This morning, veteran integrated workforce management system PRO Unlimited, known across the globe for its powerful Managed Service Provider (MSP) offerings and Best-in-Class Vendor Management System (VMS), announced that it has rebranded itself under the new name Magnit. The new brand reflects the solution’s overall commitment to being a magnetic force in how businesses leverage its innovative technology to draw people to work in an effective manner.

“The new name, Magnit, reflects both the evolution of our industry and how far PRO Unlimited has come as the industry-leading integrated workforce management platform,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of Magnit. “Magnit is a reflection of our vision for the evolution of work. It also aligns with our position as the company of record in how businesses attract, engage, and source top-tier talent that tightly aligns with their goals and objectives. This is an exciting new chapter that will culminate in Magnit realizing PRO’s original goal: serve as a true, end-to-end platform comprised of modern software, proven expertise and world-class data and intelligence for workforce management.”

Perhaps the most critical facet of the rebrand is how the provider is approaching its end-to-end offerings: the move to Magnit is not just a simple rebrand, but rather a culmination of two years’ worth of consistent market activity, including acquisitions (WillHire, GRI, Workforce Logiq), partnerships (eightfold, Ceridian, etc.), and new product launches (Direct Source PRO, NorthStar, etc.). The new brand is an opportunity for the company to cohesively blend all of its core products and services under a unified architecture within a single brand.

It is expected that, over the next six months, any fragmentation of offerings will be streamlined and integrated under the new Magnit brand. This is a key attribute of the rebrand, as the company counts several “buckets” of products just within the data/analytics space, with ENGAGE Talent, Envision Analytics, and NorthStar (as well as its RatePoint offering) soon to be merged into a more interconnected solution.

Magnit will continue to work towards its “platform vision,” as laid out by PRO Unlimited back in 2020. With an array of innovation at its fingertips, Magnit is an ideal position to capitalize on an evolving business arena that requires top-tier skillsets to thrive; the rebrand can be considered a catalyst for the organization to continue its innovative work in becoming a platform of choice for not just the extended workforce, but also a source of agility for enterprises across the globe.

“The move to the Magnit brand represents the next bold age for our integrated workforce management platform,” said Vidhya Srinivasan, chief marketing officer at Magnit. “Both the name itself and our new logo echoes our core vision: augment the next evolution in workforce management by drawing people together through modern software and a commitment to the evolution of work. Magnit will be a powerful force for our clients, partners, and suppliers as we link businesses to the agile talent they require to thrive during these dynamic times.”

The definition of a magnet does not just mention the attraction of other metal- or iron-containing objects; it also includes the alignment of itself in an external magnetic field. For Magnit, this means one thing: the solution is positioned to align itself as a centerpiece in how businesses not only find the talent they need, but how they truly optimize how work is done.

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This morning, the company announced that it entered into an agreement to acquire fellow MSP offering Geometrics Results, Inc. (GRI). GRI has long been an innovative and powerful solution in the MSP landscape (most recently evaluated as a “Market Leader” in the Ardent Partners/Future of Work Exchange MSP Solution Advisor report) through its robust Managed Direct Sourcing (MDS) offering, coupled with one of the industry’s deepest intelligence engines (Envision Analytics) and a dedication to a variety of key market verticals.

GRI is currently owned by MSX International, a technology-enabled business process outsourcing firm, which is a portfolio company of funds managed by Bain Capital Europe. GRI has 150 customers across the world, representing over $4 billion in spend under management (particularly concentrated in the United States, the UK, and India).

The GRI acquisition, according to PRO Unlimited CEO Kevin Akeroyd, is a multi-faceted move that will help the solution expand on many of its forward-thinking goals for the greater industry.

“Our mission is to be the centralized system of record and a truly holistic platform for the extended workforce,” said Akeroyd. “M&A activity is a key piece of our mission, and when we think about satisfying the many “flavors” of how work gets done, including managed services, end-to-end software, data and intelligence, payrolling, and the worker experience, this acquisition firmly supports that vision, allowing us to deliver something very special for the marketplace.”

