July 22, 2023 • 25 mins
Imagine if you could harness the power of AI to map out your career trajectory and close the skills gap within your organization. Sounds interesting, doesn't it? Join us as we sit down with Paul Courtaud, the co-founder and CEO of Neobrain, who has done precisely that with their game-changing AI-powered talent management solution. It's an enlightening conversation where we scrutinize the dynamics of the talent marketplace, the concept of internal mobility, and the ever-evolving landscape of skills. We also delve into the pressing issue of the skills gap, providing you with insights on how to identify, understand, and effectively address it.
In the second half of our discussion, Paul takes us on a deep dive into how Neobrain supercharges job rotation within organizations. He elaborates on how the platform empowers employees to identify their skills, design the most fulfilling and motivating career paths, and find opportunities that align with their career goals. Furthermore, we touch on how Neobrain's Generative AI helps managers spot the best candidates for job openings, despite not perfectly fitting the job title requirements. We round up our chat by discussing how Neobrain's platform can effortlessly integrate with HRIS systems, and how their mobile-first approach levels the playing field for individuals with varying qualifications. Grab a seat and buckle up as we navigate the fascinating complexities of the modern talent marketplace with Paul Courtaud.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is William Tyncup and you are listening to
the Use Case podcast.
Today we have Paul on fromNeobrain and we'll be learning
about the business case, thecost benefit analysis, the ROI,
or what I call the use case, forwhy as prospects and customers
use and choose Neobrain.
So while we do introductionsand learn a little bit about
(00:22):
Paul and Neobrain Paul would youintroduce yourself and Neobrain
?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Sure, so nice to meet you, william.
So I'm Paul Poto, I'm theco-founder and CEO of Neobrain,
and I founded Neobrain fiveyears and a half ago based on
one simple discovery I wastrying to understand how the
largest companies adapt toaccelerated market changes.
And I took the fortune 500companies from the year 2000 and
(00:51):
I found out that in the last,let's say, a little bit less
than 20 years, half of them haveeither disappeared or left this
ranking.
So that's the moment when Itried to understand what made
the difference between thesuccessful half and the other
one, and I discovered that theyhad the capacity to allocate the
(01:11):
right skill in the right placeat the right time.
And that's how we basicallydefined the Neobrain's mission
the right skill in the rightplace at the right time.
And we then developed anAI-powered talent management
solution that helps the employeeto.
We empower the employee and wewant to help the employee take
(01:33):
the ownership of his career andunderstand where he can
contribute the most.
We provide the managers theright tools to develop their
teams, and then we provide theHR team.
We give the HR team the rightsolution to align the available
resources with the companystrategy.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Paul, I hate software categories, Despise them.
However, a lot of HR budgets ifnot all HR budgets built in
Excel or Google Sheets, so wheredo people tend to put Neobrain?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
If we look at the HR, take landscape we're part of
the talent marketplace space.
So, under the, let's say, likethe talent management space,
we're really focused on thetalent marketplace, where we
basically have to meet internalsupply and demand of skills.
Basically, yeah, that's ourspace.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, do some people think of that as internal
mobility?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yes, One use case we're covering is to you need to
link skills with internalmobility or carry path.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So I want to get your take on skills and how, at
least historically and how welook.
I should look at them At leasthistorically.
You went to college, you got adegree in chemistry, you had the
skills of chemistry, whateverthose might be, and you might
have those forever.
So if you graduated 30 yearsago and you had those skills,
(03:00):
then you it was perceived thatyou still had those skills and I
think pretty much that's beendebunked through the last couple
of years, where skills are morefluid, in a sense of you gain
and lose skills all the time,your depth and breadth in the
way that we look at tangentialor contiguous or transferable
(03:22):
skills.
So why don't you just take amoment and just give us your
take, neil Brain's take on justyour skills?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Skills because it has been here for quite a while.
If you take the HR books fromlike 30 or 40 years ago, skills
was already part of those books.
But what really happened, Ithink, is that technology helped
to scale basically skillsmanagement, meaning that for the
largest companies, they werebasically building skills
(03:50):
framework on spreadsheet, tryingto define the 10 most critical
skills for each job and alwaysstarting from a blank page
describing those skills.
But as soon as they finished,they basically did this work.
They have, everything isoutdated and they have to
rebuild everything again.
That's what we see on themarket and it's very frustrating
for HR team.
(04:10):
And now with technology, andespecially with all the AI
advancements, we have thecapacity to screen the market
and help the HR to alwaysmaintain an up-to-date skills
ontology and with this skillsontology, they can then focus on
where they want to apply skills.
(04:31):
And indeed the first use caseis definitely using skills to
increase and enhance internalmobility, because when you
describe your skills, the systemcan understand what's the
potential next job that mightsuit your skills and aspirations
.
Yeah, that's basically how wesee how skills are working right
(04:51):
now and indeed skills are beingchallenged every day.
New skills are appearing, manynew innovations.
When we talk with our clients,they have new things on their
plates.
Every quarter They'll have oh,there is this major innovation
or there is this new bigstrategy.
