FINANCIALS: Adecco’s digital technology to deal with ‘megatrends’
Adecco is embracing digital technologies in a bid to increase profitability as the recruitment industry contends with a number of “megatrends”.
Ahead of its Capital Markets Day in London today, the recruitment giant revealed in a statement some of the technology innovations it is currently engaged with in a bid to increase the profitability of the business.
These include:
- Adia, a mobile-first, end-to-end platform developed in collaboration with technology provider Infosys, that enables employers to request temporary staff for hourly or daily assignments
- Mya, an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled chatbot, developed as a result of the group’s global partnership agreement with Mya Systems, that automates outreach, screening, and communications with jobseekers.
The statement also revealed the group’s new financial commitments.
They include:
- Growing group revenue four times faster than global GDP by 2020
- Accelerating group structural organic revenue growth and achieving sustained EBITA margin improvement
- Delivering selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) productivity savings of €250m (£220m) per annum by 2020
- Maintaining group dividend policy, even in a recession.
Adecco also issued a trading update in which it revealed group revenues have increased 6% in Q2 2017.
In his presentation at the recruitment giant’s Capital Markets Day, Adecco CEO Alain Dehaze spoke of the opportunity posed by a number of “megatrends” affecting the recruitment industry. These include organisations favouring flexible workforces in an uncertain world, more and more people working as freelancers, the need for lifelong learning among workers, the ageing workforce and the opportunities posed by improving efficiency in recruitment through automating systems.
“The positive megatrends of this industry – our competitive strengths in it – our strategic agenda – Perform, Transform and Innovate – all of this will allow us to combine revenue growth, stronger EBITA [earnings before interest, taxes, and amortisation] margin and strong cashflow generation,” Dehaze said.
“It is a virtuous circle starting with the revenue growth, improving EBITA margin by offering more value added services and efficient delivery models and all of this bringing in strong cash flow generation which are in the case of Adecco recession proof.”
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