A seamless global offering is the missing essential ingredient in outsourced recruitment services, creating a gap that is being sorely felt by current clients of recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) firms.

Representing such clients as business management software company SAP, telecoms giant Verizon Business and biotechnical firm MedImmune, speakers on a panel at the HRO World Summit Europe in London last Thursday acknowledged that RPO providers have made significant strides in their service offerings over the past five years. But for businesses with an international presence, the lack of a truly global service hampers brand, compliance and process consistency, panellists said.

“It’s on the move, but it’s not there,” said Wolfgang Brickwedde, senior director - recruitment EMEA for business management software company SAP.

“There are precious few global providers,” said James Montgomery, director and HR business partner EMEA for Verizon Business. He added that if there were any, “Verizon would be interested”.

But solutions may already be developing. When MedImmune sought a global solution to fill its “massive world requirement” for talent, the firm’s US-based RPO provider The Right Thing admitted that it could not help outside the US. But through its links with UK-based RPO provider Alexander Mann Solutions, the RPO was able to build a bridge across the Atlantic to serve MedImmune’s recruitment needs. AMS’s involvement was launched in the second quarter of this year for the UK and the Netherlands.

As a result, MedImmune’s senior vice president, HR, Max Donley, told the audience: “We are at a place now where we are almost ready to declare victory.”

This partnership could be a harbinger of things to come, The Right Thing’s chief executive Terry Terhark suggested. “I think we’re seeing considerable movement to be able to provide a global solution.”