帮助小型企业组团采购的创业公司OrderWithMe 获2800万美元投资
位于拉斯维加斯的创业公司OrderWithMe为小型企业搭建了一个组团合作、像大公司一样寻找物资和元件,然后并完成订购、付款的平台——该公司又获得了2800万美元的融资。
该公司表示将会利用这笔资金把业务推广到新的垂直领域中——据称已经“有多家行业合作伙伴排队等候”——并在该公司提供的服务链中增加一项新产品。首席执行官乔纳森·詹金斯(Jonathan Jenkins)称,OrderWithMe 正在计划“帮助OrderWithMe 的零售商在实体商店中实现全新的消费体验。”
最近一轮融资由Vegas Tech Fund,SOSVentures,BaseVC 以及谢家华(Tony Hsieh,Zappos创始人)领投;Silicon Valley Bank,Pentland Group,Advantage Capital以及其他一些投资者也参与了投资。
OrderWithMe 目前专注于聚合中小企业,帮助他们在八个垂直领域寻找供应商——包括自行车车行、面包店、儿童商店、图文照片印刷、管道施工等等。该公司没有透露加入其网络的企业数量,不过他们指出这些企业每年采购量总计超过32亿美元。新的垂直领域将会在未来几个月内公布。
其中的思路在于,假如说亚马逊、PayPal、eBay 及阿里巴巴这样的电子商务公司,以及百思买这样的大型连锁零售店已经在大规模经济的基础上打下了一片天地,相同原理的大规模采购也能够帮助小型企业在供应商那里争取到更好的采购合同。对于供应商来说,尤其是不在中国的供应商——OrderWithMe 最初就是在中国成立——想要和其中一些小型企业建立关系并不容易。
该公司于2011年(当时还在中国)获得了TC Disrupt Battlefield 北京站的冠军。2013年,也许是为了更接近小型企业零售商的所在地,该公司搬到了美国——具体说来,是内华达州的拉斯维加斯。随后该公司宣布从拉斯维加斯改造计划的倡导者谢家华、Vegas Tech Fund 等几家投资方那里获得了600万美元的投资。
软件及云服务的大范围发展为中小企业带来了能与大型企业匹配的业务运作方式。OrderWithMe 正是把这一点带到了供应链管理及相关领域中。
“OrderWithMe 在成立的头三年里调研了整个库存采购及管理流程中的痛点,建立了有助于简化这一流程的技术,”詹金斯在声明中这样说道,“现在我们有了一套完整的解决方案,能够帮助小型企业管理库存采购的整个流程,从电子采购订单一直到发票以及付款。”
“OrderWithMe 面临着绝佳的机会,以其供应商和采购商的大规模网络成为B2B 支付领域的真正搅局者,”他在声明中说道,“独树一帜的商业模式可以让我们快速扩大规模,因为我们支持独立零售商组团通过统一账户与供应商洽谈。这样零售商就能通过我们完成所有的库存采购工作,并且降低成本,改善自身的现金流。”
原文:OrderWithMe Raises Another $28M To Help Small Businesses Procure Like Big Ones
OrderWithMe, a startup based out of Las Vegas that has built a platform for small businesses to come together to effectively act like big ones to source, order and pay for supplies and components – has raised another $28 million in funding.
The company says the money will be used to build out its operations to new verticals — it has “multiple industry partners lined up” for this already, it says — as well as a new product to add to the chain of services already provided by the startup. OrderWithMe, says CEO Jonathan Jenkins, is planning “to help OrderWithMe’s retailers bring a new consumer experience into brick-and-mortar stores.”
We are reaching out to the company to get more details on the new product.
This latest round of funding was led by the Vegas Tech Fund, SOSVentures, BaseVC and Tony Hsieh; Silicon Valley Bank, Pentland Group, Advantage Capital and several others also participated. To date the company has raised $37 million.
OrderWithMe currently focuses on bringing together businesses with suppliers for eight different verticals that include bike shops, bakeries, children’s stores, photo & printing and plumbing. It doesn’t say how many businesses are a part of its network, but notes that collectively they total more than $3.2 billion in annual purchasing volume. The new verticals will be made public in the next few months.
The thinking here is that if e-commerce companies like Amazon, PayPal, eBay and Alibaba, as well as large brick and mortar chains like Best Buy, have built their businesses out on economies of scale, the same principles of sourcing could help smaller businesses get better deals with suppliers, too. And for the suppliers, especially those based out of China, where OrderWithMe was first founded, trying to connect with some of those smaller businesses is not always that easy.
