Digital Transformation Is a Golden Alternative for RGP

IT modernization isn’t a overseas idea at RGP. The worldwide skilled providers agency advises 70% of Fortune 500 corporations on find out how to plan and execute advanced digital transformation tasks. Nevertheless, a number of years in the past, the Dallas, Texas firm acknowledged an uncomfortable reality: Until it upgraded its personal infrastructure, it risked shedding credibility and falling behind rivals. 

That realization set off a four-year mission to overtake the corporate’s IT framework. The purpose? Migrate off legacy programs equivalent to Microsoft Dynamics and embrace a cloud-based structure constructed for pace, agility, and adaptability. “We would have liked groups to work quicker and higher,” declares Keith Golden, chief data officer. “Nobody needs to rent a consulting agency that may’t modernize itself.” 

The initiative, dubbed Mission Phoenix, has rewired workflows — and reshaped outcomes. By swapping out legacy programs, code bases, and information framework for a lightning-fast digital infrastructure, RGP is fueling innovation and dialing up its capacity to reply to consistently altering enterprise calls for. “This was our likelihood to steer by instance,” Golden says. “We needed to stick the touchdown.” 

Pace Bumps

For many years, medium and enormous corporations have turned to RGP to deal with advanced staffing wants. But after the agency expanded into enterprise consulting through the early 2000s, it discovered itself more and more constrained by an outdated IT infrastructure. By 2020, issues had reached a breaking level. “We had code bases that distributors now not supported. We had software program programs that couldn’t work together and alternate information,” Golden says. 

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The issues didn’t cease there. RGP’s applicant monitoring platform wouldn’t combine with different important software program. This meant that groups typically had to make use of a number of programs to perform primary duties. On high of that, brittle code triggered disruptions and occasional breakdowns. “We had been siloed,” Golden admits. “In some instances, individuals had little or no visibility into occasions.” 

Inefficient handbook processes had been piling up, Golden explains. This made work far tougher for the greater than 2,600 RGP consultants and specialists scattered throughout 37 international locations. “We weren’t working on the pace required for immediately’s enterprise surroundings. It was clear that we needed to undertake quicker and extra environment friendly workflows and processes,” he says. 

In late 2021, the corporate launched Mission Phoenix, a multi-year modernization initiative. Golden stepped in as CIO for RGP a 12 months later. The agency chosen Microsoft Azure and an utility stack constructed round Workday Finance and HCM modules to deal with cash and folks; Salesforce to handle buyer relationships; Aperture for applicant monitoring; and ContractPod AI, a agency specializing in AI-powered contract lifecycle administration. 

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Into the Clouds

In early 2024, with Deloitte serving because the programs integrator, RGP started to modify on the brand new programs. “It was removed from a lift-and-shift venture,” Golden says. Initially, groups needed to assess what information the corporate had, how totally different teams saved and arranged it, and the way individuals used the info to do their work. Analysts additionally needed to decide find out how to optimize the info for the brand new programs. “We needed to work by way of advanced points associated to cleansing and getting ready information,” Golden notes. 

Though RGP principally makes use of plugged-in vendor APIs to attach purposes, it additionally needed to develop its personal APIs and code to optimize the workflows. “We had specialised conditions the place we wanted customized code and particular performance to get information the place it was wanted at any given second,” Golden explains. 

Government alignment and a deal with change administration had been key elements, Golden says. “Happily, we had buy-in from our management from begin to end. This supplied the assist we wanted to see the venture by way of to the tip.” On the similar time, the change administration workforce recognized expertise gaps, fine-tuned processes, and labored with workers to tweak and adapt the brand new workflows. 

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The ensuing platform addresses immediately’s enterprise necessities — but it’s additionally engineered for the long run. This contains assist for specialised synthetic intelligence and agentic AI instruments embedded in Salesforce and different enterprise purposes. Fueled by agile groups and steady enhancements, RGP has developed a worldwide playbook that retains the enterprise at the forefront of innovation. 

Agility on Demand

The venture wasn’t with out challenges. For instance, one small vendor was supposed to construct out extra performance inside RGP’s time monitoring utility, which consultants within the discipline use for billing. Inside groups had already begun writing code and growing APIs — primarily based on a deliberate acquisition by Workday. Nevertheless, six months earlier than the system was imagined to go dwell, a distinct firm acquired the software program agency. “We had to return and revamp all of the code,” Golden says. 

But, general, the modernization initiative progressed easily, Golden says. As we speak, groups are working quicker and extra effectively throughout quite a few areas. For instance, when RGP receives a request from a shopper to search out certified candidates, job openings move from Salesforce into Aperture. It will probably then match certified candidates and rank them primarily based on particular standards, together with expertise and position necessities. “This eliminates the necessity for recruiters to dig by way of piles of résumés,” he says. 

Lately, when an oil and fuel shopper wanted to fill 90 finance roles as a part of its personal transformation venture, RGP’s workforce delivered ranked matches inside hours — a course of that previously required days and even weeks. “Whereas we didn’t succeed with each placement, we captured greater than our share of enterprise by figuring out high-quality candidates rapidly,” Golden says. 

Contract administration can also be easier. Prior to now, if a shopper needed to make use of its personal templates for the assessment course of, a doc would typically sit in e mail inboxes for hours or days till an lawyer may assessment it. If somebody occurred to be on trip, all the course of stalled out. Making issues worse, “Monitoring adjustments was messy and inefficient,” Golden says. Now, the role-based contract administration system routes the contract to the primary certified and out there lawyer. 

RGP is now eyeing different enhancements, equivalent to increasing its monetary and applicant monitoring programs globally. The agency hopes to develop a “borderless expertise” framework that helps a digital and extremely versatile work mannequin, Golden says. “Happily, we’ve got a proficient workforce that holds one another accountable. It’s been implausible to see the IT store rise to the problem and construct out a complicated digital framework.”