When we want, for instance, tobe to have zero carbon emission
(05:12):
by that's like in the next 20years, how do we?
What are the green skills?
And, okay, or, genotvi is thebig, the hot topic of today.
What's the impact of GenoTVI onour skills?
Yes, that's the kind ofquestion they're asking, and
they need a software that helpsto basically answer these
questions at scale.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And one of the things I would assume that they care
about is the skills gap, right.
So inventory what they haveversus forecasting what they
need, and then seeing what thegap in those are and whether or
not they have to go outside thefirm or whether or not they need
to train within the firm orpromote within the firm.
Once they have the insight, oronce they have some visibility
(05:56):
into what the gap is, then theycan create a plan on filling the
gap.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yes, that's totally right and I think what I mean
another few major events thatreally put skills back on their
desk, basically, and make thisspace very, very hot.
It's basically we are living atsome time a big talent shortage
and we've been leaving thegreat resignations or the quiet
(06:25):
quitting in Europe we're moretalking about quiet quitting
than great resignation, butwe've been leaving those two
events at the same time.
When companies then were strongbasically they were before that
they were trying to hire asmuch people as possible and then
they found out that perhaps theskills they're looking for are
just basically not available onthe market or not enough.
(06:47):
So they started to think ofokay, how can we basically build
those skills internally?
So when they think of theirbuild by on borrow plan, they
start putting more focus on thebuilds than by trying to
identify how they can basicallybuild those skills internally.
And they found out that buildingthose opportunities internally
(07:10):
was also one way to fertilizetheir talents, retain their
talent, because, based on whenwe just have had, look on the
main, most important reason whypeople just leave their job
there is the manager.
Of course, we all know that webasically we mostly leave a
manager.
But there is also anothersecond topic which is very
(07:32):
present.
It's the lack of visibility ontheir advancement.
So they're like okay, if webuild skills internally, we
provide new opportunities forour internal workforce, and
perhaps it's better to retainour people and just try to find
other people on the market.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
And it's also what candidates are asking on the
front end and recruiting.
They're asking how are yougoing to develop me?
So if you're not harvestingtalent, like if you're not
growing talent, you don't haveplans to do grow talent.
It's also going to be.
It's also going to makerecruiting problematic with the
millennials and Gen Z, becausethat's table stakes questions
for them.
That how you're going todevelop me is literally one of
(08:12):
the first things that they ask,and if you don't have great
answers, examples of how thathappens, then you're pretty,
they're going to move on to thenext gig.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
That's right, that's 100% right.
And the second major yeah,second major element we see is
that the new generation,especially when we're talking
about Gen Z, so basically whatwe see is that change job or
change assignment, or morefrequently than even never
before.
So we need to rethink totallythe way people acquire the
skills, because they need toacquire them in very short time,
(08:44):
I noticed, because they need toperform, so they cannot acquire
the skills for six, sevenmonths, when people will change
job every year.
So that's the first element.
Second is, I think we're at amoment when a lot of companies
are fractionizing, like the work.
They're just splitting the workin many sub one job, in many
(09:04):
sub gigs, basically justbuilding jobs with different
short term assignments.
And that's where skills arevery interesting, because if you
shift, you switch from oneassignment to another.
It's also a way, if you linkthat with, if you connect it
with all the upskilling programs, the learning programs, then
(09:24):
you create opportunities forpeople to apply the skills on
real projects.
So that's why that's also majorshifts, and we have a lot of
clients that are veryinteresting in our gigs module,
allowing to give people moretime to work on different
assignments that are perhaps notwritten in their, in the core
(09:47):
of their job description?
Speaker 1 (09:49):
That's cool because they get to test things.
That's one thing I love.
I came up to the agency worldwhere advertising, pr, web,
interactive, etc.
We got to work on a lot ofprojects.
You could jump in and do mediarelations for one firm and then
the next thing you weredesigning ads.
You got to test all kinds ofdifferent things to see what you
(10:09):
were good at, what you weren'tgood at, what really started to.
I love this.
I want to do this, so I love.
First of all, I just love thatcompanies are thinking about
talent in that way andleveraging talent in that way
and giving them opportunities tosee other things.
So I love that.
You mentioned that something atthe beginning I wanted to get
back to, because you said, theintersection of timing and
(10:32):
skills.
We've talked a whole bunchabout skills, which is super
important, but I didn't want toget back to the timing part.
So I'm assuming this is machinelearning or AI in terms of
understanding what the skillsare, and then where do those
skills need to be applied interms of timing, but I don't
know.
So why don't you take us intothat part?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yes.
So first, the first step is tohelp people.
Basically, where we actuallyapply AI.
First is we help peopledescribe their skills, because
it's quite a complex exercise.
If you had William to describe15 most important skills you
have, it's actually quitecomplex.
It's much easier for people todescribe what they do than the
(11:17):
skills they acquired and they'remobilizing to achieve their
daily tasks.
So skills are sometimes alittle complex to describe.
So that's the first thing wehelp and we accelerate the
skills identification among thedifferent employees profiled
within the company.