The company, when still based out of China, was the winner of the TC Disrupt Battlefield in Beijing in 2011. In 2013, perhaps to be closer to the market where its small business retailers are located, it relocated to the U.S. — specifically, Las Vegas, NV. It subsequently announced a $6 million round from Las Vegas regeneration cheerleader Hsieh and the Vegas Tech Fund, among several others.
The company taps into a bigger trend of using the Internet and technology in general to help start and build small businesses (a spirit that is played out in the tech world of startups, which are all, effectively, SMBs in their early days). This has seen the development of a whole range of software, and cloud-based services that bring SMBs on par with how large enterprises do business. OrderWithMe is bringing that to the area of supply chain management and related services.
“OrderWithMe’s first three years were spent identifying the pain points across the entire inventory purchasing and management process and building the technology to help streamline this process,” said Jenkins in a statement. “Now we have a full solution that helps small businesses manage their inventory purchases all the way from electronic purchase orders to invoices and payments.”
Part of that effort has also been helped by way of a key hire, William Reid, who had previously been director of innovation for PayPal. He now runs the startup’s payments business.
“OrderWithMe has a huge opportunity to truly disrupt B2B payments with its vast network of suppliers and buyers,” he said in a statement. “The unique business model allows us to scale quickly as we support groups of independent retailers to act as one big account to our suppliers. This provides retailers the ability to make all of their inventory purchases through us while lowering their costs and improving their cash flow.”
英文文章来源:TC
日本第一大人力资源服务商Recruit营收同比增11.3% ,盈利能力下降
日本第一大人力资源服务供应商Recruit最新财务数据显示,截至2014年9月30日的六个月该公司营收同比上涨10.4%至6,173亿日元(约合53亿美元)。2014财年上半年Recruit毛利润为3,040亿日元(约合26亿美元),运营利润却同比下滑3.2%至534亿日元(约合4.618亿美元);2014财年上半年净利润同比下滑4.1%至284亿日元(约合2.456亿美元)。该公司表示,之所以盈利能力有所下降,其原因在于Recruit战略调整正在实施中长期增长的投资策略。
值得强调的是,Recruit人才服务业务在2014财年上半年的营收为3,281亿日元(约合28亿美元),同比增幅达11.3%。据悉,人才服务业务营收占该公司总营收的53%。Recruit人才服务业务在2014财年上半年中的息税折旧摊销前利润同比也大幅上涨13.1%至189亿日元(约合1.61亿美元)。
财报还显示,Recruit本土市场日本的人才服务业务市场依旧在呈现出稳步拓张趋势。日本本土市场人才服务业务在2014年上半年的营收为1,915亿日元(约合17亿美元)。Recruit海外市场中的北美及欧洲区业务扩张形势进一步加强,其海外人才服务业务营收同比上涨13.2%至1,365亿日元(约合12亿美元)。
Recruit Holdings revenue up by over 10%
(Nov. 17, 2014,/staffingindustry.com/)Recruit Holdings (6098: JP), the largest staffing firm in Japan, reported revenue of JPY 617.3 billion (USD 5.3 billion) for the six months ending 30 September 2014, an increase of +10.4% over the same period in 2013. The company achieved gross profit for the period of JPY 304 billion (USD 2.6 billion), while operating income of JPY 53.4 billion (USD 461.8 million) decreased by -3.2% compared to 2013. Net income decreased by -4.1% to JPY 28.4 billion (USD 245.6 million), year-on-year. The reduction in profitability was attributed to investments carried out for medium-term growth.
The Staffing segment which represents 53% of the company’s total revenue reported revenue of JPY 328.1 billion (USD 2.8 billion) for the six month period, an increase of 11.3% over the same period last year. Staffing EBITDA was JPY 18.9 billion (USD 161 million), an increase of +13.1% over the same period in 2013.
According to the company’s financial statement; the domestic staffing market continues to enjoy a moderate expansion trend as the number of active agency workers remain on an upward trend. Revenue from domestic staffing during the period was JPY 191.5 billion (USD 1.7 billion). In the overseas staffing market, operations in North America and Europe enjoyed a moderate expansion trend. Net sales were favourable, reflecting steady growth in business performance and successful growth of outsourcing services at Advantage Resourcing Europe. Revenue from overseas staffing operations was JPY 136.5 billion (USD 1.2 billion), an increase of +13.2%.
