The chief marketing officer of workforce management services partnership Allegis Talent2 has predicted that 2012 is shaping up to be “an incredible year” for outsourced recruitment offerings.

Fresh from the partnership’s win of a London-based RBS Global Business & Markets (GBM) integrated talent acquisition contract, Bruce Morton told Recruiter that the outlook appeared bright for recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and managed service provision (MSP), in spite of widespread pessimism about the economy. “We’re seeing 2012 being an incredible year for RPO and MSP,” Morton said. “The market’s back with a vengeance. Companies out there are hiring.”

He added: “We’re seeing a lot of organisations changing their strategy, therefore they need new skills - I think that’s what’s causing a lot of the many IT hires, particularly in the US.” For example, he said, retail clients were aiming to improve their e-commerce capabilities, fuelling the need for IT specialists.

Morton went on to say that Allegis Talent2 had “double the RFPs [requests for proposals] that we had for the whole of 2010 right now” in its pipeline. He attributed the partnership’s increased activity to asserting greater presence “on the world map” but also to “the market coming back. An awful lot of large organisations are going out for global, multi-regional RPOs right now”. Also, he added, the MSP business “has never been busier”.

RBS GBM’s decision to opt for an integrated talent acquisition, in which Allegis Talent2 manages both permanent and contract recruitment, was reflective of an increasing trend by employers to take “a truly holistic view of their workforce”, Morton said. “We’ve picked up six RPO deals in the last 12 months where we already had the MSP [contract]. They’ve seen the advantages of having everything under one roof.
“Part of the RBS structure is a resourcing desk that we run,” he explained. “Effectively every requisition goes through that resourcing desk. Then we can look at the best talent, and see how they want to work with us, whether that be on a contingent contract or a permanent basis.”

The RBS GBM deal was the “first sizeable deal” won jointly by the Allegis Talent2 partnership, Morton said.