As work-from-home becomes a new normal, a lot of companies consider leveraging freelancers in their workplace. To leverage this opportunity, IT firm Hexaware will launch its on-demand talent platform to serve large and mid-sized firms.
"There are hundreds of different gig platforms out there but are largely adopted by small and medium businesses. So, we see an opportunity in the enterprise space to provide something that's unique and different," says Neil Fox, CTO at Hexaware.
"We think the hundred-million-dollar company and above are the sweet spot for us," he says. The firm plans to do the market launch by early 2021. It didn't share its exact timeline.
This platform will help Hexaware expand its client base. "We want to extend our footprint into companies that we serve and to those that we don't serve today," says Fox.
The launch of the gig platform is in line with the bigger trend of productisation of IT services. "Like everyone in our industry we started out as a pure services company but the next evolution will come from more self-service, platform and technology-enabled services that will help firms get work done efficiently, at lower cost, with higher speed and better quality," says Fox.
The on-demand platform will integrate with their client's HRMS system to enable firms to break down their processes into clear tasks and then help identify the skills required to perform the work. It will then scan the different sources of talent -- client's in-house employees, Hexaware's employees and gig workers on the platform -- to automatically recommend the best workers/ team suited for the job.
The platform will be a self-service portal, but there will also be an option for Hexaware to curate talent for projects. "We want to provide it as a full service to our customers," says Fox.
Hexaware will start by offering tech skills before it moves on to other skills. The obvious profiles of gig workers will be UX, graphic and web design.
"There's a whole host of skills such as customer and technical support that aren't largely represented on the gig platforms today and we definitely see an opportunity out there," says Fox. They will also focus on skills related to data science, artificial intelligence, discrete cyber security and front-end web development. For roles in project management, the firm is still considering if the employees should be full-time, as having a common methodology to apply to projects helps.
The aim is to target firms in the US initially. "We probably wouldn't be actively marketing initially in other regions, but there's no reason for firms in other geographies to not use the platform," he says.