So that's the first step.
Second is we help the employeesto find the best carry path
(11:41):
possible, matching three maincriteria their skills, their
motivation and the businesspriorities of their company.
So when we link those threeelements, we basically train our
AI to help each employee drawthe best and the most rewarding
(12:02):
and motivating carry path withintheir organization.
And finally, we'll pushrelevant opportunities, whether
it's trainings to have purchasedthe skills gap, or indeed like
internal open positions or gigsthat might be relevant so that
you apply those skills ordiversify your daily assignment.
Basically, that's where webring value.
(12:24):
But we know that when we want toaccelerate the job rotation
time, we want people to move andto evolve within the
organization.
It's not.
We always start with theemployees, because we want to
empower the employees.
We are very employee centric,but then we also need to focus
on what's the role of themanager, what's the role of the
HR, and that's why we providedan interface to the hiring
(12:48):
manager.
That said, I'm looking forsomeone that I know, like an
accountant, that has anexperience in carve out OGT, for
instance.
I don't know, I'm taking thisexample, I'm just putting the
information in the system andRAI will come up with a list of
the six most relevant people.
Wow, it profiles to match yourneed.
(13:10):
And one very interesting thingis that we find out that, as an
average, we would struggle tohelp manager see, have at least
an interest on people that mightnot fit exactly the job that is
requested, that perhaps haven'talready experienced or don't
have the exact job title that isfrom the expectation of the
(13:33):
manager.
So we have basically 2% ofnon-typical profiles that said
that weren't people that haddoing the exact same job,
mobilizing the exact same skills, etc.
So managers were basicallytaking 2% of non-typical people
(13:54):
and we introduced, thanks toGenerative AI, for this, short
list of six relevant profiles.
The Generative AI explainedwith four or five bullet points
why those people were matchingwith the opportunities, so not,
so shifting from just a matchingpercentage to a written
(14:17):
explanation of why this personmight be a good candidate.
And we jumped from 2% ofnon-typical profile to 15%,
because then managers betterunderstand why someone might be
the best candidate, even thoughthe current job title of the
person doesn't match the jobdescription.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
One I love that.
One of the things that I loveis for line managers and
department managers etc.
Is that they don't get a lot oftraining and to give them
something that's reallyintuitive that they can then
plug into and go yeah, this willhelp me, and I love that.
I love that it's a wayfindingsystem.
(14:57):
They can just say I need thisskill.
Okay, there's the short list offive.
Great, here's where they are.
Now I can go talk to them, etc.
It's just really smart.
Let me ask you a couple of buyside questions real quick.
One is what's when you do, oryour team does, a demo of the
brain to a prospect?
What do they fall in love with?
(15:17):
What's that kind of an ahamoment?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I'd say one very important added value we bring,
compared to other social on themarket, is our capacity to take
motivation into account, whichseems to be quite easy when we
set up, because we all know thatif you're not motivated to
mobilize the skills expected ina certain position, you might
not want to move towards thisdirection.
So that's quite simple andpragmatic.
(15:43):
But we're the only softwarethat really takes into account
the motivation you have todevelop each of your skills,
which is the first element.
The second element I'd say isthat we are, and we try to be,
as fully integrated in the flowof work as possible, meaning
that what we're doing atNeobrain is we're fully
(16:04):
integrated in all major HRESsystems, such as SAP, success
factors, workday, oracle, etc.
And we basically embed oursoftware into those systems so
that you don't have anadditional tool to use.
And right now we're going evenfurther, because we want to be
(16:25):
fully integrated into MicrosoftTeams, as an example, to make
sure that people don't have anadditional tool but you can
write into Microsoft Teams hey,I'm looking for an accountant
that has a strong mastery ofCarvald's editing and the system
will provide you the shortlistwithin Microsoft Teams, so you
never have to leave the toolsyou're using every day, and
(16:48):
that's, I'd say, like the secondbig asset.
And the third one is the factthat we provide a mobile first
experience allowing people thatmight don't have a desktop in
their daily job, for instance,in certain industries such as
retail, or in certainlow-qualification jobs.
(17:08):
Some, for instance, like bluecars, they might not have a
laptop in their daily job or inlogistics, for instance, and we
think that if people like WhiteColor might not have the same,
they have more chances becausethey can access their carrier
management software, when otherpeople that have less
(17:30):
qualification, those people,won't have access to the same
tool.
We might actually create twoshows in the job market, and
that's what we want to preventby making sure that with one
unique tool, you can actuallyaccess 100% of your place.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Ah, okay, so questions that buyers should ask
of NeoBrain and talent markets,let's just say talent
marketplaces.
What are the questions?
If they've never purchased ornever even considered purchasing
, what should they be asking ofyou?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Do you have a demonstration?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, I know when they're, yeah, they're
prospects, and so they've donethe demo.
They're thinking about okay,like what?
And people buy ATSs all thetime.
It's a 50 year old softwarecategory so, yeah, recruiters in
HR know what to ask of ATSsgenerally speaking, but talent
marketplaces are a little bitnewer.
