Our client, a Boston-based leader and driving force behind the FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) industry, aims to transform some of the internet’s top brands into household names. As a cloud-native shop, their business model revolves 100% around data stored in the cloud. Overall, the company sits on the bleeding edge of technology, with a major focus on attracting tech-innovative, ”new-world” clients and organizations. As an Amazon aggregator, their mission is to build up their ever-growing portfolio of Amazon sellers and help them market their products better.
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service that helps businesses grow by providing access to Amazon's supply chain and logistics network. As businesses send products to Amazon fulfillment centers and customers purchase their products, Amazon handles the receiving, packing, shipping, customer service, and product returns and exchanges for those companies. Ultimately, FBA offers a major benefit to small businesses and companies with limited fulfillment and service capabilities. While FBA has been around for nearly a decade, its popularity really took off towards the beginning of 2020 due to the pandemic.
The Dilemma
Brought in directly by the client’s CTO and Head of Cyber Security, Yoh was initially tasked with helping scale their IT department. However, not long after initiating our program, an enormous round of funding kicked our client into hyper-growth mode and led to a massive hiring push. They received over $2B in funding due to the FBA industry gold rush, which accelerated their business growth overnight. The company’s executives suddenly had to meet the business demand and scale up very aggressively. With pressure to utilize funding quickly and efficiently, they turned to Yoh for support. Overall, this was a major ask since our Recruiters would have to sell candidates on the uncharted waters of the FBA industry, including the opportunity, benefits, and potential of working in such a new space.
The Strategy
Yoh got right to work, supplying the client with world-class contractors and right-to-hire candidates across various departments. Yoh brought to the table direct access to key SMEs and began strategizing on how to help tactically recruit, vet, and place the necessary resources. It was mission-critical to hire resources who fully understood the challenges and opportunities a unicorn start-up presented. Yoh’s Account Representative worked hand-in-hand with key decision-makers in the client’s IT, Legal, Supply Chain, Finance, Marketing, Ad Tech, and Creative departments. The ultimate goal was to help build and scale our client’s EPMO in the areas of Cloud Engineering, DevOps, and Enterprise Systems that include Salesforce, Netsuite, Supply Chain, Cyber Security, and more.
The Impact
Ultimately, Yoh offered a quicker way to hire, which was pivotal to the immediate demand for support across the client's organization. Yoh cut the interview time in half – down from seven necessary interviews to bring on a full-time (FT) employee to only two or three interviews to place right-to-hire candidates. Our client also needed both technical SME and Project Management (PM) support to build out their EPMO. We placed 60+ Project Managers (some even turning into Program Managers) with over a 90% success rate in filling all mission-critical roles. We also assisted in putting the right documentation and methodologies in place to support their EPMO.
The key to our growth and success was our collaboration with our client to design and implement a roadmap to enable robust workflows and greater automation. After this major partnership with an industry-leading Amazon aggregator, we understand the rapidly-growing market in which those within the FBA space live. With a very high success rate of 90% in filling our client’s roles and the ability to cut time-to-hire in half, we have the bandwidth and know-how to successfully implement similar solutions for other major players within this space. While every company comes with its own unique set of issues, working with an agile partner who knows your business inside and out is the key to success.
