Case Study

The following case study provides an overview of the role National IT Solutions played in the launch and growth of an Australian recruitment firm seeking to develop and operate a "Virtual Recruitment Business Model".

Our Client

In 2004, the directors of HR national, an established Melbourne based recruitment firm, had an idea to evolve their traditional office based business into a virtual recruitment firm whereby their recruitment consultants could successfully represent clients and the firm whilst working from home or another remote location of their choosing. This was a major operational paradigm shift from traditional - central office based business models' and would allow the business to lower total operating costs, provide an improved compensation model for consultants and offer consultants the ability to achieve a work life balance though greater workplace flexibility.

The vision was bold and had never been attempted before. It required a mind shift in terms of the way recruitment services are delivered, moreover, as an IT solutions provider, it required us to find a way to emulate access to systems, tools and back office support services that are normally accessible by consultants within a traditional central office based working environment.

The Solution

The team at National IT solutions began by implementing a systems architecture based around powerful enterprise level application servers that could deliver all necessary applications, systems and tools to end users thus removing the need for consultants to work in a central office based environment. Our team then formulated a range of security policies that would ensure that the systems could not be compromised by internal or external sources. We then specified the core hardware and operating system requirements to enable the firm to deliver an efficient Remote Desktop environment that could be accessed from any platform with a 1500kbs or greater broadband connection.

Ultimately, for the system to be truly effective, the Remote Desktop environment would need to offer a user experience devoid of GUI latency and thus largely indistinguishable from that of a local PC user experience. This was achieved in part by securing and installing powerful Terminal Servers capable of hosting up to 50 concurrent users and sourcing a data centre provider that was capable of housing our client's servers with the requisite security, disaster recovery capability and data bandwidth to provide end users with fast and reliable access to their recruitment applications and resources.

As part of the systems architecture blueprint, National IT solutions also implemented a backup and disaster recovery solution via the introduction of a dedicated backup server housed in a separate data centre. Continuing with the web based theme, we designed the intranet using SharePoint^™ and configured Remote Web Workplace (RWW) to provide a web based gateway to the Remote DESKTOP Environment.

The Outcome

The client's vision to create a Virtual Recruitment Business Model coupled with National IT Solutions system design, implementation and maintenance has literally changed the face of the Australian recruitment industry. In fact, a growing number of recruitment firms across Australia are now making the transition from a central office based operation to a virtual business model on the back of the success achieved with the HR national project.

National IT solutions have been instrumental in assisting HR national to create a new recruitment industry subsector from an operational and service delivery perspective. HR national now operates Australia's largest and most reputable Virtual Recruitment Business Model with recruitment consultants delivering recruitment services to clients in all capital cities across Australia.