They might not have a great setof questions buying questions
(18:25):
to ask what would you like tohear more from prospects?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I think one very important question is how ATIC
the AI is actually.
Because you can make you can,based on the way you train your
AI you can actually reproducesome bias or you can prevent
those bias and try to increase,for instance, diversity in the
profiles that are being selected.
So I think the how is actuallytrained AI?
(18:54):
How does it really work?
And the vendor should, I think,be able to provide a very
simple answer and try to bringsome pedagogy and have at least
thought about this question.
So I think that's one oneelement.
I think the second question ishow automatized is the
maintenance of the skills on topof you?
Because if it implies somemanual modifications by the HR
(19:18):
team, then I think, okay, itwill be great starts.
You have six months to getready, but then two months, two
years later, the whole ontologywill be completely outdated.
So that's, I think, a very, Ithink, a second question to be
asking to to vendor.
And I think that the thirdquestion is perhaps not a
question you should ask to thevendor, but a real question that
(19:38):
you should ask yourself beforeconsidering purchasing a time
marketplace is simply why?
Because it's a very boomingspace, so sometimes people are
like, yeah, I want a timemarketplace.
Okay, what's the real impactyou want to have?
Yeah, I want more internalmobility.
Okay, but why and askingseveral times just why?
(19:59):
Then you make sure that youreally link the time marketplace
to real business needs.
Otherwise manager will pushback those systems If it isn't
deeply linked to a pain theyalready have and a business
bottleneck they're facing.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Okay, so let's now pivot to, first of all, great
questions, but let's pivot tosome success stories that
Neobranz had, without brandnames, without getting into the
weeds of who it was for, butjust where y'all came into a
situation and they didn't have atalent marketplace, they didn't
have this vision for skills, etcetera, and some of the
outcomes that you've seen.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Okay.
So a few examples.
I'll provide you an example ofa very well-known brand which is
the Group LVMH.
It's like Louis Vuitton,christian Dior, tiffany, et
cetera, so it's this group.
So we basically work with150,000 employees.
So we work at scale with theGroup LVMH and we so it's a big
(20:57):
they basically gather 75 of thebiggest luxury brand in the
world.
It's a most valuated Europeancompany, so it's a pretty big
company.
What we've seen is that when westarted working with them, we
started on parts of the wholescope of Neobrain, but when we
started working with them, theybasically had few I think it was
close to 20,000 people thatweren't basically accessing any
(21:19):
HR software because they justdidn't have a laptop.
So the first step was to makesure that all employees have the
same accessibility to carryopportunities, the capacity to
describe, to define their carepath, the care aspirations, to
make sure that they also haveaccessibility to their
performance management software.
So we basically work with theLVMH to make sure that all their
(21:42):
employees, they were able toindividualize and have an
individualized connection witheach of their employees.
So that's, that's the.
That was the first bigchallenge they had.
So that's one example.
I'm providing you the second onewhich is closer, which is for
big big banks at this school.
Actually it's called NetXIS.
They actually have 15,000employees and they were
(22:06):
struggling because when westarted working with them they
had one job out of eight thatwas filled by the internal
candidate.
12 months after the deploymentthey went from one job out of
eight to one job out of twofilled by the internal candidate
.
The outcome is the reducing.
They basically reduced theturnover of the company because
(22:28):
the first reason, as mentionedearlier, the first reason why
people were leaving the companywhen they were doing the exit
interviews was the lack ofvisibility on the internal
opportunities on their next step.
So by having more peoplefeeling internal open positions,
they actually reduced theoverall turnover and retaining
their employees.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
So, first of all, wonderful story, and I'm sure
you got a litany of those.
The last thing I just wanted toget into with you is just
what's NeoBrain's, what'ssuccess for you all for the rest
of the year?
What are you obviously pushingand it's a hot category, both
skills and AI so you're in agreat place, but how are you?
(23:12):
What's go to market for you?
What are you trying toaccomplish by the end of the
year?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I'd say like if you give more context on where we
are and where we're heading in2023, for instance, like at the
end of June we have donebasically more in six months
than in the last five years, sowe're really going super fast.
Right now, we're 140 peopleworking at NeoBrain.
I think we'll be close to 1000in the next three years.
So we're living in very stronggrowth where we'll be breakeven
(23:41):
by the end of the year.
Oh, that's fantastic.
So we want a sustainable growth,which is also very important
because we work with largecompanies that want to work with
startups that will still behere.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Stability is yeah, I've seen startups get ruled,
the better technology just getruled out because they don't
have the stability.
So I think that your pointabout being profitable is going
to help land even more businessin the future because you can
add points when you need to beaudited.
Yeah, we don't need to raiseanother 30 million or 50 million
or whatever it is.
We don't need to do that.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yes, so that's, and we want to.
So that's the first thing.
So that's the first thing is wewant to be breakeven by the end
of the year.
We want to be breakeven bytripling our revenue, because
that's what we're doing thisyear.
We're basically tripling ourrecord revenue.
This year We've done several.
We've done two acquisitions inthe last eight months, so we
(24:39):
basically acquired two companiesfrom the industry in the last
eight months.
