Vértere Global Solutions, Inc., a wholly-owned Filipino IT staffing solutions provider, sees slight decline in growth this year due to the pandemic, but expects robust demand for highly-skilled workers as companies continue their digital transformation to remain competitive.
Company president Jocelyn A. Cariaga said that pre-pandemic, they were gearing up for at least a 10 percent growth. “For 2020, we estimate a negative growth over our 2019 performance,” said Cariaga.
According to Cariaga, the challenge in the IT industry right now is not the number but more on the availability of talents with skill sets relevant to the digital age. IT spending will be driven by the expected shift towards the Cloud, Mobile, Social Media and Big Data/Analytics platforms. This will drive demand for IT staffing companies like Vertere.
Cariaga said enterprises will accelerate the use of IT Staffing option to address their resource gaps for niche or hard-to-find skills.
In addition, she said, many companies are still catching up with their digital transformation initiatives to be competitive so they go to staffing providers for time-critical resources.
Cariaga stressed that in the niche industry of IT staffing services where time to hire, candidate endorsement efficiency and fill rate differentiate the good from the great. The company name is secondary to track record, she said.
Thus, despite having changed names three times over during the last 24 years, Vértere Global Solutions, Inc. is the same organization that has the DNA and work culture that has made it thrive over the last quarter century.
Vértere traces its roots to 1996 when Provident Computer Consultants, Inc. was set up by US company Pinkerton Computer Consultants as its talent pipeline and offshore development facility.
Ten years later in 2006, Kforce Inc., a Nasdaq-listed and top 5 staffing company in the US, bought all of Pinkerton’s operations in the US including Manila. The next decade saw the organization deepening its staffing expertise on the strength of Kforce’s 50 years in the industry, which enhanced the pure technology staffing background of Provident.
Another ten years later, however, in late 2016, Kforce decided to sell the Manila operations to focus in its huge US operations. This started the pivotal turn of the company as it ushered in not only a management buy-out, but also a 100 percent Filipino ownership of the business, with the management partnering with a local venture capital firm, Vertere Venture Capital, Inc, to finance the acquisition of the business from Kforce.
Today, Vértere is uniquely and strategically positioned in the market as the only IT staffing solutions company of its size that is owned and managed by 14 of its mid and senior management whose combined IT staffing experience is unparalleled in the industry.
So far, Vértere has successfully made close to 5,000 career matches between Filipino IT talents and top domestic and multinational companies. It also remains to be the preferred offshore partner of Kforce for talents who work nights in Manila to service US-based clients.
In September this year, Vértere celebrated 3 years of commercial operations as a distinct company from Kforce in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. True to its unique branding in employee and consultant engagement (Consultant Care), the company created programs that are highly engaging.
Vértere is derived from the Latin root word verto which means to turn.
“That pivotal turn has been in the right direction,” Cariaga concluded.