Precision Search's Logistics consultant, comments on the findings from a recent article featured in East Midlands Business Link.  "The latest UK Logistics Confidence Index from Barclays and Moore Stephens has revealed that confidence amongst senior members of the UK's logistics sector is at its lowest level since the biannual survey began in 2012. The Index does however stand at just above its critical *50.0 mark."  The article goes on to say:  "Optimism in H1 2016 has fallen significantly to 51.8 compared to 61.9 in H2 2015. This fourth successive drop is the largest that this biannual barometer of levels of confidence in the sector has recorded and takes it to its lowest point in its four-year history. Yet, perhaps surprisingly given the low levels of confidence, almost 7 in 10 expect their turnover to increase in the next twelve months and the same number feel sufficiently confident to be planning to invest in capital expenditure over the next six months. The index reports that logistics businesses are facing increasing pressure from customers for lower prices during a period of rising competition and increases in costs. To respond, logistics businesses are increasingly focusing on value-added services and technology as a route to retaining existing clients and to attract new business. The development of value-added services was most commonly cited as an opportunity for the sector and a key driver of contract wins. With 24% of respondents highlighting the trend, this represents a threefold rise on H1 2015. Respondents identified offering value-added services such as last-mile delivery, co-packing, returns management services, labelling, pre-assembly or even basic manufacturing as a way to establish long term customer relationships based on value. Technology is also seen as an opportunity for the sector, cited by 16% of respondents, double the number who said this in H2 2015 as the sector seeks to realize the cost, service level and efficiency benefits on offer through cloud services, digital tracking technology and the insights available through big data analytics. Ray O'Donoghue, managing director at Barclays in the Midlands, said: "Confidence in the UK logistics industry has taken a knock from price pressure and increasing competition. Under such pressure, the high level of planned capital expenditure is welcome news and reflects the sector's pressing need for investment in technology. It is also encouraging that the role of technology is recognized as a route to both control costs and improve service levels and investment in this area is a key trend for the sector". Specialist Senior Logistics Consultant comments on the article findings: "As someone who speaks to Logistics & Supply Chain Leaders on a daily basis, there is definitely more of an emphasis on end-user customer experience and "value added" services. Due to the onset of technology, the rise of competition and the fact that the millenial demographic spending power has rapidly increased, the businesses that don't improve their customer's end-to-end experience will get left behind. This is especially prevalent in the areas of E-commerce, Home Delivery and Parcels as the drivers/drivers mates who deliver the service to people's homes need to ensure exemplary white glove customer service at all times. Businesses are increasingly looking to hire people with strong Lean & Six Sigma skills into their Supply Chains to reduce cost and improve efficiencies elsewhere so that they have the capital to invest properly into providing that strong end user experience later on in the Supply Chain." If you're looking for a new logistics role or thinking about hiring in the future click here for more information on the types of roles we can help you with, or  contact Richard today on 0116 254 5433 or email richardk@precisionsearch.uk. 

  Are you struggling to find the right kind of candidates for your senior or director level positions? Do you know who you want, but just can’t seem to secure the hire? Issues like these could be down to a number of factors, including stale self-promoting job adverts and poor engagement with your hiring process. If you find that you recognise one or more of the following red flags, it’s time to consult with a professional executive search agency. 1. Your job adverts don’t talk the talk It’s all well and good having a conventional advert - candidate requirements, role responsibilities, expected salary etc. - in fact nowadays they form the backbone of almost all conventional recruitment campaigns. All a bit 1980s to be honest. The problem is that even when these adverts are hosted on sites like Jobsite and Indeed, how can you be sure they’re speaking to the right people? A lot of clients enlist the help of our talent resourcing specialists when their job adverts either aren’t gaining a response or are attracting the wrong calibre of candidates altogether. By adopting a method that attracts the right people whilst adding some "yes" gates we connect with the right people in a way to gain their confidence in calling. 2. You just don’t know where to look When you’re recruiting for a senior position within your company, either managerial or directorial, the chances are that your ideal candidate will probably fall into the passive category of job seekers, meaning they’re happy in their current role. As opposed to standard recruitment circumstances, this often means that there isn't a ‘bank’ of candidates with the relevant experience ready to apply. Executive search firms make use of a wealth of referrals within your industry to identify and target the key figures occupying senior positions. As these candidates aren’t normally active job seekers, they don’t typically respond to marketing or job adverts, which is why the integral expertise and connections of professional talent resourcing firm gets the results you need. 3. You’re struggling to secure the candidates you really want to hire  Even if you’ve managed to accurately identify and contact the appropriate candidates for your open senior management positions, you’ll quickly realise that convincing them to leave their current job is a wholly different battle in itself. You can leave yourself in a position that will be based on monetary reward rather than be a career opportunity. That method is very costly and one of the weakest methods to hire, it's based on cash rather than commitment. This also makes it easy for the person to be counter offered, which we know is likely for senior hires that control the success of a company or division. Obviously, as a senior member of an existing company, they probably enjoy a number of financial benefits and privileges that come with the position - so how can your company compete? As professional executive search consultants, sales and marketing is a large part of our skill set; we specialise in first assessing whether the person would be interested in having a conversation about your potential opportunity, never selling your position to the candidate until we know that your need is their ambition. When we are on the same page with the candidate we can them align them with what you could offer, of course, if they are successful in the hiring process. We then know if your offer package is truly valued by them. When it comes to managerial recruitment, spending a lot of time and resources trying to source candidates internally can often come to outweigh the financial investment incurred by consulting with an executive search firm. Whilst you are trawling LinkedIn no one is steering your company to success, whilst outsourcing to a junior manager is an option, it's less likely that a potential senior hire will show interest. Our talent resourcing team specialise in streamlining the process of recruiting for senior positions, identifying and shortlisting the appropriate candidates, presenting you with top talent.  Looking to hire an executive search firm? We specialise in: Senior Manufacturing Engineering Risk & Expert Witness positions. To talk to one of our specialist consultants today call 0116 254 5488 or click here and we'll call you back.