We have other, we have plansfor other acquisitions.
Our goal is to be at leastreaching 60 million euro in the
next three years.
The path we're following rightnow yeah, so that's the next
step.
And right now we're investing alot in the US market.
So that's why we opened anoffice in San Francisco, one New
(25:01):
York, and we are building alocal team to accelerate our US
Prince Awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
I love what you've built.
I love just everything you'vetalked about today.
So thank you for your time andthanks for coming on the podcast
.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Thank you very much, William.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Absolutely, and thanks for everybody listening
Until next time.
This is William Tyncup and you are listening to
the Use Case podcast.
Today we have Paul on fromNeobrain and we'll be learning
about the business case, thecost benefit analysis, the ROI,
or what I call the use case, forwhy as prospects and customers
use and choose Neobrain.
So while we do introductionsand learn a little bit about
(00:22):
Paul and Neobrain Paul would youintroduce yourself and Neobrain
?
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Sure, so nice to meet you, william.
So I'm Paul Poto, I'm theco-founder and CEO of Neobrain,
and I founded Neobrain fiveyears and a half ago based on
one simple discovery I wastrying to understand how the
largest companies adapt toaccelerated market changes.
And I took the fortune 500companies from the year 2000 and
(00:51):
I found out that in the last,let's say, a little bit less
than 20 years, half of them haveeither disappeared or left this
ranking.
So that's the moment when Itried to understand what made
the difference between thesuccessful half and the other
one, and I discovered that theyhad the capacity to allocate the
(01:11):
right skill in the right placeat the right time.
And that's how we basicallydefined the Neobrain's mission
the right skill in the rightplace at the right time.
And we then developed anAI-powered talent management
solution that helps the employeeto.
We empower the employee and wewant to help the employee take
(01:33):
the ownership of his career andunderstand where he can
contribute the most.
We provide the managers theright tools to develop their
teams, and then we provide theHR team.
We give the HR team the rightsolution to align the available
resources with the companystrategy.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Paul, I hate software categories, Despise them.
However, a lot of HR budgets ifnot all HR budgets built in
Excel or Google Sheets, so wheredo people tend to put Neobrain?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
If we look at the HR, take landscape we're part of
the talent marketplace space.
So, under the, let's say, likethe talent management space,
we're really focused on thetalent marketplace, where we
basically have to meet internalsupply and demand of skills.
Basically, yeah, that's ourspace.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, do some people think of that as internal
mobility?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yes, One use case we're covering is to you need to
link skills with internalmobility or carry path.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
So I want to get your take on skills and how, at
least historically and how welook.
I should look at them At leasthistorically.
You went to college, you got adegree in chemistry, you had the
skills of chemistry, whateverthose might be, and you might
have those forever.
So if you graduated 30 yearsago and you had those skills,
(03:00):
then you it was perceived thatyou still had those skills and I
think pretty much that's beendebunked through the last couple
of years, where skills are morefluid, in a sense of you gain
and lose skills all the time,your depth and breadth in the
way that we look at tangentialor contiguous or transferable
(03:22):
skills.
So why don't you just take amoment and just give us your
take, neil Brain's take on justyour skills?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Skills because it has been here for quite a while.
If you take the HR books fromlike 30 or 40 years ago, skills
was already part of those books.
But what really happened, Ithink, is that technology helped
to scale basically skillsmanagement, meaning that for the
largest companies, they werebasically building skills
(03:50):
framework on spreadsheet, tryingto define the 10 most critical
skills for each job and alwaysstarting from a blank page
describing those skills.
But as soon as they finished,they basically did this work.
They have, everything isoutdated and they have to
rebuild everything again.
That's what we see on themarket and it's very frustrating
for HR team.
(04:10):
And now with technology, andespecially with all the AI
advancements, we have thecapacity to screen the market
and help the HR to alwaysmaintain an up-to-date skills
ontology and with this skillsontology, they can then focus on
where they want to apply skills.
(04:31):
And indeed the first use caseis definitely using skills to
increase and enhance internalmobility, because when you
describe your skills, the systemcan understand what's the
potential next job that mightsuit your skills and aspirations
.
Yeah, that's basically how wesee how skills are working right
(04:51):
now and indeed skills are beingchallenged every day.
New skills are appearing, manynew innovations.
When we talk with our clients,they have new things on their
plates.
Every quarter They'll have oh,there is this major innovation
or there is this new bigstrategy.
When we want, for instance, tobe to have zero carbon emission
(05:12):
by that's like in the next 20years, how do we?
What are the green skills?
And, okay, or, genotvi is thebig, the hot topic of today.
What's the impact of GenoTVI onour skills?
Yes, that's the kind ofquestion they're asking, and
they need a software that helpsto basically answer these
questions at scale.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
And one of the things I would assume that they care
about is the skills gap, right.
So inventory what they haveversus forecasting what they
need, and then seeing what thegap in those are and whether or
not they have to go outside thefirm or whether or not they need
to train within the firm orpromote within the firm.