The GRI acquisition will allow PRO Unlimited to continue expanding its growing market, particular within additional industries that GRI has long specialized and served, including automotive and light industrial. In addition, GRI’s long list of large and mid-market clients will be a nice addition to PRO’s Global 2000 portfolio of customers.

From a solutions perspective, the Future of Work Exchange believes that PRO’s acquisition of GRI is an ideal and complementary piece to key areas within several of the solution’s Best-in-Class offerings, particularly direct sourcing (DirectSource PRO) and data and intelligence. GRI’s Envision analytics tool is one of the industry’s deepest and most powerful, a “gold standard” for total talent data and insights across the workforce management solutions industry. PRO’s agile reporting functionality will benefit from GRI’s on-demand, Envision-driven data and intelligence, which helps users better understand the impact of the extended workforce and how to maximize it by using predictive modeling and scenario-building.

“GRI will harmonize PRO’s analytics and intelligence capabilities, which are already the largest data-led offerings in our space,” said Akeroyd. Pointing to its recent acquisition of PeopleTicker, its stout RatePoint offering, and the “jewel” of the Workforce Logiq acquisition (ENGAGE AI), Akeroyd said, “Envision fits really nicely into all of that and what we’re offering from a total talent intelligence perspective and will be a nice boost to that critical aspect of our solution.”

With the GRI acquisition, the PRO umbrella of solutions will account for over $22 billion in spend under management, a figure which would make them one of the three or four largest MSPs in the workforce solutions marketplace.

“This acquisition will continue to enhance our overall vision, with GRI serving as yet another extension of the end-to-end platform,” said Akeroyd. “Many of the best brands in the world rely on GRI as a world-class MSP; we now have the opportunity to help enable these household-name organizations with world-class workforce management services, worker experience solutions, technology, and total talent intelligence.”

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In a similar manner, much has been written about the “war for talent,” even in pre-pandemic times. For years now, businesses have had to do all that they can to catalyze talent acquisition and talent engagement. When aspects such as workplace culture, business environment, and diversity and inclusion become key reasons why a worker would choose to bring their talents to an organization, the overall “talent experience” suddenly rises as the top differentiator for enterprises in attracting new talent.

To that end, integrated workforce management platform (IWM) provider PRO Unlimited recently announced an exclusive partnership with global human capital solutions provider Ceridian. The partnership will focus on the integration of Ceridian’s unique Dayforce Wallet into PRO’s innovative Worker Experience solution. Extended workers will have direct access to net pay as it is earned; after an on-demand pay request is completed within the Dayforce Wallet mobile app, funds are deposited directly into workers’ Dayforce Wallet accounts (which can then be transferred to checking accounts, withdrawn for cash, used to make purchases, etc.).

“It’s really about rethinking this industry in the sense that the extended workforce is more than just placing and filling roles,” said Jessica Kane, Chief Client Officer, PRO Unlimited. “We want to bring all of that talent-fueled data and intelligence together for the best possible worker experience. Businesses want to attract the best and brightest workers, and this partnership with Ceridian will certainly drive more choice into the overall talent experience.”

Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 80% of businesses are now focused on transforming their workplaces into more attractive places to work, a statistic that reflects the core mindset of enterprise leaders across the world: develop an alluring, positive environment in which candidates what to work and thrive.

“Skills have really become the new currency,” said Kane. “We want workers to be able to utilize those skillsets, combined with our data and intelligence, to support them along their career journeys and enable them to choose the right paths. Thinking about the opportunities and the clients that offer these roles, how do enterprises attract workers to these positions? Combining our data ocean and integrated workforce platform with on-demand pay through Ceridian, we can leverage all of these innovations in helping workers purse their passions.”

“Worker Experience is a standalone solution that will revolutionize how businesses transform the overall candidate and worker experience,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited. “Functionality such as worker engagement and profiling (amongst other processes) are already integrated into our platform via WillHire, however, this new partnership will enhance those pieces of our solution and push worker experience management into the extended workforce.”

