Safe to say the company made a good return on its investment.
Henneri Crous, head of sales at Simplify.hr, says the leads that the company generated at the inaugural HR Indaba last year resulted in sales revenue of about R1.5 million. That’s a great return on investment by any measure. What made it such a profitable endeavour for them, Henneri says, is the fact that their offering was perfectly suited to the audience for the event.
“Of all our marketing efforts last year, the HR Indaba was by far the one event that gave us the most exposure. We had so many visitors to our stand, we were more than happy with the return on our investment. What makes the HR Indaba different from similar conferences is that it gave us access to people who work across the entire spectrum of the HR profession, from the top HR executives in the country to talent experts and administrators. It was really a fantastic experience.”
In addition to the monetary benefit, Henneri says the conversations that they had with people who visited their stands gave them valuable insights on how to improve their business model. In particular, they learned that their core offering - a recruitment management system which optimises the recruitment processes for agencies and corporates. The focus was also to drive compliance in the recruitment process with local laws aiming at Protection of Personal Information.
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Says Henneri: “We found that there were two challenges companies were facing that prevented them from using our product. Either they did not have the internal resources that would enable them to maximise the benefit of using our product, or their HR teams did not have the requisite skills as they are mostly focused on a generalist approach. So we changed our model slightly from strictly being a product offering to a full circle service offering that enables companies to optimise their recruitment efforts.”
Since the HR Indaba, Simplify.hr has become more of an advisory service, consulting with clients and taking a full view of what their needs are before recommending a solution that allows them to bolster the efficacy of their recruitment.
“We already have a number of clients since changing our approach and the results are amazing, in the sense that we are seeing candidate experience levels increasing as well as direct increase in productivity” says Henneri.
Lastly, Henneri says the breakaway sessions were also insightful. In particular, he attended a talk on the impact of artificial intelligence on HR professionals, which was ideal for a company like Simplify.hr.
The discussion he attended explored the impact of artificial intelligence (robots, chatbots, big data, Internet of Things), offering ideas on how their tech-based recruitment solution can better serve the HR profession.
