Wed, 19 Feb 2015Global recruiter Randstad is seeking to grow organically in China and Japan in the next financial year, according to chief financial officer Robert Jan van de Kraats.

The group’s Q4 and annual results, published this morning [19 February], reveals Q4 revenue of €4,495.7m (£3,318.8m), up from €4,277.9m in Q4 2013, while full-year revenue was €17,249.8m, from €16,568.3m 2013.

Meanwhile, Randstad reported gross profit (GP) of €840.6m in Q4 2014, up from €785.3m in Q4 2013, while full-year GP was €3,180m from €3,011.6m in 2013.

In terms of Randstad’s growth strategy for 2015, the recruitment giant’s chief financial officer told Recruiter the group wants to be “bigger” in the countries it is already in.

“We are looking to expand further in Asia and China where we have been growing organically. In Japan, we had nothing six, seven years ago.

“The ways to do that is organic growth but we are also looking at bolt-on acquisitions everywhere in the world where we see an opportunity. However, pricing needs to be attractive and that is a challenge,” he added.

While Randstad is seeking to grow overseas, revenues and GP have continued rise in the UK.

UK full-year revenues increased to €821.7m from €769.6m in 2013.

Randstad UK chief executive Mark Bull recently told Recruiter in terms of driving growth, and doing so quickly, there were a number of factors at play.

Brand awareness and marketing had a part to play, “but fundamentally, in a recruitment world, growth is primarily driven by what the consultants and the managers are doing every minute of every day.

“The UK economy as a whole has recovered a fair bit and is on a fairly good growth curve and, as we know, confidence has returned in most areas... so the market has moved from being job scarce, candidate-rich to candidate-scarce, more job rich.

“So that means a lot of the emphasis in the business now is about candidate sourcing and candidate acquisition strategy because that’s the key determiner of your success, your ability to fill the job. So in terms of driving growth it’s all about clients of choice, the right kind of clients to work with, [and] candidate acquisition, [and] having the ability to put the two together very well.”

Away from the group’s financial results, Randstad’s announcement this morning also reveals Leo Lindelauf is to step down from Randstad’s executive board with his responsibilities shared out across the remaining five board members.

For more from Bull, see Recruiter's bulletin tomorrow.

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