Quarterly Crunch Q1 17/18

Posted on October 2017 By Judy Cole
Quarterly Crunch Q1 2

​Quarter 1 has flown by and we are already on the countdown to Christmas. We have had a challenging quarter due to internal holidays and being 2 x BDM’s down but as a whole the market seemed busy. Having come off a massive year last year we have started this year a little slower, just missing our quarter target.

So let’s look at the stats – What skill did we place most of? What skill was highly sort after? Place your bets because it’s time to find out and you can analyse the raw data as you wish.

For your own comparison here is my Q4 (FY16/17) Quarterly crunch and here is Q1 for last year (financial year 16/17) just for fun!

As a recap, we give you Speller International’s actual sales for the quarter. We don’t share our own opinions or what we believe to be the reasons behind the results. Sometimes, especially in this online age, we hear too many opinions and it’s nice to be able to draw your own! But if you want our opinion then feel free to comment and ask and/or to share your own thoughts.

So, let’s see how we went…

In regards to purely sales (sales = people placed within the SAP field in either contract or permanent engagements), Speller International placed 19% less people in Quarter 1 this year (Jul/ Aug/ Sept 2017) than we did in the previous Quarter (Apr/ May/ Jun 2017). By comparison, it was 33% less than the same Quarter the previous year (Jul/ Aug/ Sept 2016).

**Remember Q1 last year was a record breaking quarter for us!

What are the top 5 roles we placed in the Quarter?

  • SAP ABAP

  • SAP Data (inc Master Data)

  • SAP Project Manager

  • SAP Training and Documentation

  • SAP BO

FYI Last quarter (Q4 FY16/17) … It was;

  • SAP BA

  • SAP ABAP

  • SAP CRM Technical

  • SAP HCM (incl SuccessFactors)

  • SAP Project Manager

What % were permanent vs Contract in Quarter 1?

15.4% of the people we placed last Quarter were permanent (or fixed term) and 84.6% were contract. Note; 10.6% of the people we placed in the previous Quarter (Q4) were permanent.

How else can we measure how busy the market was?

While the number of people we placed is a good indication, it is not always the best indication for us to gauge how the market is/was performing. We also like to look at the number of requirements we received from our clients (requirements = vacant job positions which we are engaged to work).

Let’s look at number of requirements that we received in during the Quarter;

Speller International received a total of 103 vacant SAP job positions to fill throughout the Quarter, compared to the previous Quarter which was 124 vacancies (and 133 in Q1 last year). Those positions were across our 3 divisions (SAP IT, SAP Change and Training and SAP Corporate Services) as well as being across Australia and NZ.

Of those vacant positions we received, 8.2% were permanent or fixed term engagements and 91.8% were contract requirements.

Top 10 Requirements

  • SAP Project Manager

  • SAP ABAP

  • SAP Data

  • SAP Business Analyst

  • SAP BO

  • SAP Training and Documentation

  • SAP Change Management

  • SAP FICO

  • SAP Fiori

  • SAP SuccessFactors/HCM

FYI – the top 5 requirements from Q4 were;

  • SAP ABAP

  • SAP Business Analyst

  • SAP Project Management

  • SAP FICO (incl Lead)

  • SAP CRM Technical

Most difficult skill set to find for Quarter 1 (in no particular order)

  • SAP Fiori

  • SAP Solution Manager

  • SAP IS U

  • SAP Enterprise Architect

So that was our Quarter 1; our top placed SAP area, SAP skills most required and permanent vs contract data – all without any conclusion from us!

New Roles/Skills Emerging

Continuing on from last Quarter, we are still seeing strong need for general skillsets; “Business Analyst” and “Project Managers” who hold both SAP and other broader technologies experience. Although it is not a “new” skill, requests for the Fiori skillset has picked up significantly and not just from a technical perspective but also from a front end user experience perspective.

Average Contract Length

Last year I introduced a new fun stat on the average initial contract lengths for the Quarter.

Last Quarter we had a very good average initial contract length of 17 weeks and this Quarter has seen this increase to an extremely good average of 20.6 weeks. Overall for FY16/17 the average initial contract length was 16.75 weeks for new contract lengths (this does not take into account extensions).

What’s in store for the next Quarter? Stay tuned for the next installment of our Quarterly Crunch!