The concept of “day pay” has become a hot topic in the extended workforce world, as industries such as light industrial, warehouses, and other shift-based businesses experience a sharp uptick in the utilization of non-employee labor. As businesses in these sectors strive to build compelling and engaging candidate experiences, traversing into on-demand pay will become a critical measure. PRO Unlimited certainly understands the implications of this innovative market shift, which is reflected in this unique and pioneering partnership with Ceridian.

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“Evolution” and “disruption” are not often mentioned in the same discussion. However, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-sweeping ramifications on the business arena, the two are now interchangeable dimensions that are actively transforming the way work is addressed and done. The world of contingent workforce management has changed forever, with progressive attributes placing equal emphasis on the talent and innovation components of how the modern-day worker is engaged and sourced.

As the Future of Work continues to leave its indelible fingerprints on the wide world of talent and work, both HR and procurement executives will require a unified technological approach that can seamlessly connect the most critical pieces of workforce management.

Enter PRO Unlimited.

Why They Were Selected:

Future of Work Exchange research finds that 84% of businesses aimed to “reimagine” workforce management heading into 2021, given that they spent the better part of a year facing the worst public health crisis of their collective lifetimes that caused undue disruption to traditional processes and strategies related to the growing and evolving non-employee workforce. While that statistic continues to prove itself out in an ever-changing business arena, what also stands out is that (also according to FOWX research) nearly 70% of enterprises are also focused on better managing the many technological gaps in the ultimate coverage of the total workforce.

PRO Unlimited has been one of the most aggressive and disruptive workforce management solutions in the market over the past year, owed to a “platform” vision that would see it become a dynamic nexus for agile workforce innovation. In just a short amount of time, the solution expanded the depth of its data ocean (acquisition of PeopleTicker), expanded its commitment to DE&I (exclusive partnership with EightfoldAI), announced a direct sourcing solution and added progressive functionality to it within months (the new Direct Sourcing PRO offering combined with the acquisition of WillHire), and expanded its total managed service provider reach with the acquisition of Workforce Logiq (also named a “Key Provider for 2021” here on the Exchange).

In Their Own Words:

Servicing hundreds of the world’s most recognizable brands, PRO Unlimited offers modern workforce management and a partner ecosystem supported by data, software, intelligence, and services to meet your flexible workforce needs. PRO’s Integrated Workforce Management Platform can adapt quickly to regional or industry economic shifts, and provides the speed, scale, flexibility, transparency, and expertise to serve as the holistic platform for the modern workforce. Headquartered in San Francisco, PRO has helped global brands and organizations achieve operational and financial success for more than 30 years.

The Outlook:

PRO Unlimited, quite simply, is a solution that is tailored for the Future of Work. Consider the pieces of its end-to-end offering:

• Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) are built into the fabric of its core platform and especially its direct sourcing module (Direct Source PRO) through its exclusive partnership with Eightfold AI.
• The acquisition of Workforce Logiq wasn’t just an expansion play, but rather a way to tap into the solution’s unique, intelligence-led offerings, particularly ENGAGE Talent, which has the potential to revolutionize talent engagement combined with the power of the PRO platform.
• Direct Source PRO, in a short period of time, became one of the industry’s strongest direct sourcing offerings. The addition of WillHire’s deep functionality will only aid in pushing this facet of the PRO solution to new heights.
• The recent partnership with Glider AI (also a FOWX “Key Provider”!) will further enable a range of digital recruitment and candidate assessment capabilities that are designed to assist PRO clients with the necessary, on-demand intelligence to enhance predictive talent modeling, improve the quality of talent channels, and optimize direct sourcing strategies.

Simply put: 2022 will be a massive year for PRO Unlimited and the delivery of its innovative vision. The company is consistently unveiling pieces of a larger puzzle that are ultimately designed to facilitate a new era of optimization within the realms of workforce intelligence, DE&I, direct sourcing, talent acquisition, and agile workforce management.

