Writing this from my first snowbird winter, I’ve seen a fair amount of activity with clients who are adjusting to changes coming from the new administration.
Augment at a Glance
Since my last update, we have signed 3 new clients, extended 8 team members, added one new consultant at an existing client, and had five consultants whose engagement ended. We have also added 18 consultants to the platform, and, today the platform of available consultants stands at 90.
New, Existing, and Prospective Clients
In late November, we signed a medium-sized nationwide insurance company to provide business and data analytics support. The engagement has already resulted in Augment resources solving a problem that the insurance company was unable to figure out for 6 months. We are currently discussing additional resources to help them develop a roadmap for investments in data infrastructure.
We also signed a media production company in late November to develop Tableau dashboards as the company begins a transition away from a large, expensive 3rd party vendor.
In February, we signed a mortgage lender who just completed a strategic acquisition and is looking to leverage experts for gap assessment and P&P build out. The relationship could expand to providing a variety of other job families as their new acquisition helps support substantial revenue growth for their existing business.
We also signed a new engagement with an existing hospitality client supporting customer and marketing analytics.
The Extension Metric
In the past 90 days, we have also extended 8 consultants. Our success rate in client extensions is now 96%. That means that 96% of the time a new engagement reaches the end of the initial term and the consultant is still available to continue supporting the client, our consultant gets extended. I’ll put that metric up against any staff augmentation company in the country!
I mentioned 5 consultants’ engagements ending. Two of those ended as consultants accepted full-time positions at the end of their client engagements. Another is effectively on hold until the client can get more funding. The other two ended because the project was successfully accomplished.
Finally, we have several opportunities where profiles are in front of clients including a credit analytics role, a program management role, an FP&A role, a data engineering role, and collections analytics & operations roles.
Watch the replay of our LinkedIn Live, The Secret to Winning the War for Talent.
In-Demand Job Families
Regarding our highest priority resource needs, I would appreciate it if you would please pass along available individuals with the following areas of expertise. Our main focus is people who want to be consultants, not seeking full-time jobs, but we are happy to speak to anyone with the right skillsets:
- Business Analytics, particularly customer insight and marketing
- Data Analytics, both coding and business intelligence
Real Impacts on Real People
As I wrap up this update, I imagine that some of you are wondering how Augment is doing given the uncertainty in the economy. In speaking with clients and prospective clients every day, many businesses have paused or reduced investment as they understand and adjust to changes that are inevitable with any new US government administration. This transition is perhaps the most difficult given the broad agenda of sweeping changes.
But it’s also impacting our consultants. One of them lost a promising opportunity after they completed all of the security clearance requirements to begin the project for a government agency. Another part-time consultant at Augment is an employee of one of the government agencies and might lose his job when an executive order gets signed. Another has a spouse in the intelligence space that has received mixed messages about their ongoing role. Needless to say, change and uncertainty have real impacts on real people. Please do what you can to look out for people around you who are going through tough times.
With all of that said, I am bullish that in the medium-term, the heightened level of uncertainty will drive more employers to prefer staff augmentation to full-time hiring. As such, Augment is well positioned to help our clients through this challenging period.
I wish you all a successful 2025.