Once they have the insight, oronce they have some visibility
(05:56):
into what the gap is, then theycan create a plan on filling the
gap.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yes, that's totally right and I think what I mean
another few major events thatreally put skills back on their
desk, basically, and make thisspace very, very hot.
It's basically we are living atsome time a big talent shortage
and we've been leaving thegreat resignations or the quiet
(06:25):
quitting in Europe we're moretalking about quiet quitting
than great resignation, butwe've been leaving those two
events at the same time.
When companies then were strongbasically they were before that
they were trying to hire asmuch people as possible and then
they found out that perhaps theskills they're looking for are
just basically not available onthe market or not enough.
(06:47):
So they started to think ofokay, how can we basically build
those skills internally?
So when they think of theirbuild by on borrow plan, they
start putting more focus on thebuilds than by trying to
identify how they can basicallybuild those skills internally.
And they found out that buildingthose opportunities internally
(07:10):
was also one way to fertilizetheir talents, retain their
talent, because, based on whenwe just have had, look on the
main, most important reason whypeople just leave their job
there is the manager.
Of course, we all know that webasically we mostly leave a
manager.
But there is also anothersecond topic which is very
(07:32):
present.
It's the lack of visibility ontheir advancement.
So they're like okay, if webuild skills internally, we
provide new opportunities forour internal workforce, and
perhaps it's better to retainour people and just try to find
other people on the market.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
And it's also what candidates are asking on the
front end and recruiting.
They're asking how are yougoing to develop me?
So if you're not harvestingtalent, like if you're not
growing talent, you don't haveplans to do grow talent.
It's also going to be.
It's also going to makerecruiting problematic with the
millennials and Gen Z, becausethat's table stakes questions
for them.
That how you're going todevelop me is literally one of
(08:12):
the first things that they ask,and if you don't have great
answers, examples of how thathappens, then you're pretty,
they're going to move on to thenext gig.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
That's right, that's 100% right.
And the second major yeah,second major element we see is
that the new generation,especially when we're talking
about Gen Z, so basically whatwe see is that change job or
change assignment, or morefrequently than even never
before.
So we need to rethink totallythe way people acquire the
skills, because they need toacquire them in very short time,
(08:44):
I noticed, because they need toperform, so they cannot acquire
the skills for six, sevenmonths, when people will change
job every year.
So that's the first element.
Second is, I think we're at amoment when a lot of companies
are fractionizing, like the work.
They're just splitting the workin many sub one job, in many
(09:04):
sub gigs, basically justbuilding jobs with different
short term assignments.
And that's where skills arevery interesting, because if you
shift, you switch from oneassignment to another.
It's also a way, if you linkthat with, if you connect it
with all the upskilling programs, the learning programs, then
(09:24):
you create opportunities forpeople to apply the skills on
real projects.
So that's why that's also majorshifts, and we have a lot of
clients that are veryinteresting in our gigs module,
allowing to give people moretime to work on different
assignments that are perhaps notwritten in their, in the core
(09:47):
of their job description?
Speaker 1 (09:49):
That's cool because they get to test things.
That's one thing I love.
I came up to the agency worldwhere advertising, pr, web,
interactive, etc.
We got to work on a lot ofprojects.
You could jump in and do mediarelations for one firm and then
the next thing you weredesigning ads.
You got to test all kinds ofdifferent things to see what you
(10:09):
were good at, what you weren'tgood at, what really started to.
I love this.
I want to do this, so I love.
First of all, I just love thatcompanies are thinking about
talent in that way andleveraging talent in that way
and giving them opportunities tosee other things.
So I love that.
You mentioned that something atthe beginning I wanted to get
back to, because you said, theintersection of timing and
(10:32):
skills.
We've talked a whole bunchabout skills, which is super
important, but I didn't want toget back to the timing part.
So I'm assuming this is machinelearning or AI in terms of
understanding what the skillsare, and then where do those
skills need to be applied interms of timing, but I don't
know.
So why don't you take us intothat part?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yes.
So first, the first step is tohelp people.
Basically, where we actuallyapply AI.
First is we help peopledescribe their skills, because
it's quite a complex exercise.
If you had William to describe15 most important skills you
have, it's actually quitecomplex.
It's much easier for people todescribe what they do than the
(11:17):
skills they acquired and they'remobilizing to achieve their
daily tasks.
So skills are sometimes alittle complex to describe.
So that's the first thing wehelp and we accelerate the
skills identification among thedifferent employees profiled
within the company.
So that's the first step.
Second is we help the employeesto find the best carry path
(11:41):
possible, matching three maincriteria their skills, their
motivation and the businesspriorities of their company.
So when we link those threeelements, we basically train our
AI to help each employee drawthe best and the most rewarding
(12:02):
and motivating carry path withintheir organization.
And finally, we'll pushrelevant opportunities, whether
it's trainings to have purchasedthe skills gap, or indeed like
internal open positions or gigsthat might be relevant so that
you apply those skills ordiversify your daily assignment.
Basically, that's where webring value.
