ‘business coming in’ was the expected growth of career management and transitioning/outplacement services from our larger clients. To leverage of this part of the cycle, we adapted our sourcing and recruitment focused offerings into the services from HR outfits that were preparing retrenched professionals for their next move. Our contribution had a lot to do with personal branding and reputation management on the web.

3. At the end of June, LatinOcean was sold to Jabor Holdings. Jabor Holdings is a private company in which I am a director. Our expectation is that LatinOcean will continue operating for as long as our customers want us around. If anything, we plan to explore how we can use the materials and IP developed over the last three years to expand into other professional services verticals.

4. Jabor Holdings is also owner of Digital Reach a new venture that came to life at the beginning of this year; focused on the online advertising industry, this startup needs lots of love and nurturing which is what hopefully we will be giving it.

This post is making me look back and now I understand why I haven’t blogged in such a long time.

In the meantime though, there have been interesting/encouraging topics/trends emerging; on which I can only hope I will be chipping in more proactively. For example:

- Less observers and more doers online; in particular more actual recruitment consultants walking the talk re. online sourcing, etc. and bringing insights from the real world. Greg Savage and Kelly O’Shaughnessy come to mind.

- The ever growing quality and volume output coming from the thinkers. The discourse and reports like Phillip and Michael’s sources of talent study opened the room for debate, discussion and further refinement outside the echo chamber.

- The ongoing tinkering with services and technologies supporting recruitment, sourcing, engagement

- The social recruitment meme, which was undergoing a stylish discussion entanglement until someone looked at the time and said that it was time to get back to work (just being facetious; I am always keen to listen and contribute to concept-shaping views on this topic)

Look forward to getting back into blogging shape. Thank you for sticking around

my chirp on twitter

best practice, business, Companies, technology, Tools, twitter No Responses »

Mar 162009

In the industrial era, Big money was spent on Big research that spawned Big products; the early adopters for such wares (planes, guns, mainframes) were either governments or well-funded, large corporations. Subsequent to that, mass-production-driven economies of scale allowed for diminishing marginal production costs through automation, cheaper labour, amortisation of R&D expenditure. The consumerisation of products was the result of its massification.

In the post-industrial period, comparatively small investments of time and money are dedicated to launch new tools and services that are firstly thrown into the hands of individual users, generally for little or no money. When this offering reaches or gets close to the proverbial tipping point, corporations and governments start to pay attention. Consumerisation effectively acts as a huge proof of concept.

The first example that comes to mind is ICQ; it supposedly started with pimply kids flirting and talking about music, right? Next thing, intranet based IM applications are vanilla services in business. Same for P2P, even email if you want to go that far back. The music discussions and flirting (may be) are gone but the design stayed.

So, next time you feel like rolling your eyes when someone tweets what she had for breakfast, may I kindly suggest you have a Stella, relax and reflect that in all likelihood the trivial stuff (maybe) will fade away from twitter, but its infrastructure will certainly remain.

Monster news: afterthoughts

Companies, Job Boards, recruitment, technology 2 Responses »

Nov 302008

- What is the current theoretical value of 50% of career one? Any guesses?
- Sounds like this is take 2 of ‘feed the monster’ strategy (with resumes, that is) which might just put another local resume database product out there
- I guess the product and tech guys at C1 if any, are now gone / redeployed to other properties? Therefore, only local sales teams? Any local systems support people? Hope they ensure the service does not deteriorate
- Will there be a s**t fight for the revenue of the proposed offline/online product bundle
- Careermonster – or Monsterone – might go back in rankings before it gets back to number 2 or better
- The new site might be cheaper to run, therefore more profitable operation

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