It’s always a happy feeling to see our customers doing great things and being successful…
One our favourite customers, Lyle Malander, Director of Malander Placements, a fast-growing recruitment firm based in South Africa, recently made it as a finalist of 35-under-35 (Whoohoo, congrats Lyle!) so we reached out to him to tell us more about how he begun, the Malander Inc Network and his thoughts on recruitment software.
Vincere: Tell us more about yourself- how did Malander Placements start?
Lyle Malander: I’m a qualified chartered accountant, and started my accounting journey by working at one of the Big 4 Accounting Firms. I then moved into the position of Advisory Manager and founded Malander Inc in Oct 2015. Today, Malander Inc is a Chartered Accounting and Financial Advisory business which focuses on a wide range of accounting and financial solutions within the South African market.
In August 2016, we started Malander Placements… I was recruiting for my own Advisory team but also found that our clients were also looking for talented individuals - hence the birth of Malander Placements. It was a very logical business for us to expand into.
Vincere: The Malander business is rapidly expanding, what's the vision for the company? Any plans for the future?
LM: Our vision is to not only become the recognised market leader in our field but also to become a strategic partner to our clients and help them grow their businesses by providing an all-encompassing human capital services to our clients.
As for Malander Placements in the short term, I’d like to develop the business to become the leading provider of Financial Talent.
Vincere: Can you tell us more about recruitment in South Africa - how is the recruitment landscape like? How does Malander Placements fit in the picture?
LM: The recruitment environment in South Africa is tough and it stems from the economic environment that we find ourselves in. Our core goal is to provide our clients with a beneficial and cost-effective service. In line with that, we recently introduced a product called Recruit Outsourced by Malander Placements, a product aimed at reducing the recruitment cost for our clients and providing a more interactive and focused service.
There are many barriers to entry within the South Africa recruitment market, one example is because corporate companies have a very rigorous supply chain requirement and the process to become a preferred supplier is a difficult exercise.
Vincere: Thoughts on KPIs- are you a believer in KPIs - why / why not?
LM: I’m a huge believer in recruitment KPIs. It not only gives me a good measure of individual performance, it also gives me a good indication of areas we need to improve as a team on a day-to-day basis. Understanding where we’re falling short and where we need the extra capacity in our recruitment process is critical.
Vincere: How important is recruitment software in running a growing recruitment business like Malander?
LM: It’s absolutely essential...as a fairly new business, I was constantly pushing for the system to be implemented because I wanted a view of the development of our candidates and clients on a real-time basis. I also wanted the team to be able to respond to our clients as swiftly as possible…tracking candidates and making sure that our candidates get all the necessary attention they deserve.
We were relying on Excel previously and it was such a manual process. Before Vincere, I just couldn't find a system that could give me what I wanted. We actually considered building our own system but thankfully, we came across Vincere which had all the key features we needed in the system. The level of interactivity the software provides and just the technology on the whole is very interesting to me.
TimeTemp (the online timesheet and expense management module) was something that we requested as a feature and I’m so glad has come true - now we just need to jump onboard and start using it.
Vincere: If you could describe Vincere in one word, what would it be?
LM: Dynamic. The system has the span and depth to handle different aspects of end-to-end recruitment, and the pace of innovation makes sure that the software is always updated to catch up with the latest trends in the recruitment space.
To learn more about Malander Placements, visit http://malanderplacements.co.za/ or connect with Lyle Malander on LinkedIn here.
About Malander Placements
Malander Placements is a part of the Malander Network and through Malander Inc., a Chartered Accountant and Financial advisory firm which focuses on a wide range of accounting and financial solutions, are able to provide managed finance as well as finance outsourcing solutions tailored to meet the specific needs of our client. Malander Inc. has an impressive track-record in delivering a high quality service to various clients, including blue chip clients, in various industries.