A big brand with a big story, grown in big data
Published
Dec. 31, 2024
Read
3 minutes

Lofty goals around sustainability and a good business journey

Executive summary

A quality and sustainable brand selling goods ranging from fashion to home to food, this homegrown company has an amazing success story and Kestria is proud to be part of it. 

Most big businesses are grown and managed upon big data and what this is telling them, and this client has developed itself in the same way over time. IRC was very much part of this journey into big data with the client and was brought in to support the analytics and insights team to find some specialist skills, in this case to fill the roles of Customer Value Manager and Customer Insights Manager.

A hard-earned needle in the haystack

Although the Client has their own strong recruitment team who were using the classic tools for recruitment for various reasons they were still struggling to find people.

Once a reliance on analytics develops its place in a business, it moves the approach and priority to numbers in relation to customer insights and value management and those numbers being used as a tool which puts marketing in the secondary position as opposed to being the main focus for the data and analytics. This leads to the extensive task of mapping and consulting on the right types of people to seek which, with large sets of data, can be very difficult. Initially the internal team was receiving CVs that, although they contained the correct keywords and sources, were on closer examination and interviewing, not the right candidates.

This was further confounded by the general difficulties experienced in recruiting in the tech space whereby there is a lot of headhunting happening and a limited amount of talent who display some fatigue at being approached so frequently by recruiters. This meant that we had to be very careful about how we leveraged our network and engaged candidates, and to screen them thoroughly to establish their thought process and true eligibility. We kept in constant contact with the client to keep them abreast of progress and ensure that we remained on track throughout the search.

A further challenge borne of current times is the unwillingness of many candidates to relocate where needed. This had to be taken into account for these roles which initially involved relocation but subsequently went and were hired as fully remote. These successful hires were hard earned given the stats of the operation:

71
people approched
34%
unresponsive
3
shortlisted

About the client 

Having first opened its doors in Cape Town, South Africa in 1931, the client is now a leading retail group present in sub-Saharan Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The business consists of full-line fashion, home and beauty stores, many of which incorporate a premium food retail offering which has grown exponentially in recent years.

Sustainability is central to the client’s business and their core belief is that setting ambitious sustainability goals challenges their own business to do more and inspires others to collaborate and be one of the world’s most responsible retailers.

The human element driving success

Despite the specific issues involved end to end, the best candidates were successfully hired and onboarded, thanks to strategic use of big data and the flexibility of the client to reevaluate what was feasible in terms of facilitating the wishes of the candidates against what the business would allow.

Our experience as a partner to global companies has shown time and time again the importance of that personal touch and open communication. Being able to appeal to your client and being transparent on the issues that can hamper success is of the upmost importance to maintaining trust and having a real say in making the right decisions.

Our global presence and the skills of the individuals who work with us add extra power and value to the recruitment process, providing access to people and knowledge that is well above par with others in our field.

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