Quarterly Crunch Q4 16/17
Posted on July 2017 By Judy Cole
The last quarter of the year is done and dusted and what an exciting year it was. As a standalone Quarter we had a fantastic Quarter 4 (nothing to do with our internal ski trip incentive I’ am sure! J ) We hit 112% of our sales target which was a fantastic end to a fantastic year!
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 Q3 Quarterly crunch and here is Q4 for last year (financial year 15/16) 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 9% more people in Quarter 4 this year (Apr/ May/ Jun 2017) than we did in the previous Quarter (Jan/ Feb/ Mar 2017). By comparison, it was 17% more than the same Quarter the previous year (Apr/ May/ Jun 2016).
What are the top 5 roles we placed in the Quarter?
SAP BA
SAP ABAP
SAP CRM Technical
SAP HCM (incl SuccessFactors)
SAP Project Manager
FYI Last quarter (Q3 FY16/17) … It was;
SAP FICO
SAP PM
SAP HCM (incl SuccessFactors)
SAP ABAP
SAP BA
What % were permanent vs Contract in Quarter 4?
10.6% of the people we placed last Quarter were permanent (or fixed term) and 89.4% were contract. Note; 11.3% of the people we placed in the previous Quarter (Q3) 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 124 vacant SAP job positions to fill throughout the Quarter, compared to the previous Quarter which was 133 vacancies (and 121 in Q4 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, 4.9% were permanent or fixed term engagements and 95.1% were contract requirements.
Top 10 Requirements
SAP ABAP
SAP BA
SAP Project Management
SAP FICO (incl Lead)
SAP CRM Technical
SAP HCM incl SuccessFactors
SAP Trainer
SAP PMO
SAP Security
SAP BI/BW
SAP CRM Techno-Functional
FYI – the top 5 requirements from Q3 were;
SAP ABAP (incl Lead)
SAP BA
SAP Project Management
SAP FICO (incl Lead)
SAP Tester (incl Lead)
Most difficult skill set to find for Quarter 4 (in no particular order)
SAP APO
SAP PI/PO
SAP ABAP (with fiori/UI5 etc.)
SAP WPB
SAP Architect’s
So that was our Quarter 4; 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 have seen a strong need around general skillsets; “Business Analyst” and “Project Managers” who hold both SAP and other broader technologies experience. Companies do not want “specialist module experience” in these areas and are leaning towards the broader skillset.
Average Contract Length
Last year I introduced a new fun stat on the average initial contract lengths for the Quarter.
Last Quarter we had an extremely strong average initial contract length of 20 weeks and this Quarter is has sat on a very good average initial contract length of 17 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).