(12:24):
But we know that when we want toaccelerate the job rotation
time, we want people to move andto evolve within the
organization.
It's not.
We always start with theemployees, because we want to
empower the employees.
We are very employee centric,but then we also need to focus
on what's the role of themanager, what's the role of the
HR, and that's why we providedan interface to the hiring
(12:48):
manager.
That said, I'm looking forsomeone that I know, like an
accountant, that has anexperience in carve out OGT, for
instance.
I don't know, I'm taking thisexample, I'm just putting the
information in the system andRAI will come up with a list of
the six most relevant people.
Wow, it profiles to match yourneed.
(13:10):
And one very interesting thingis that we find out that, as an
average, we would struggle tohelp manager see, have at least
an interest on people that mightnot fit exactly the job that is
requested, that perhaps haven'talready experienced or don't
have the exact job title that isfrom the expectation of the
(13:33):
manager.
So we have basically 2% ofnon-typical profiles that said
that weren't people that haddoing the exact same job,
mobilizing the exact same skills, etc.
So managers were basicallytaking 2% of non-typical people
(13:54):
and we introduced, thanks toGenerative AI, for this, short
list of six relevant profiles.
The Generative AI explainedwith four or five bullet points
why those people were matchingwith the opportunities, so not,
so shifting from just a matchingpercentage to a written
(14:17):
explanation of why this personmight be a good candidate.
And we jumped from 2% ofnon-typical profile to 15%,
because then managers betterunderstand why someone might be
the best candidate, even thoughthe current job title of the
person doesn't match the jobdescription.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
One I love that.
One of the things that I loveis for line managers and
department managers etc.
Is that they don't get a lot oftraining and to give them
something that's reallyintuitive that they can then
plug into and go yeah, this willhelp me, and I love that.
I love that it's a wayfindingsystem.
(14:57):
They can just say I need thisskill.
Okay, there's the short list offive.
Great, here's where they are.
Now I can go talk to them, etc.
It's just really smart.
Let me ask you a couple of buyside questions real quick.
One is what's when you do, oryour team does, a demo of the
brain to a prospect?
What do they fall in love with?
(15:17):
What's that kind of an ahamoment?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I'd say one very important added value we bring,
compared to other social on themarket, is our capacity to take
motivation into account, whichseems to be quite easy when we
set up, because we all know thatif you're not motivated to
mobilize the skills expected ina certain position, you might
not want to move towards thisdirection.
So that's quite simple andpragmatic.
(15:43):
But we're the only softwarethat really takes into account
the motivation you have todevelop each of your skills,
which is the first element.
The second element I'd say isthat we are, and we try to be,
as fully integrated in the flowof work as possible, meaning
that what we're doing atNeobrain is we're fully
(16:04):
integrated in all major HRESsystems, such as SAP, success
factors, workday, oracle, etc.
And we basically embed oursoftware into those systems so
that you don't have anadditional tool to use.
And right now we're going evenfurther, because we want to be
(16:25):
fully integrated into MicrosoftTeams, as an example, to make
sure that people don't have anadditional tool but you can
write into Microsoft Teams hey,I'm looking for an accountant
that has a strong mastery ofCarvald's editing and the system
will provide you the shortlistwithin Microsoft Teams, so you
never have to leave the toolsyou're using every day, and
(16:48):
that's, I'd say, like the secondbig asset.
And the third one is the factthat we provide a mobile first
experience allowing people thatmight don't have a desktop in
their daily job, for instance,in certain industries such as
retail, or in certainlow-qualification jobs.
(17:08):
Some, for instance, like bluecars, they might not have a
laptop in their daily job or inlogistics, for instance, and we
think that if people like WhiteColor might not have the same,
they have more chances becausethey can access their carrier
management software, when otherpeople that have less
(17:30):
qualification, those people,won't have access to the same
tool.
We might actually create twoshows in the job market, and
that's what we want to preventby making sure that with one
unique tool, you can actuallyaccess 100% of your place.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Ah, okay, so questions that buyers should ask
of NeoBrain and talent markets,let's just say talent
marketplaces.
What are the questions?
If they've never purchased ornever even considered purchasing
, what should they be asking ofyou?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Do you have a demonstration?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, I know when they're, yeah, they're
prospects, and so they've donethe demo.
They're thinking about okay,like what?
And people buy ATSs all thetime.
It's a 50 year old softwarecategory so, yeah, recruiters in
HR know what to ask of ATSsgenerally speaking, but talent
marketplaces are a little bitnewer.
They might not have a great setof questions buying questions
(18:25):
to ask what would you like tohear more from prospects?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I think one very important question is how ATIC
the AI is actually.
Because you can make you can,based on the way you train your
AI you can actually reproducesome bias or you can prevent
those bias and try to increase,for instance, diversity in the
profiles that are being selected.
So I think the how is actuallytrained AI?
(18:54):
How does it really work?
And the vendor should, I think,be able to provide a very
simple answer and try to bringsome pedagogy and have at least
thought about this question.
So I think that's one oneelement.
I think the second question ishow automatized is the
maintenance of the skills on topof you?
