1. Tell us something about the origin, growth and success of ‘ Antal International network ’? When, where and how did it originate?
Antal started in 1994 as company owned operation in mid level to senior level executive recruitment. It entered franchising about 5 years ago. I am a major investor/shareholder/director and run the business as CEO.
Historically what is really interesting is Tony Godwin the founder, went into Eastern Europe, e.g. Russia, Poland, Hungary long before any other western recruitment firms. Even today, due to this history, Antal has gone into and successfully penetrated mainly developing as well as developed economies and feels very comfortable and confident–frankly ,unlike many of our competitors both inside and outside of franchising in doing this as we have blazed this trail before. This is why we are very optimistic and excited about expanding into India.
In Russia and Poland and now China, Antal has surged to the leadership position in recruitment and is arguably the fastest growing privately held recruitment business in the world today. We intend to do the same thing in India, i.e. become the clear market leader .
2. When did you start franchising? From where did you get the inspiration to opt for franchising as a mode of expansion?
I have been in recruitment franchising for 26 years and for 19 of those years in the global market, in excess of 40 countries, always in executive and mid range recruitment. I got my start studying at the feet of giants in the USA, Alan Schonberg and founder and CEO of the largest franchise in recruitment there, MRI (where I served as marketing director for my first 6 years in franchised recruitment) Bob Angell, arguably the most successful USA based franchise salesman in the history of this industry, with over 2000 sales in his career.
I have sold about 600, 375 in the USA and 225 globally. With Bob retired and Alan effectively retired from active duty. I’m the ‘old man’ of the global industry at 56, –but still have a lot of juice left!
Alan and Bob remain friends and Alan is still my number one lifetime mentor. They have irreplaceable experience and wisdom.
Tony Goodwin , the founder of Antal International, saw that franchising could be a great way to expand his highly successful group of wholly owned businesses and he and I got together to combine our thinking and expertise to drive the business forward via franchising….and this is clearly getting a positive result!
3. What difference have you noticed in the performance of the company after it opted for franchising?
Franchising enables high speed scaling and expansion far faster than organic, company owned growth –this is important to establish brand leadership and ‘first strike advantage’ in any business.
Also, the drive of the owners outshines and out performs what a corporate entity can derive from an ‘employee attitude’, therefore the rate of revenue expansion and the sheer freshness and ‘can do’ attitude that self ownership provides, makes for a potent combination for growth.
4. What is the USP of Antal International network?
We relentlessly/daily share assignments, i.e, job openings and information throughout the global group. This makes up 30% of our $multimillion fee revenue–every assignment filled is publicly seen by the entire Network on our global database of over 50,000 successfully completed assignments. This culture for sharing ideas and real mutual support with one another as owners around the world are building their businesses is our greatest strength..
5. What qualities do you look in prospective franchisees for your company?
- A lead from the front ‘learn the business and do it’ attitude that is real, proven and readily apparent.
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The ability to attract new employees to the mission of the business and to motivate them by enabling them to understand the ethos of our business, that is, as a higher cause for doing good, meaning the positive impact on the lives of the talented people we place into jobs where they can do the best work of their lives and on the companies which materially perform better because the people we find for them (and collect a nice fee in the process!).
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Strong work ethic, a ‘must have’ in any form of self-employment.
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Intellectual and communications capacity above the norm as the owner and the recruiters would be dealing with top level decision makers and the candidates placed into jobs are themselves highly successful and educated people themselves. This business therefore stretches a person greatly and if one doesn’t like that, or revel in it actually, recruitment is the wrong business to join.
6. What are your views about India as a market place for your company?
I like India because of its optimism that it will evolve from its cultural and historical greatness, to be a modern big economic power where its citizens aspire to do more, become more, give more to their families and society–these are huge and powerful tailwinds pushing the nation forward and recruitment is a major catalyst, a prime factor in the positive evolution of India. Antal will be at the forefront of this evolution.
