Case study background:
Guidewire Inc has staked its claim on providing software to the insurance industry. The company’s Insurance Suite offers applications to the property and casualty insurance industry for underwriting, policy administration (PolicyCenter), claims management (ClaimsCenter), and billing (BillingCenter). Its software is intended to replace paper-based processes and legacy systems built around outdated programming languages.
Guidewire counts about 100 customers in a dozen countries, including Amica, Nationwide, and Zurich Financial Services. Outside the US, it has offices in Europe, Asia, Australia, and Canada. Guidewire filed a $100 million initial public offering in September 2011 and began trading on the NYSE in 2012.
Business challenge:
Guidewire had been looking for a recruitment partner as they had not been receiving the quality or quantity of candidates for European roles. They were missing out on timely placements and as a result of roles not being filled, the growth strategy was stalling. They needed to work with a dedicated recruitment partner who could deliver quality, professional, cost effective and time efficient results.
- Attracting the best candidates in a candidate driven market
- Targeting the right skill set from the Technology sector across all disciplines
- The need for flexible solutions to support European growth
- Reducing time spent on recruitment
- The need for research and market feedback from a new territory
- One point of contact across UK, Germany, France, Netherlands
The solution:
reesmarx and Guidewire discussed working together in partnership on European roles to addresss these issues. It was important for reesmarx to understand the culture and paradigm of Guidewire and how the individual European offices worked, so that reesmarx europe could ‘bolt on’ to Guidewire’s processes to make sure the candidates met their requirements. reesmarx europe set up a Partnership Network agreement to place middle to senior level Sales, Marketing and Professional Services personnel throughout Europe with the HR Manager, EMEA.
“We wanted to take away all the elements of the recruitment process that would cost Guidewire valuable time. The solution we offered was both cost effective and time efficient. Essentially, we were perceived as an extension of their HR function and the resulting process was seamless.” Nick Gilmour, Recruitment Director reesmarx
The result:
reesmarx fulfilled all the roles within the agreement timescales including:
- Enablement Manager, France
- Pre Sales, France
- Business Development Director, UK
- Sales Manager, Germany
- European Alliances Manager, UK
- Senior Pre-Sales Consultant, Germany
- Technical Demonstrations Manager, France
reesmarx’s handling of the project saved the Guidewire team a significant amount of time. They were confident that Guidewire were being represented professionally in the market and by working in partnership, the tangible benefits were clear:
- Successful delivery within agreed timescales
- Creative recruitment solution attracting passive and active candidates for very strong shortlists
- Cost effective recruitment solution with no variable costs
- Professional representation as they entered a new territory
- Valuable market feedback
The Partnership Netwrok worked for Guidewire as they had committed to the process and it opened up all channels of recruitment in the European countries they were working in reesmarx’s success was often from headhunting from within the insurance industry. In fact, reesmarx started on contingency but it didn’t work as they could not dedicated the required time to headhunt sufficiently from a niche sector. Once they could instigated a dedicated resourcing team that worked daily on the account, they initiated meetings every two weeks and sent through progress reports weekly.
“Working with Guidewire was a joy as they didn’t want a cv shop they wanted a comprehensive, competitive and reliable company to meet their needs throughout Europe and reesmarx europe delivered” – Glyn Rees, Managing Partner International reesmarx
Established in 2000 to offer recruitment solutions tailored specifically to the Technology market, reesmarx europe is a successful niche recruitment consultancy with a strong international focus, reesmarx is renowned for establishing long-term partnerships with clients.
Tel: +44 (0) 207 012 0050 www.reesmarx.com
