An Interview With Guy Erricker: From An Offer Negotiation To A Rickshaw Ride (Part Two)

In part two of this series, Guy Erricker recounts the best and worst of his experiences in moving to India and his perspective on the recruiting business in the next three years.

The Edge: So Guy, what Indian traits do you most dislike in professional terms?

Guy: Oh wow, thanks for that one! I’d have to say while it’s something I don’t necessarily like the whole time, I can admire the ability or rather more specifically ‘the desire’ to negotiate…. literally the whole time! Even when everything is seemingly agreed, if there is still time to negotiate, then I find people will try to have a last-minute negotiation, just because they feel they should… just in case!

Initially, I found it exhausting, now it’s just built into every aspect of my life to expect it. At first, I thought the negotiating was just because people were trying to take advantage of the fact I’m not from India and ‘don’t know any better’. These days, however, it amuses and reassures me when I see my Indian colleagues going through the exact same challenges I do, in anything from an offer negotiation to a rickshaw ride! Thankfully, by now, I roughly know what ‘fair value’ is in India so I stick to my guns… most of the time!

The Edge: Given a chance will you stay in India for 3 more years?

Guy: All things being equal, that’s definitely the plan and possibly even a little longer. On the family front — all is currently good and we thoroughly enjoy living here. I may not have said that earlier last week as my son and I were suffering a severe bout of gastric flu, but on the overwhelming whole, life is very colourful here in many ways!

The Edge: So what has been the best and worst experience in India for you and the family then?

Guy: My best experience has been able to take my children trekking in the Himalayas and let them have terrifying, near-death experiences in trucks on narrow mountain hillsides and catch some gastro virus up at the snow line and a 2 days trek from any sort of medical assistance. That I hope will be a memorable first introduction to snow for them.

I believe their best experience has been sleeping in the desert under the stars in Jaisalmer knowing that their Dad had another full day’s camel ride the next day with a decimated pelvis. Like most things in India it seems, it’s all about perspective!

The Edge: Ok then… moving on, so how about your perspective on the business in the next 3 years then?

Guy: On the business side, we have a clear plan of where we want to be by 2023 in terms of revenues, headcount, markets and company structure and now it’s just a case of putting it in place. I’ve discovered making the plan though is always the easy part! It’s now a case of hitting those milestones and developing your team and identifying new talent to help you get there.

The Edge: How would you describe the journey for the business in the last 3 years?

Guy: Well, I put it down to pure coincidence, but pretty much as I landed it seemed all well-laid plans went for a toss! No one has ever blamed me per se. In hindsight, 2017 seems like it was a tough year in recruitment across most of the Indian market. That was the only year that we have only just increased our revenues, compared to every other year we’ve had.

While it seemed really busy, to me at least, things weren’t falling into place generally with a lack of commitment to hiring from our clients. Prior to 2017, we had increased revenues by 100% year on year. Thankfully, since then, things have got back on track and 2018 saw us increase revenues by a further 70% and this year we improved revenues by another 30’ish%. All with a very similar level of headcount since 2017, so things are currently moving in the right direction.

The Edge: That’s a relief to hear! What’s been the difference then in bringing about that change of fortune?

Guy: I’d say that the market demand has definitely been increasing amongst our clients, which has primarily been the international banking captives. I think we have also been able to penetrate further into our client base more effectively, in the specific functions that we cover and at different levels within our clients, which has correspondingly raised our profile within them.

We have also continued to invest and retain faith in our functionally specialised model, which is definitely paying dividends as the requirements of our clients is becoming more niche.

We were probably guilty in the early years of trying to be everything to everyone without having a strong critical mass in one area in terms of specialists. In 2017, we spent time correcting that to focus on a core area in middle and back office in banking captives and in 2018, we capitalised on that — expanded into HR as a specialisation and this year we have invested significantly into developing our IT team further.

As they come online, I’d expect that area to be a significant driver of revenue growth for us in India for 2020 and beyond, to complement our existing offerings to our clients and ultimately be the driver for us into other areas of the market.

Coming into the India market, we knew that copying what other successful competitors were already doing well, meant that we would probably be on a hiding to nothing. We would have been smashed on costs and speed of delivery, trying to compete at a level of the market that is saturated with agencies and internal talent acquisition teams.

We’ve kept a firm eye on the medium term in the India market by doing things that may not necessarily be revenue-producing until next month but we believed it would benefit us in the future and help us establish a solid platform from which to build. Building talent pools of Indians overseas candidates or female candidates over the last 3-5 years, for example, meant that over 60% of my own personal revenue generation for 2019 has just been from overseas candidates and female placements!

The Edge: Which skills do you think are more readily available in the Indian recruitment market which you may struggle to find overseas?

Guy: Resilience and persistence! I wouldn’t say that’s a skill, to be honest, and I know you obviously find it in recruitment generally, but the India recruitment market can be pretty brutal and unforgiving and hard to navigate at times. Resilience and persistence are key, and I’ve seen that trait in the team to a level that I haven’t seen as prevalent as elsewhere in my past experiences. It may not have been particularly commercial at the point in time but the diligence and persistence are admirable and when it pays off, it’s literally like witnessing the Fall of Jericho!

Read Part One of Guy’s journey to India and stay tuned for Part 3 later this week as we unravel his experience in chaotic Bengaluru and his thoughts on the recruitment firms in India.  If you’d like to reach out to Guy or any of the team members at The Edge, simply talk to us.