Integrated Search Capability from East to West Coast

“We were looking for a professional software company: one that would adhere to the rhythm of releases and product advances, enabling us to remain competitive in an increasingly sophisticated and technologically aware market.”

When you’ve built your reputation on a rigorous, transparent search processes and the ability to perform exhaustive searches on behalf of clients, you need the technology to make this happen, day-in, day-out. That’s the reason why Park Square Executive Search co-founder and managing partner Aaron Lapat was so determined to work with a professional software company.

“We launched our firm in 2012 as a standalone entity having spun out of an established business. This was an opportunity to evaluate all aspects of what we did and how we did it,” he explains. “And that included looking at how we used technology to manage our processes, relationships and data.”

The outcome of this evaluation was a realisation that the business was simply ‘getting by’ with its old system. “It wasn’t sophisticated enough for our purposes,” says Aaron. “We pride ourselves on serving clients and institutions that are changing the world through discovery, innovation, and growth, but our existing technology platform was far from innovative, and could have potentially restricted our growth.”

The business undertook a comprehensive review of the leading software currently on the market. “We had previously used software from two other executive search database providers,” Aaron continues. “These experiences told us that we now needed to look for something different to help drive our business growth.”

Park Square sought a system that integrated seamlessly with Outlook and social media, was easy to use and swiftly delivered measurable business benefit.

“We canvased the market for innovative solutions and struggled to find a product that met our specifications. Unfortunately there was not much in the way of innovation happening in the Executive Search software arena. As such, we were close to selecting a product from a vendor who tangentially served our sector. Their solution, while not tailored to our needs, was robust in the ways we required and we were willing to have some customization done. That said, at the eleventh hour, a venture capital firm that we work with recommended Invenias. After a thorough evaluation of Invenias, we found what we were looking for. The product had the sophistication we needed, was highly intuitive to use, and was designed specifically for executive search by people who understood the profession – all of which was important for us.”

“There was a sense of robustness about the platform and it had an ease of use that would guarantee widespread user adoption. It is critical that everyone in the firm is accessing the same information in real time, and living in the candidate database, so the intuitive nature of Invenias and ease at which we could get up and running were vital.”
Aaron Lapat
Managing Partner

The decision to deploy Invenias was not purely a management one, however. The firm involved users from different functional groups to evaluate Invenias and compare it with other options. “Our team loved the integration with Outlook and the ability to move easily between the applications we use day-to-day,” says Aaron.

With its people invested in the decision to deploy Invenias, Park Square then had to transition from its old platform to the new one. This entailed the migration of the firm’s huge database containing some 240,000 contact records. “Invenias helped us with this data conversion and carried out some customisation to get us going”, Aaron says. “Invenias also did a great job of training, helping us establish our own Super Users who were able to support the rest of the business during the early days.”

He adds: “Invenias is now integral to everything we do. It is our ERP system, our CRM system and core Knowledge Management system in one. We use it on mobile devices and on our laptops. Invenias has given us a competitive advantage by virtue of the sophisticated way in which we can gain access to data so that we can get to the right candidates for our clients as quickly as possible. We’re using the platform to operate as a single, integrated team, despite having offices located on both coasts.”