Resource 1 Wins First Place at Staffing Industry Analysts Hackathon for the Second Year
Resource 1, a premier IT staffing firm, is excited to announce their second Staffing Industry Analysts Hackathon win at the 2018 Executive Forum. Collaborating with other staffing industry leaders (known as Team Lion), Anastasia Valentine, Executive Vice President and Managing Director at Resource 1, participated in this event and won first place for crafting a superior solution to a complex, hypothetical business scenario.
This year’s scenario required teams to guide a theoretical staffing firm with razor-thin margin as it adapted to its largest MSP client changing talent supplier policies. Though the staffing firm has long been their main client’s largest supplier of IT and engineering resources, the client’s new CPO has adopted an “all providers are the same” mentality and is reducing the approved supplier list from 75 to 10 or fewer preferred providers. Members of Team Lion were asked to position the staffing firm for long term survival, create opportunities, and communicate that their service is more than a commodity.
“Being selected, along with members of Team Lion, as the winner of this year’s SIA Hackathon is an honor,” comments Anastasia Valentine. “Working with some of the top staffing leaders across industries, our team was able to create a winning staffing solution using our combined knowledge and experience. At Resource 1, we undertake challenges just like these every day, helping clients overcome obstacles and increase their growth.”
“The 2018 Hackathon challenged teams to explore strategies for addressing commoditization, and how suppliers can remain competitive in current and future talent marketplaces,” said Bryan Peña, SIA’s SVP, Contingent Workforce Strategies. “The collective expertise and clear creativity from the winning team in tackling the challenge was evident, underscoring a collaborative and well-thought out process. Kudos to all who participated this year.”
Winners were once again selected on the following criteria: vision, originality, detail, plausibility, and perceived likelihood of success. Team Lion focused on a twofold strategy designed to win the bid and enhance the staffing firm’s margin. Their presentation outlined a detailed bid that compared their prior exceptional performance with market, scorecard, and candidate referral benchmarks. Team Lion also drafted a strategy to streamline recruiting teams, decrease their reliance on their largest client account, and expand their services to eliminate threats to their long-term performance.
Both Team Lion participants and Hackathon judges had plenty to say about this year’s winning strategy:
“Everyone tackled the challenge differently, but we had a good team consensus,” said Uma Chidambaram, Executive Vice President at ObjectWin Technology. “The unique mindsets and perspectives that owners and executives at different sized staffing firms bring to the problem is as informative as attending five or six sessions.”
“It was our pleasure to sponsor and help judge the Hackathon event for a third year in a row. We love this event,” said Tim Bell, Chief Revenue Officer at People 2.0 Global. “I enjoy seeing industry peers collaborating on solutions to everyday challenges facing all staffing companies. The competition was close but ultimately, the winning team’s submission demonstrated great vision, originality, detail, plausibility, and a perceived likelihood of success.”
About Resource 1
Founded in 1982, Resource 1 is an established Information Technology consulting firm that provides Staff Augmentation services to corporations across North America. We pride ourselves on our ability to fully understand our clients’ technical infrastructure and business objectives. Our extensive experience in full life-cycle software development and systems level support/integration positions Resource 1 to service multiple client initiatives as a single source provider of IT human capital. Where other IT staffing and service suppliers see the industry business model as transactional in nature, Resource 1 takes a relationship based approach to business and processes that go far deeper than any of our competitors. The result equates to client and consultant service levels that are well above industry standards. For more information, visit www.r1consulting.com/ or call 630-575-5155.