来源:staffingindustry.com
Clustree:利用大数据自动匹配公司内部人才与职位
Clustree是一家利用大数据来为大公司中的合适职位寻找合适人选的法国创业公司。Clustree 不仅能帮助觉得屈才的好员工,也可以帮助可能没有考虑到从自家公司中寻找合适人选的人力资源部门。
Clustree 创始人兼首席执行官本艾蒂科特·索斯安(Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan)在电话采访中对我表示:“Clustree 是一个针对人才管理的软件即服务平台。我们分析了数百万人的职业生涯路径,并创建了跳槽的人的数据图。我们计算相似度并进行推荐。”
最开始的时候,Clustree 从网络上下载了上千万份简历来寻找趋势,这只是开头。现在 Clustree 要有用得多了,用户可以上传自己公司的简历,还能手动通过表格添加员工的数据。所有数据都会进行匿名化处理,并用于帮助为 Clustree 其他客户生成更好的推荐。
总的来说,和猎头公司打交道或花无数时间来面试候选人相比,这一方式要便宜的多。而且 Clustree 对现有员工也有益,员工们可能会更加尽心地工作。
本艾蒂科特·索斯安说道:“我们想要打破传统的职业生涯路径。我们想说有机会从一份工作跳到另一份工作。有时候甚至会出现全新的工作岗位,雇主找不到任何符合这些工作的标准档案。”
Clustree 的方法奏效了。拥有 2000 名员工以上的法国大公司开始使用 Clustree 来进行人才管理。在本艾蒂科特·索斯安测试市场时,法国燃气苏伊士集团就成为了 Clustree 的首个客户。当时该产品还没有完成,她想看看有没有公司会购买。换言之,她在团队开发出产品前就把产品销售了出去。
Clustree 背后的理念来自于创始人的个人经历。当本艾蒂科特·索斯安想要辞掉工作换一份工作时,她搜索了数百份拥有相同背景的类似档案,好看看自己接下来能做什么。但她没有换成工作,而是创办了一家公司来帮助有同一需求的人。
Clustree 最近从 Alven Capital 及几名天使投资人处获得了 76 万美元种子融资。目前 Clustree 正在开发一项大的产品更新,让产品变得更有用。比如,让公司搜索特定行业的人才档案。
人力资源部门绝对应该使用更多数据来作决策,这也是 Clustree 有趣的原因。Clustree 还很年轻,但未来可能会推出更多有用的功能。
Meet Clustree, a French startup that uses big data to find the right person for the right position within big companies. Clustree will help both good employees who feel stuck in their jobs and HR departments who might not think to check their own companies for the perfect candidate.
“Clustree is a SaaS platform for talent management,” founder and CEO Bénédicte de Raphélis Soissan told me in a phone interview. “We analyze the career paths of millions of people and create data charts of people hopping from one job to another. We calculate the likelihood and make recommendations.”
At first, Clustree downloaded tens of millions of résumés on the web to find out trends — this was just used to get a head start. Now, Clustree is much more useful as you can upload résumés from your own company. You can also manually add data about your employees using a form. All this data is anonymized and will help building better recommendations for all the other Clustree customers.
Overall, it makes hiring much cheaper than having to work with a talent agency or spending countless of hours interviewing candidates. And it might be benificial for existing employees as well — they might end up with a more fulfilling job.
“We want to break traditional career paths,” Raphélis Soissan said. “We want to say that there are opportunities to jump from one job to another. Sometimes, there are even brand new jobs, and you can’t find any typical profile for these jobs.”
And it works. Big French companies with more than 2,000 employees started using Clustree for their own talent management. GDF Suez was the first client — at the time, Raphélis Soissan wanted to test the market. The product wasn’t even done. Yet, she wanted to see whether a company would buy it. In other words, she sold the product before her team developed it.
The idea behind Clustree comes from the founder’s personal experience. When Raphélis Soissan wanted to quit her job and find a new one, she started searching for hundreds of similar profiles with the same background to see what she could do. Instead of picking the logical next job, she founded her own company to help people in the same situation.
The company recently raised a $760,000 (€600,000) seed round from Alven Capital and business angels, such as Jean-David Blanc, Fred Montagnon and Florian Douetteau. It is currently working on a major product update that will make it more useful. For example, it will be possible to restrict search queries to companies working in a particular industry.
HR departments should definitely use more data to make educated decisions, and that’s why Clustree is an interesting startup. It’s still very early for the young startup, but there are many potentially useful features behind Clustree.
来源:TC