Concept Still in Pole Position with UK Top Recruitment Ad Agencies

Not all Agencies are Created Equal, so Concept created an Agency Management System that could bend, flex & grow

Chessington, UK – March 25th, 2011 – Concept Integrated Systems, developers of the agency management system, Concept™, has today highlighted that it continues to dominate the UK recruitment ad agency market with the large majority now standardised on Concept.

Today more than 150 advertising design agencies rely on Concept's on-demand, job and document tracking facilities, financial management capabilities and reporting functions to help them achieve quality, efficiency and consistency in the running of their businesses. The Recruitment Advertising sector, including names such as Penna, ThirtyThree, Bernard Hodes, AiA and SMRS, has embraced Concept since its early days and that trend continues today with many agencies renewing their licenses, switching from the old on-premise deployment to Concept on-demand.

Penna for example first invested in Concept back in 2005 to support its newly formed recruitment communications business. An early high priority for the executive team was to acquire an agency management system that would automate the workflow of the new agency allowing the key staff to get on with the business of delivery. Concept was already known and trusted by the team to be a robust and modern solution that could satisfy the needs of the agency both then and in the future. That confidence continues to hold true today as the group expands its investment in Concept.

Commercial director, Brian Cernuschi explains, "Concept is as much the right choice for our Communications business now as it was 6 years ago. It is geared for our industry and a perfect fit for Penna. We have a very high volume of diverse transactions and need to ensure that we continue to deliver accurate and timely management information that enables us to make informed decisions." Brian continues, "By upgrading to the new version we have an opportunity to launch the system afresh to our user community and reinforce some really key aspects of the system such as capacity planning and robust use of timesheets."

International recruitment advertising specialist Terra Firma also recently standardised on Concept to support the account and financial management functions of its fast growing business. Julia Levy, Head of Strategy and Solutions at Terra Firma Associates led the search for a system to underpin Terra Firma's growth and international focus. "We operated a number of disparate systems yet increasingly we craved one consistent view of our business across client management through to financial management. That is exactly what Concept delivers, an integrated view across the business enabling us to make faster and better decisions and scale with us as our business grows." Julia continues, "Furthermore, unlike other vendors whose systems worked in Sterling currency only, Concept offers us the multi-currency capability that is critical to our international business."

Blackbridge, Online Media Experts (OME), SMRS and ThirtyThree are just some of the other agencies who have either newly signed up for Concept or increased their commitment to the solution in the past few months. Because Concept is flexible, tailorable and on-demand it suits the needs of agencies of all sizes and complexities.

Ian Tomlins is managing director at Concept and has worked with the product since its inception. "Concept was designed by agency people for agency people and that underlying tenet is a key contributor to its continued success. We have customers who have been with us for 18+ years, others who have joined us in the last few months and some who have used us in several agencies during their careers and Concept is still as relevant to their business now as it was then. Put simply, we know what makes agencies tick and that DNA has been fed into Concept to it the flexible, sophisticated agency management system that it is."