Creating Profit Through Alliances - business models for collaboration E-book | Page 80

Raet
With 800 employees and 6000 customers, Raet is the
number one IT services provider in the field of human
resources and payroll services in the Netherlands.
Aside from HR and payroll processing, Raet is active
in HR process outsourcing and HR consultancy
services. Alliances are used to add extra
functionalities to the portfolio.
John Cöhrs, Alliance manager at Raet, describes the
selection criteria for new partners. “First of all the
partner‟s knowledge or product should have added
value for the customer. Our product portfolios should
be complementary, from both parties' point of view.
We accept that there might be an overlap, and we
can make arrangements for that. And we want to
focus on a measurable result of the collaboration.”
One of the examples of a joint development is the
alliance with Stepstone Solutions. One of the most
successful companies in e-recruitment.

Stepstone had a development roadmap that meshed
well with Raet. It served only a limited client base in
the Netherlands, where Raet has the majority of its
footprint. With the other candidates there were
doubts about the technical standards and the
readiness to invest. Stepstone was selected as
partner and retained exclusivity for its own
customers.
Raet was granted the exclusive distributorship of
Stepstone‟s solution. Stepstone‟s product was then
integrated in the Raet system, with similar layout and
navigation. Extensive knowledge transfer was
needed, as Stepstone had to learn about Raet‟s
product roadmap, and 70 salesmen and 200 Raet
consultants had to be trained in the Stepstone
solution.

Raet had initiated this alliance in order to support
customers with their recruitment process. If Raet
were to create such a solution themselves, the timeto-marketcould be longer. A merger or takeover was
not feasible at the time, and the procurement of such
a solution would not provide exclusivity. Therefore an
alliance was the best option.

The parties agreed to bear their own development
costs. On the revenue side Raet bills the customers
based on the number of concurrent users. Raet pays
Stepstone a percentage of the fee for the module.
When a specific market share is reached, the
percentage for Raet increases. This is an extra
incentive for Raet to sell the Stepstone solution, and
it is perceived as fair since Stepstone on its own
would not have been able to achieve such a market
share.

Three parties were shortlisted and compared in terms
of the potential for technical integration and the
alignment of their business model with Raet. Raet
believes that HR software will evolve completely into
a software-as-a-service model. The solution of a
partner should fit into this vision and should support
all roles in the recruitment process.

For the development of new products, for example
specific complex re ports, there is an extra incentive
for Stepstone to go live as quickly as possible. The
revenues for these extra products are split as well. If,
for commercial reasons, a discount is offered on the
whole package, the discount for Stepstone is the
same as for similar solutions in Raet‟s offering.

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