On 15 September Thrivr headed to TEAM Network’s International divisional meeting in London, spending the day with recruitment agencies, service providers and technology partners, discussing all things international expansion. Four sessions, one packed afternoon, and plenty to bring back. Here’s our key takeaways.
It’s all about the tech stack you go to market with
The opening panel doubled as a live recording of the RecTalk podcast, hosted by Nitin Sharma, and it was genuinely fun watching in real time in the room! Panellists from Devyce, Paiger, SourceWhale and Shazamme got into just how important understanding your data and having the right tech stack in place is when expanding internationally.
It was highlighted in the Q&A just how many technology options are out there now for recruitment, especially with the adoption of AI. The general consensus from the panel was, you shouldn’t need more than four or five systems in your stack to scale properly. Samantha Moore, TEAM International’s Divisional Director, added to this. Her advice was to build your tech stack for the next 18 months, not further out. You can always adapt and expand later, and building this way keeps costs down while still covering what you actually need now and in the near future.
The room also agreed that while technology can massively speed up and expand operations, people are still at the heart of every deal. The practical tip we took from it was, pick a focused area, learn the culture there, build from that, and let your existing data help decide where you start.
Before you launch internationally
The second panel, hosted by Kalpesh Baxi, brought together companies who’ve already done the hard part, established internationally, and asked them what needs to be known before launching, with panelists from WTT, Workwell Global, Totaljobs, Prominence, and Simplicity.
The US came up again and again as the big opportunity, with a staffing market 3.5 times the size of the UK’s, worth around $200 billion a year. In fact a few things came up repeatedly throughout the day. Another was the importance of understanding the culture of the market you’re moving into and actually adapt to it, don’t just transplant what works at home. And at some point you need people on the ground, because people still buy from people.
It was addressed by the panel to come to market with a proper strategy and the budget to back it, alongside getting the legal and compliance groundwork done early, particularly your terms of business.
An analogy we thought was particularly good from the day was Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola doesn’t bottle, package or deliver a single can itself. It makes the concentrate and owns the brand and recipe, and hands the rest, bottling, packaging, distribution, to a network of independent partners who do it better locally. The takeaway for anyone expanding internationally is the same, know exactly what you’re an expert in, and trust others’ expertise to handle the rest.
Finding your niche
Workwell Global then walked us through the data behind the biggest international growth markets. (This was an excellent presentation and there was a lot to unpack, enough that we’re thinking of giving it its own blog post, so more on that soon.)
The bit that really landed was about finding your niche. In the US, for instance, healthcare is one of the biggest staffing sectors, but it can come loaded with liability and risk, and the message was to be honest with yourself about what your business is actually set up to handle before you chase it. One number that puts the scale of the US market into perspective: roughly 72 million people currently working independently in the US, projected to reach 86.5 million by 2027.
A market that size isn’t an invitation to go after all of it, it’s a reminder that the businesses who win are the ones who know exactly which slice of it they’re best placed to serve, and increasingly, whether that’s contractor or permanent talent is as much a part of that decision as sector or region.
Ending where the day started: data
We closed things out with MarketMapr demonstrating its market mapping software, which felt like a fitting way to end, given how often “know your own data” had come up across the day.
Why it mattered to us
We’ve been putting a lot of focus lately into our own software’s international capability, and days like this are exactly why. Many of our clients, umbrella companies, payroll providers, and recruitment-adjacent businesses, already operate on the international stage, and plenty more are planning to within the next five years.
That’s what makes being in the room matter so much, hearing the conversations, the concerns people are working through, the successes worth repeating, and the advice from people who’ve already done this. All of it feeds directly into how we’re building.
A huge thank you to TEAM Network for having us, and to everyone who spoke and shared what they’d learned.
As you grow into new markets, perks and benefits shouldn’t be an afterthought. Thrivr is a tech-forward perks and benefits provider built for this market, get in touch to see how we can support you.
hello@thrivr.co.uk
