In Part One and Part Two of our end-of-the-year recap series, we talked about the new CSM features made available in 2018 and our efforts to improve client success. This week, we’ll focus on our efforts to bring Symplicity to an international audience. We acquired new companies, developed strategic business partnerships, enhanced our services and product capabilities, and significantly expanded our client base.
In August, Symplicity acquired Contratanet, the largest integrated network of career portals for jobs and internships in Brazil. With the acquisition, Symplicity strengthens its operations in the country, offering local support and services and a more expansive employer network to universities.
A market leader in career services technology in Brazil, Contratanet has an active network of more than 1,000 universities, 150,000 employers and more than 4 million candidates. Headquartered in Belo Horizonte (MG), it offers a portal that connects educational institutions, companies, and candidates, bringing opportunities and students closer together, as well as facilitating the dissemination and management of recruitment processes.
“This acquisition will not only enhance and significantly expand our global network of candidates and employers—it will also ensure that we are supporting the unique needs of our university clients in Brazil, with in-region client support and strategic services from two of the most experienced career services providers in the industry.”
Matthew Small,
Symplicity President and CEO
That same month, we announced the launch of CareerHub CentralTM, a new network to recruit and hire the best talent from universities across the United Kingdom and Ireland. CareerHub Central is a centralized platform that allows recruiters to post jobs to Symplicity’s extensive and diverse network of universities without worry of account duplication. CareerHub Central gives employers the ability to manage all of their recruiting needs across all Symplicity CSM and CareerHub universities in one central site. Universities and students will also significantly benefit from the new network. It will increase student opportunities and exposure to top employers. Universities will see better employability outcomes and higher student and graduate satisfaction.
This year, we focused on creating strategic partnerships with education IT leaders across the world with the goal to increase employability outcomes in their markets. In South Africa, we announced a new channel partnership with Eiffel Corp. For the last twenty years, Eiffel has been engaged in the student lifecycle and committed to student throughput, offering the best solutions and services to universities on the African continent. The partnership with Symplicity allows them to add innovative employment solutions to their existing offering of learner management systems, content development services, and analytics that support student throughput.
“Partnering with Symplicity allows us to bring a new set of innovative and proven solutions to our clients that will help universities increase employability outcomes, employer engagement, and rankings.”
Stefan du Plessis,
Eiffel Corp Commercial Director
We also expanded our presence in Asia by partnership with BEENET, a leader of innovative eLearning solutions, enterprise email services, and media network services. Universities in Asia are moving fast towards innovation and have been undergoing massive structural changes in the last decades, in their quest to become the world’s top universities. BEENET can now offer Symplicity’s world-class careers services, student services, and student engagement solutions to Asian universities that will empower them to increase admissions, employability outcomes, and rankings. “With BEENET, we have found a partner with a strong footprint across Asia which works well with our growth initiatives in the region,” said Thomas Jepsen, VP International at Symplicity.
Perhaps the most significant investment in channel partnerships was made in Mexico, where we started strategic collaborations with Vectis and Vesa IT, both leading providers of software and telecommunications. Symplicity has provided employability strategies and solutions in Mexico for many years, with established client universities including Universidad de Monterrey and Universidad Tecnológica de México. Now with the help of Vectis and Vesa IT, we will expand our growth and provide our market-leading solution to enable better employability outcomes and operations for Mexican universities.
“With Vectis, we have found a partner with extensive experience in the development of projects and initiatives to improve educational processes, as well as the experience of students and teachers in some of the most important universities in Mexico.”
Thomas Jepsen,
VP International Symplicity
Throughout the year, we participated in and hosted a number of international trade shows and conferences. In March, we ventured to Newcastle, UK for the Global Career Services Summit where Symplicity President and CEO, Matt Small, gave a keynote on the challenges facing employability strategies today. We also participated and sponsored a handful of key conference across Europe and Australia such as the European University Information Systems (EUNIS) Annual Conference in Portugal, the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) in the UK, and the National Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (NAGCAS) Conference in Australia.
We also hosted our first-ever Symplicity Spotlight event in Manchester, UK where we announced CareerHub Central to our university network. The conference and the new platform received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with many universities signing up for the service shortly after the event concluded. The agenda included a mix of thought leadership and best practice presentations led by current Symplicity clients. We had over 70 attendees from 35 different institutions, including top executives from student services at the University of Cambridge, Manchester Metropolitan University, Newcastle University and more.
To support the acquisition of Contratanet, we hosted our first client and prospect event in Sao Paolo, Brazil in October 2018. Currently, there are limited opportunities in the country for educators to get together and discuss best practices for student employability. With the “Brazilian Day of Employability” event, our goal was to provide an outlet for universities and employers to discuss the challenges facing Brazilian institutions and how Symplicity, now with Contratanet, can be a powerful engine to deliver positive post-graduation outcomes. Overall, the day was very well received among its 100+ attendees and promises to the be the flagship event for employability among Brazil higher education institutions.
In addition to developing new international partnerships and creating new opportunities for clients and prospects to come together, we welcomed new clients that will help us further cement our presence abroad. Laureate Mexico, the largest network of higher education institutions in Mexico, chose Symplicity CSM Enterprise to deliver outstanding employability services to their students. The collaboration aims to provide a unified student experience across faculties and to improve student retention and efficient campus operations. Other world-renowned universities who purchased Symplicity this year to support their employability strategy include King Faisal and Saudi Electronic University in Saudi Arabia, University of Tasmania, Australia, De Montfort University in the UK, UNISUAM University in Brazil, Universidad Alas Peruanas in Peru, and Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico.
“We were looking for a robust solution that could be implemented on an institution-wide level. Symplicity CSM Enterprise will empower us to efficiently and securely manage student data, streamline reporting and increase operational efficiency on campus. The collaboration with Symplicity supports our strategy to make Laureate student employability a top priority.”
Ivan Alonso,
IT Vice president for Mexico & Central America at Laureate
As we prepare for the new year, we’d like to wish you all a very happy holiday season, and we’ll see you in 2019!
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