What do you do if, as an entrepreneur, you suddenly see your business grow very strongly due to a correct strategic decision? Right: professionalize. It happened to recruiting firm Dixon & Company. When the number of seconded consultants on their payroll quadrupled in two years, Dixon & Company chose the BrightAnalytics reporting platform.
As a recruitment agency, Antwerp-based Dixon & Company not only looks for the perfect new employee for its numerous clients, the company also brings in freelancers for temporary assignments and seconds its own engineering and finance consultants. The latter in particular is running like clockwork: where there were only 25 consultants on the payroll in 2017, there will be over 100 by the end of 2019.
“When we started posting our own people and decided to split into four companies, we realized that Excel was no longer sufficient for our financial reporting. The managers of the different divisions each had their own expectations, and we wanted to give them as much transparency as possible,” says Tom Ceusters, Manager Office & Administration.
Dixon & Company – which was born and grown from pure and unadulterated entrepreneurship – decided to professionalize. “During our first meeting with BrightAnalytics, I already knew: this is not a supplier, this is a partnership. We immediately saw potential in the collaboration and felt we were dealing with a partner who would think along with us. What also struck us was the flexibility of the system. All our needs would be met. Today, more than one and a half years have passed, and they have gone above and beyond our expectations.”
Soon Dixon & Company noticed that their quarterly reporting process was taken to the next level. “The time saved in preparing our quarterly meetings was immense. In the past, we often had to send the figures late at night, the day before the meeting; now, all of the data is available at the click of a mouse. The only thing we have to do is double check that we haven’t made any processing errors on our side. Then, we can be sure that everything in the system is correct. The fact that we have a high-quality, reliable system at our quarterly meeting that shows us up-to-date and correct figures, live, makes all the difference in the world. We can rely on it.”
During 2019, Dixon & Company decided to purchase BrightAnalytics’ operations module as well. “This was in line with our aim to further optimize our processes,” says Tom. “Thanks to this module – which links financial data, HR data and CRM data – we’ve managed to bring together a number of things, and map out interesting insights about our consultants. How many days did they work? How much training did they receive? Who stayed home when, and how much does everyone bring in? This improved insight into our consulting business helps us detect and fix bottlenecks faster.”
Finally, he also mentions BrightAnalytics’ proactive approach. “Situations that we might encounter in the future are often already largely incorporated into their solutions. However, we also appreciate the fact that we are building our company together. If we have a concern or an idea, a solution will follow in the very near future. With just a few moments of feedback, we usually achieve results very quickly. That is very pleasant”, concludes Tom.