Our renewal towards a data-driven approach

For a global HR expert such as Manpower, it is crucial to have insight into developments and its own position in the labour market at all times. In a world that is becoming increasingly digital, the world’s largest temporary employment organisation saw the opportunity to perform even better in this area.

Manpower

80

countries

28.000

employees

400.000

clients

"By limiting the number of manual operations as much as possible, we save time, increase the insight into accounts and protect the databases cleaned by Dun & Bradstreet against new contamination."

Bas de Meulemeester
Market Intelligence Manager

1.    The Challenge

Time for change

"Due to its size, information was often incomplete or stored in hard-to-reach places.”

For a global HR expert such as Manpower, it is crucial to have insight into developments and its own position in the labour market at all times. In a world that is becoming increasingly digital, the world’s largest temporary employment organisation saw the opportunity to perform even better in this area. In order to make optimal use of all available market data, a partnership was entered into with Altares Dun & Bradstreet.

With national coverage and almost a thousand clients in the Netherlands, Manpower has a lot of data, which is processed and collected on the basis of three pillars: candidate data, vacancy data and data about clients. However, due to its size, this information was often incomplete and/or stored in hard-to-reach places. As a result, a great deal of time was lost in the manual arrangement and processing of this information. Less than six months ago, Manpower decided that it was time to make fundamental changes to the way it handled its data.

2 The solution

Cleaning up and enriching

The renewal work started with the cleaning up of all existing data about clients by partner Altares Dun & Bradstreet and supplementing this information with international group structures and SBI codes. “This made it possible to ask variables for 1462 different sectors, down to the level of detail”, says Bas de Meulemeester, Market Intelligence Manager at Manpower Netherlands. “With the help of this data, we then updated all the vacancy data. 
With Machine Learning, it was possible to ‘scrape’ vacancies and combine them with candidate data and internal data, which ultimately resulted in a complete picture of the Dutch vacancy offering.” De Meulemeester: “In addition to the fact that we were able to better map out the performance per sector, it also became a lot easier for us to analyse our own market position and profitability. That way, we now know even better who our customers are. And more importantly: who is not yet!”

Automate and maintain data quality

Manpower’s new system is connected to the Dun & Bradstreet database in real time in order to be able to continue to guarantee data quality. De Meulemeester: “Thanks to the close cooperation with Altares – Dun & Bradstreet, my colleagues on the shop floor noticed as little as possible of the renewal process. This gave us the opportunity to gradually introduce my colleagues at Manpower to our data-driven approach. It also reduced the complexity of the work and the required knowledge of the tool.”

80

countries

28.000

employees

400.000

clients

Much of what used to be done manually is now done automatically thanks to this collaboration. In addition to saving time, this has also greatly increased the reliability of the data. When a Manpower employee fills in the Chamber of Commerce number of a company, the other information is automatically supplemented. At the touch of a button, a complete company profile can be quickly and efficiently entered into the system – without errors.

De Meulemeester: “By limiting the number of (manual) actions as much as possible, we save time, increase the insight into accounts and ensure that our database(s), cleaned by Dun & Bradstreet, are protected against new contamination.”

3. The result

Enter new markets and continue to grow

Thanks to the innovation, Manpower is able to set up a strategy that is based on more relevant, accurate and complete data than before. As a result, the entire organisation benefits from more intelligence and innovative insights within its own systems.

Manpower

"Our new data-driven approach also leads to a more streamlined marketing policy. Marketing campaigns can be used in a much more targeted way, because they are based on relevant data.”

Many different departments already benefit from the data-driven approach. For example, it is immediately clear to account managers which parent organisation is above a company and whether they have done business with this group before, which leads to less waste of time and more efficiency. “Our new data-driven approach also leads to a more streamlined marketing policy,” says Evelyn Schwarte, Director Marketing & Communication for ManpowerGroup. “Marketing campaigns can be used in a much more targeted way, because they are based on relevant data.” De Meulemeester: “Everyone at Manpower now sees the same insights and speaks the same data language. We look forward to our next steps in translating data into business.”

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