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Going into 2020, direct sourcing and talent pools were, respectively, the top two priorities for businesses entering a new decade. Although the early months of the pandemic may have put a damper on many talent acquisition and contingent workforce program initiatives, the truth is that direct sourcing (and its many unique attributes) emerged as an ideal means of both keeping top-tier candidates engaged and positioning the greater organization with workforce agility. And today, direct sourcing has become one of the preeminent means of driving higher talent quality and supporting true workforce scalability. Nearly 55% of businesses across the globe, according to Future of Work Exchange research, have a proper direct sourcing initiative in place today (compared to only half this figure just two years ago).

MSP and VMS provider PRO Unlimited has long demonstrated its direct sourcing efficacy, with its DirectSource PRO offering one of the market’s strongest solutions for direct sourcing. While the provider’s end-to-end power is industry-leading, achieving the “platform” vision that CEO Kevin Akeroyd laid out last year would not be possible without both organic growth and aggressive market activity to bolster the solution’s already-impressive range of innovative functionality.

“Direct sourcing is no longer a “hype cycle” topic, it is a mission-critical priority for enterprises and one that is finally being invested heavily in and adopted. The historical problem has been the utter fragmentation and immaturity of solutions,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited. “Large global brands have needed MSP services, curation Services, direct sourcing SaaS, VMS SaaS, analytics SaaS, market rate data, and payroll just to get off the ground. So, they’ve gone out and hired seven small vendors that each do their own little piece, and that large brand spends the next several years doing nothing but managing people/process/systems integration and vendor management instead of driving business outcomes, winning the war for talent, and driving hundreds of millions of savings out of their organizations every year. DirectSource PRO has solved that; it’s the one holistic platform that does everything, at scale, globally, and provides that single platform and system of record for direct sourcing…Hence the adoption of over 40 Fortune 1000 clients adopting it just in the last five months (with that number expected to be over 80 by the end of the year).”

Yesterday, PRO Unlimited announced that it had acquired WillHire, one of the industry’s leading direct sourcing technology offerings. The acquisition allows PRO to reinforce the strength of its DirectSource PRO solution and tap into additional functionality; this acquisition also enables PRO to leverage WillHire’s comprehensive end-to-end campaign management technology for recruitment marketing, as well as its “marketing automation-like” self-scheduling and communication with talent. Other highlights of this acquisition include:

• PRO Unlimited, WillHire, and Eightfold are a winning trifecta for direct sourcing. PRO’s direct sourcing technology was already a leading solution due its innovative stack and partnership with Eightfold. The addition of WillHire not only bolsters the total power of the DirectSource PRO offering from a pure functionality perspective, but also complements the DE&I and candidate assessment data that is funneled through the Eightfold partnership.
• WillHire brings an added layer of repeatable “Direct Sourcing 2.0” technology to PRO’s existing functionality. One of WillHire’s core strengths (as written about in Ardent’s 2021 Digital Staffing Platforms Technology Advisor) is its ability to enable “Direct Sourcing 2.0” capabilities, such as recruitment marketing, automated referral management, and deeper candidate matching algorithms. This acquisition will surely increase the overall power and impact of Direct Source PRO.
• WillHire’s relationships and integrations with major job boards and career sites will deepen the overall talent reach of DirectSource PRO. The very crux of direct sourcing is building a repository of known, vetted, and top-shelf talent; WillHire’s existing integrations with leading industry job boards translates into a more robust swath of high-quality candidates. This will fortify DirectSource PRO’s talent engagement reach.

“Adding WillHire enables us to add large-scale digital talent board/network/FMS integrations, deeper AI/MBL matching, candidate/worker recruitment marketing and ongoing engagement, and skills assessment to the platform,” Akeroyd added. “And, as importantly, it is robust across ALL job types – including shift workers, light industrial, not just white collar, so it allows us to enable direct sourcing for an enterprise’s ENTIRE contingent worker population.”