Because if it implies somemanual modifications by the HR
(19:18):
team, then I think, okay, itwill be great starts.
You have six months to getready, but then two months, two
years later, the whole ontologywill be completely outdated.
So that's, I think, a very, Ithink, a second question to be
asking to to vendor.
And I think that the thirdquestion is perhaps not a
question you should ask to thevendor, but a real question that
(19:38):
you should ask yourself beforeconsidering purchasing a time
marketplace is simply why?
Because it's a very boomingspace, so sometimes people are
like, yeah, I want a timemarketplace.
Okay, what's the real impactyou want to have?
Yeah, I want more internalmobility.
Okay, but why and askingseveral times just why?
(19:59):
Then you make sure that youreally link the time marketplace
to real business needs.
Otherwise manager will pushback those systems If it isn't
deeply linked to a pain theyalready have and a business
bottleneck they're facing.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Okay, so let's now pivot to, first of all, great
questions, but let's pivot tosome success stories that
Neobranz had, without brandnames, without getting into the
weeds of who it was for, butjust where y'all came into a
situation and they didn't have atalent marketplace, they didn't
have this vision for skills, etcetera, and some of the
outcomes that you've seen.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Okay.
So a few examples.
I'll provide you an example ofa very well-known brand which is
the Group LVMH.
It's like Louis Vuitton,christian Dior, tiffany, et
cetera, so it's this group.
So we basically work with150,000 employees.
So we work at scale with theGroup LVMH and we so it's a big
(20:57):
they basically gather 75 of thebiggest luxury brand in the
world.
It's a most valuated Europeancompany, so it's a pretty big
company.
What we've seen is that when westarted working with them, we
started on parts of the wholescope of Neobrain, but when we
started working with them, theybasically had few I think it was
close to 20,000 people thatweren't basically accessing any
(21:19):
HR software because they justdidn't have a laptop.
So the first step was to makesure that all employees have the
same accessibility to carryopportunities, the capacity to
describe, to define their carepath, the care aspirations, to
make sure that they also haveaccessibility to their
performance management software.
So we basically work with theLVMH to make sure that all their
(21:42):
employees, they were able toindividualize and have an
individualized connection witheach of their employees.
So that's, that's the.
That was the first bigchallenge they had.
So that's one example.
I'm providing you the second onewhich is closer, which is for
big big banks at this school.
Actually it's called NetXIS.
They actually have 15,000employees and they were
(22:06):
struggling because when westarted working with them they
had one job out of eight thatwas filled by the internal
candidate.
12 months after the deploymentthey went from one job out of
eight to one job out of twofilled by the internal candidate
.
The outcome is the reducing.
They basically reduced theturnover of the company because
(22:28):
the first reason, as mentionedearlier, the first reason why
people were leaving the companywhen they were doing the exit
interviews was the lack ofvisibility on the internal
opportunities on their next step.
So by having more peoplefeeling internal open positions,
they actually reduced theoverall turnover and retaining
their employees.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
So, first of all, wonderful story, and I'm sure
you got a litany of those.
The last thing I just wanted toget into with you is just
what's NeoBrain's, what'ssuccess for you all for the rest
of the year?
What are you obviously pushingand it's a hot category, both
skills and AI so you're in agreat place, but how are you?
(23:12):
What's go to market for you?
What are you trying toaccomplish by the end of the
year?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
I'd say like if you give more context on where we
are and where we're heading in2023, for instance, like at the
end of June we have donebasically more in six months
than in the last five years, sowe're really going super fast.
Right now, we're 140 peopleworking at NeoBrain.
I think we'll be close to 1000in the next three years.
So we're living in very stronggrowth where we'll be breakeven
(23:41):
by the end of the year.
Oh, that's fantastic.
So we want a sustainable growth,which is also very important
because we work with largecompanies that want to work with
startups that will still behere.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Stability is yeah, I've seen startups get ruled,
the better technology just getruled out because they don't
have the stability.
So I think that your pointabout being profitable is going
to help land even more businessin the future because you can
add points when you need to beaudited.
Yeah, we don't need to raiseanother 30 million or 50 million
or whatever it is.
We don't need to do that.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yes, so that's, and we want to.
So that's the first thing.
So that's the first thing is wewant to be breakeven by the end
of the year.
We want to be breakeven bytripling our revenue, because
that's what we're doing thisyear.
We're basically tripling ourrecord revenue.
This year We've done several.
We've done two acquisitions inthe last eight months, so we
(24:39):
basically acquired two companiesfrom the industry in the last
eight months.
We have other, we have plansfor other acquisitions.
Our goal is to be at leastreaching 60 million euro in the
next three years.
The path we're following rightnow yeah, so that's the next
step.
And right now we're investing alot in the US market.
So that's why we opened anoffice in San Francisco, one New
(25:01):
York, and we are building alocal team to accelerate our US
Prince Awesome.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
I love what you've built.
I love just everything you'vetalked about today.
So thank you for your time andthanks for coming on the podcast
.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Thank you very much, William.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Absolutely, and thanks for everybody listening
Until next time.
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