7. How many franchisees do you have and in which all cities in India?
Our first office is 2.5 years old and has already made over 250 placements! This is an incredible start by our partner Joe Devasia and his team and shows the potential. And it is crucial to note we trained Joe to become a recruiter in his own right and to and build his business. Of course he brought a great deal to the table, but we actually look for both non experienced people like Joe or experienced recruiters who we can successfully train in our methodology. Our top executive team decided about a year ago to make India our number one expansion target, not for just a year or two, but for the long haul, we look at this as a 10-20-30 year plan. We have rapidly expanded to what will soon be 12 offices and plan on expanding to at least 100.
Please keep in mind that any of our offices can do business not only in the immediate geographic area, but in our type of global recruitment, will work the national and international markets too, from ANY office location.
8. What all training and support do you provide to the franchisees?
Too much to go through here, but we have many days of initial training–months over the lifetime of the agreement–and in fact very soon we’ll be hosting owners from the 30 countries where we now exist for an annual training and motivational meeting in London our HQ. Training includes ‘live fire’ hands on training in the real world to learn to obtain job openings and fill them at a high impact level–even without prior experience.
We have thousands of hours in training for whatever level of development ones needs for many years. We are the Harvard, or the Oxford of recruitment and the managerial and leadership issues of building a successful, profitable business.
We provide leadership development , administration, recognition of excellence, financial and IT support as well. We have over 300 years of recruitment experience in our corporate support Team.
We have been finalist in one of the world’s most competitive franchising and recruitment markets, the UK, through the British Franchise Association for the Franchisor of the Year because of this quality and sheer abundance of training as well as the productive impact of it for our franchise owners , but most of all because of our proven support and systems. Most of all, the owners know we care about their success and ability to generate real value in their businesses as well as the happiness and comfort that provides–not to mention immense satisfaction–not only for them, but for our Team.
9. How much investment is required by an aspiring franchisee in terms of money and time?
The initial fee as been adjusted for India at 500k IN. it is much higher in Western Europe for example, up to $75k usd for a unit license. To build to an initial 4-6 recruiters over the first 2 years it would cost between 500 and 1m INR. This would include phones, computers, office rental, salaries and the like. Being a service business, 25-40% profits are possible and the average placement fee ranges from $2500 to $25000usd.
what is really a great advantage is the youth of India is who can go to work for r the franchise owner, this is a huge advantage–well educated, ambitious, global in their thinking, high energy…wow!! This is what drives our industry globally! Becoming a highly skilled recruiter through Antal training is one of the best jobs a younger–or an older –person could ever have or want. The job is so attractive intellectually and financially that our owners can attract and hire great talent for themselves at very low initial salaries compared to the rest of the world right now at least. This indeed, is the major advantage of being in the Indian market. !
10. What are your future plans in terms of expansion through franchising?
As I said, we are in this for the long journey and intend to grow to a leadership position where +-100 offices will be established, some will be smaller 4-8 recruiters and some will emerge as much larger…I’ll bet even more than 100 recruiters in one office…believe me, the Indian market is a large and vibrant recruitment market already and can sustain and support this growth, but no one has come along yet to build a national organisation in franchising like Antal can.
11. What are the challenges that can be faced by a franchisee in this business? How can they overcome these challenges?
The new franchise has to be focussed like a laser on planning and execution of the sale strategy to inform decision makers about the Antal service offering–there is no simple short cut, one has to be planned and active.
Where franchise owners stumble is taking the short cuts and not using the system properly. We are used to this and normally work closely with them to overcome this and move to higher ground.
12. Share with us any new venture that your company has entered into?
We are looking very seriously at linking up with a provider–a franchise itself–of temporary executive placement , that is, when clients need top talent immediately to solve a big problem, this type of business, closely allied with our type of business can provide specialist, high powered executives do the job, but without an employment contract, thus making things fast easy and smooth to deal with and solve client problems, then these ‘temporary’ executives are pulled out and sent to another assignment.
This could be a high impact ‘add on’ to our service offering. We are always looking to do this for our owners worldwide to add competitive advantage.