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To say that global workforce management solutions provider PRO Unlimited has been aggressive in disrupting the market is a vast understatement. In the span of less than a year, the company has:

• Acquired of the industry’s leading rate intelligence solutions, PeopleTicker.
• Introduced new functionality and offerings that are transforming diversity, equity, and inclusion for the market.
• Launched an exclusive partnership with Eightfold to push AI-driven talent intelligence into PRO’s technology (particularly its flagship Wand VMS product).
• Acquired Dutch MSP Brainnet Group.
• Optimized client hiring decisions through its unique RatePoint tool.
• Launched its NorthStar HCM consulting and advisory team, which blends market expertise and talent intelligence into an agile add-on offering, and;
• Been acquired by EQT Partners, which is actively allowing the solution to fulfill its promise of becoming a true end-to-end workforce management platform.

And, this week, PRO Unlimited announced that it will acquire Workforce Logiq, one of the workforce management technology landscape’s biggest and most mature players. This news is yet another indicator that PRO will continue its aggressive approach towards realizing its goal of becoming an on-demand, agile, and flexible end-to-end platform for managing non-employee and extended talent.

What is particularly interesting about this acquisition that both PRO and Workforce Logiq are like-minded solutions; both have industry longevity on their side and offer hybrid Managed Services Provider (MSP) solutions and Vendor Management System (VMS) technology. In addition, both companies have harnessed innovative approaches towards workforce management technology, particularly in the arena of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics (in fact, we just spoke with Workforce Logiq’s Chief Strategy Officer, Joe Hanna, about this topic on FOWX).

“Both companies have a similar “platform” vision with two like-minded executive and product teams,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited. “We essentially both saw the market in the same way, so we knew that [the acquisition] was already heading in the right strategic direction. The cultures between PRO and Workforce Logiq are incredibly well-aligned, as well, and there are many talented people that are now part of the PRO family.”

Together, the two solutions will represent a massive disruptor in the contingent workforce management (CWM) solutions marketplace. This acquisition will allow PRO to expand its global reach even further and enable existing Workforce Logiq clients the sheer breadth of offerings under the PRO umbrella. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange instant analysis is as follows:

• PRO Unlimited will undoubtedly make immediate use of WFQ’s impressive array of AI-led innovation. WFQ seemingly went from a standard MSP/VMS hybrid under the ZeroChaos brand to purveyor of AI-led workforce management solutions in short order when it moved to the Workforce Logiq brand, including its 16 patent-pending analytical technologies and toolbox of AI-led reporting functionality.
• The ENGAGE Talent factor could be the most interesting facet of this deal. Back in 2019, I wrote that Workforce Logiq’s acquisition of ENGAGE Talent was a workforce management solutions gamechanger. “ENGAGE Talent’s technological sweet spot (predictive AI-powered algorithms) enables users to anticipate talent supply chain gaps, analyze real-time global labor conditions, and develop deep talent-based scenarios for short- and long-term contingent and full-time total workforce planning.” ENGAGE is/was one of WFQ’s most prized and innovative market offerings; we fully expect PRO Unlimited to take advantage of this deep tool to advance its intelligence-led technology.
• PRO’s industry coverage becomes even more expansive than it was before the acquisition. While both PRO and Workforce Logiq are “household” names in the CWM solutions market, each paved its own path through dozens of unique verticals. PRO’s acquisition of WFQ opens the solution to clients in some very large industries, including automotive, healthcare, and telecom.
• Strengths of both solutions, particularly DE&I and direct sourcing, will become more robust under the unified company. PRO’s recent enhancements of its direct sourcing and diversity, equity, and inclusion offerings was a strong way to kick off 2021. Workforce Logiq was an early pioneer of the direct sourcing model (even nicknaming it “self-sourcing” back in 2019) and has long been a force when it comes to improving DE&I in staffing and talent acquisition. These two very critical aspects of the Future of Work will become even stronger under the unified PRO/WFQ brand.

Beyond the obvious “scale” factors of the acquisition (such as combining two of the industry’s largest providers from RPO, payrolling, and other standard workforce management operations), there is something much larger – and more critical – at play: the fact that PRO Unlimited now has incredible positioning as an end-to-end workforce management solution that leads with innovation, data, and intelligence. Workforce Logiq’s main differentiators from the MSP pack have always sat in its wide-ranging abilities to plug-and-play real-time labor market, job role, rate, and other forms of deep intelligence into its core managed service operations. That PRO now has these functionalities at its fingertips is a true competitive transformation for the platform.

