Keeping things simple

How does a growing company deal with its transition into a major international organisation faced with complex global recruitment issues? 

Mercuri Urval’s cooperation with Marioff, the world-leading fire protection company, shows the benefits of keeping things simple.

With its sophisticated, custom-built firefighting solutions, Marioff is a global market leader. These use high-pressure water mist to extinguish fires, rather than traditional water sprinkler systems, which can do more damage than the fires they are supposed to extinguish.

Founded by energetic Finnish entrepreneur Göran Sundholm, Marioff’s management was largely a one-man show. He was part of every significant decision made at the company, including those relating to recruitment. But, as the company grew, so Sundholm sought fresh challenges and decided to sell the company to UTC Fire & Security, a US-based giant of the industry.

Cheaper, streamlined recruitment solutions

Following the takeover, Sundholm and some members of Marioff’s existing senior management left the company. A new managing director was appointed, who was faced with filling significant gaps within the organisation.

Now backed by a large owner, Marioff was poised to embark on a period of aggressive global expansion to fully exploit the vast potential of its products – and that meant it needed to instigate a major recruitment drive

However, the company did not want to spend heavily on establishing its own HR department from scratch and then paying for specialised staff to be permanently on call, when they were unlikely to be needed all the time.

The new managing director soon decided that outsourcing recruitment and HR activities would be a logical and more efficient solution. By bringing in Mercuri Urval to help, recruitment could start instantly and Marioff’s management could focus on the firm’s core value-generating activities.

- “Marioff tells us that the recruitment we have done for them is the best they could have wished for. We are thrilled to be working for a dynamic company that makes important products that the world needs,” says Michael Cedercreutz, Senior Consultant and Account Manager for Mercuri Urval in Helsinki.

The advantages of a global partner

One of Mercuri Urval’s strongest selling points is that we make recruitment much easier and more streamlined for clients operating across many countries. Our truly global presence means that we don’t just choose to work with recruitment partners in other countries – we can use our own fully functional organisations there instead.

This international presence offers many advantages for clients:

o Our consultants have local knowledge and native language skills. 

o Clients do not need to go through the process of obtaining bids from numerous recruitment companies in each country.

o Uncertainty over collaborating with relatively unknown recruitment companies is removed.

o With one international partner, Mercuri Urval’s clients don’t have to keep track of unpredictable costs, such as multiple invoices and travel expenses in different currencies, which can create a logistical headache.

Avoiding the dangerous quick fix

Mercuri Urval applies its internationally tried and tested methodology together with local insights to find the very best candidate. We do not go for the quick-and-easy option of settling for the first few candidates that happen to appear – we search until we have found the best people available.

- “In the long term, this approach always proves cost-efficient: there is a staggering underlying cost involved if a quick-and-easy recruitment process results in a wrongly hired manager who leaves a client company after only a few months,” Michael Cedercreutz says.

The benefits of our quantity rebate

Marioff’s management opted to formalise its partnership with Mercuri Urval through a Preferred Supplier Agreement. The essence of this deal was that the more Marioff uses Mercuri Urval’s services, the cheaper each commission gets. At the same time, Marioff retains the freedom to collaborate with any competing recruitment company, if that is deemed necessary.

The right focus

When a company such as Marioff works with Mercuri Urval, it not only frees up the client’s management to focus on what they do best. It also means that the client is collaborating with a partner with specific expertise in its own area.

- “When a client’s managers do the recruitment process themselves, they have to do this in addition to their regular jobs. Our experience shows that they don’t always have the time and focus needed to find, attract and convince the best available candidates,” says Michael Cedercreutz. “We really have time to sell the client’s brand enthusiastically and to take care of the candidates.”

< Back to previous page