A new American president has been elected and staff augmentation activity has picked up significantly since September.
Augment at a Glance
Since my last update, we have signed 2 new clients and a large managed services provider who represents numerous potential clients, have agreed to terms with two additional new clients (hopefully we’ll be signing today), extended 9 team members, added 3 new consultants at existing clients, and only had one consultant whose engagement ended (after a successful implementation of a new loan origination system for the client). Today, the platform of available consultants stands at 74.
New, Existing, and Prospective Clients
In November, we signed a specialty insurance company. The client has aggressive growth plans as they prepare to raise capital and engage in conversations with some of the largest institutions in their market. They are now leveraging Augment for project management and we are working to help them identify a reliable part-time controller. I also expect other requests for support to pour in over time.
We signed up a large national tax preparation company, providing data analytics support. The engagement will run for 6 months but the new relationship, which required a substantial expansion of our existing (and new) insurance policies, could also open up a lot of new opportunities as we begin to make a name for ourselves with our first consultant! There is a lot of room to grow!
In the past 60 days, we have extended 8 consultants with 3 more extensions pending signature by a client. With several of our engagements approved through year-end, I anticipate that clients will finalize their budget availability for Q1 in the next several weeks which will hopefully lead to some additional extensions.
In getting signed up with the tax prep client, we also were onboarded onto the managed services provider platform of Workspend. Workspend is global and provides services for a large array of companies. Augment is now approved to put forward profiles for a potentially large number of companies when client needs match our areas of expertise.
We also signed new engagements with existing clients, one in hospitality supporting data analytics, one in InsurTech supporting SEO optimization, and one in the fintech space supporting relationship management.
Finally, we are awaiting signatures with a medium-sized nationwide insurance company to provide business and data analytics support as well as a media production company to provide data analytics and Tableau development leadership. And, we have job fit conversations going on for several other analytics-related opportunities.
What a New Administration Means for Hiring
As we enter 2025 and a new presidential era, there are mixed reactions and expectations. But the financial markets are indicating expectations for growth and a focus on domestic hiring versus offshoring. With the unemployment rate at just 1.9% for the financial services industry, this bodes well for Augment since clients will be seeking the people they need to grow. But one potential drawback with the new administration is an anticipation of relaxed regulatory oversight which could reduce demand for people in compliance roles. The good news is that we did not see nearly the reduction in oversight during the first Trump administration term and it will still take some time for changes to be implemented.
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
- Controllers who are open to part-time work (ideally with insurance backgrounds)