“There are incredible synergies here between the two solutions,” Akeroyd said. “Adding Workforce Logiq’s deep ocean of data and their innovative analytical tools to PRO’s end-to-end platform are going to be very impactful in how we continue to transform contingent workforce management for our customers. This is an acquisition that truly allows us to accelerate on our vision.”

(Financial terms of the acquisition, which is expected to close in Q4, were not disclosed. Stay tuned to the Future of Work Exchange for more insights on the evolving workforce management technology landscape.)

The post FOWX Alert: PRO Unlimited Continues Aggressive Technology Transformation, Acquires Workforce Logiq appeared first on The Future of Work Exchange.

This major transaction follows a year of aggressive market activity by the veteran MSP and VMS suite of solutions, which has undergone a seismic transformation since mid-2020. A longtime leader in the CWM technology arena, PRO continues to deliver on its promise to reimagine the end-to-end offerings of its core services and automation and become a true “platform” for agile workforce management activity.

“The team at EQT has been following the macro trends around the world of talent and work. They, much like us, see the contingent workforce segment growing at a rapid rate and becoming more and more strategic,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited. “PRO was uniquely positioned here because we have the technology, the data, the analytics, coupled with the people / service assets in place, which has been a cornerstone of our MSP business, to not only satisfy the elements of what enterprises need today to manage their agile talent, but also having all of those critical elements inside the same platform.”

In several discussions with Akeroyd over the past several months, PRO’s CEO outlined an assertive range of objectives that mainly included a technological revamp, more dedicated offerings within the diversity and inclusion arena, and on-demand facilitation of data, intelligence, and workforce agility. The acquisition by EQT will allow PRO’s executive team to capitalize on an evolving market while enabling quicker time-to-market for burgeoning offerings for SOW/services procurement and direct sourcing, as well as its unique RatePoint solution.

“This is going to allow PRO to do what we want to do much faster and on a larger, global stage,” Akeroyd told CPO Rising. “EQT didn’t come here to change us or alter the fundamentals of who we are or what we want to accomplish. The vision that we had last year (becoming an end-to-end platform for all things contingent labor) can be realized much quicker with the investment from EQT.”

Historically, PRO Unlimited has not been known for major M&A activity, but that line of thinking changed when Akeroyd joined the organization last year, setting off a string of market-shifting moves that positioned the veteran solution for a major transformation in the months afterwards.

“Our organization went nearly 30 years without a major acquisition. It wasn’t until recently [Editor’s note: PRO acquired PeopleTicker and the Brainnet Group in 2020 and 2021, respectively] that the company started to shift its acquisition strategy,” Akeroyd said. “With EQT as a partner, we can accelerate M&A activity much more aggressively. If we need to buy, we can do that. If we need to build, they’ll support us. And we’ll have the power to partner with those solutions that are complementary to PRO’s end-to-end suite.”

The acquisition is certainly timely, as upcoming Ardent Partners research finds that the agile workforce continues to grow in size, impact, utilization, and prominence: nearly 47% of the average organization’s total workforce is now considered “extended” or “non-employee,” reinforcing the notion that businesses require more comprehensive, dynamic tools to effectively converge traditional aspects of contingent workforce management with the deeper elements (such as direct sourcing, services procurement, etc.) required to maximize the inherent value of the agile workforce.

“The contingent workforce is going to lead the economic recovery. If you look at the numbers and employment data regarding traditional workers and FTEs, they aren’t going up…but the agile workforce is,” said Akeroyd. “The Global 2000 enterprise is alive and well, and they’re largely thriving in this market due to their reliance on white-collar, remote, highly-skilled extended talent. PRO is enabling the average enterprise to achieve this level of success on the contingent workforce front; we are a leader in this solutions industry and what EQT has done is allow us to be a bigger, more impactful part of how businesses harness the power of their agile workforce across the globe.”

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