
Happy
birthday adi Consult!
The consulting company just celebrated its 10th
anniversary in a gathering attended by fifty leading members and
representatives in Frankfurt. Established in October 2000 by former Schenker
executive Klaus Geissler, it seems no wonder that ever since then, many
Schenker managers jumped on board to become members or partners of adi
Consult. Today, adi is a global player in the field of personnel sourcing and
placement, management consulting and M&A assignments.
“We run offices in 26 different
countries, with 43 offices that cover roughly 100 countries,” states
Managing Partner Klaus Geissler. This year, the group expects to turn over
approximately nine million euros. The group has nearly 20,000 candidates
globally on file and executed roughly 2,400 mandates during the last twelve
months. After the global crisis caused a financial drought in the cash box
last year, a flow of money is much appreciated.
The pace of the sourcing business in logistics
is accelerating more and more over the last few months. “On our
application list stand, not only the names of CEOs and other top shots in air
freight and logistics, but also the so-called high level but also somehow
lower ranked candidates like regional sales executives, general managers,
market analysts, or country managers,” explains Geissler.

This middle ranked section
“is an increasingly interesting sourcing field that we should
concentrate and focus on much more,” recommended San Diego,
California-based Helmut Berchtold, Managing Partner himself, and a major
shareholder in adi’s U.S. branch, possessing 5 percent in adi Consult
Germany. The meat and potatoes of the sourcing biz is confidentiality and
providing a system for both the applicant and the enterprise that is looking
out for experienced and talented candidates for a certain position.
“Managers who have a secure job
don’t normally risk changing employers. Only if an alternative
assignment offers superior benefits in terms of salary, influence and
decision making might they consider taking the risk,” Berchtold says.
The best and most advisable practice for firms
that want to find appropriate candidates is to look at their staff first and
try to promote from within their own company. But if the personnel resources
don’t provide a match, it is highly recommended that the company knocks
at the door of a sourcing specialist, since “advertising, reviewing,
and interviewing applicants is extremely time consuming and expensive.”
According to Berchtold, bigger companies very
often need a lot of time to decide whether they want to hire an applicant or
not. Smaller firms are less complicated due to a much faster decision-making
process. “In the U.S. we recently had a case where a leading sales person
waited three months for a yes or no by a major logistics player. This process
seemed to become endless, so we offered her an alternative at a smaller
company. She had the job within three days,” recalls Berchtold.
Further, he reports on a trend, especially in
the U.S., where firms expect candidates to bring their customers with them
when switching jobs. In that case, it becomes more and more customary that
leading sales people in air freight and logistics are offered 60 percent of
their income as base salary, with the remaining 40 percent consisting of
provisions. “But if the newcomer fails to bring his clients with him,
then he suddenly has a financial shortfall,” Berchtold says.
Today, most people still find new jobs just by knowing and talking to other
influential people within the logistics industry. This accounts for roughly
one quarter of the recruiting market. Sourcing specialists like adi Consult
are next contributing 18 percent.
Ads in print media have become of declining
importance. Instead, the worldwide web is becoming increasingly important in
the field of personnel sourcing. This is why at adi Consult they are
currently implementing ‘Globs’ (Global Logistics Jobs), a newly
created internet platform for candidates. Further, adi announced plans to
convert the enterprise from a firm with limited liability (GmbH) into a joint
stock company (Aktiengesellschaft – AG). The shares will not be
available for public trading, but spread among the adi partners instead.
“This step will bind our members even
closer together,” states founder Klaus Geissler in his final remarks at
Frankfurt’s birthday party for adi Consult.
Heiner Siegmund