Jobs portal Monster Worldwide has been on an acquisition spree in Asia. Having acquired JobsAhead.com in India earlier this year, the e-recruitment company is now looking at acquiring jobs portals in China. Jeffrey Taylor, the founder of jobs portal Monster.com , is recognised as an innovator and visionary in the Internet and careers industries. He likes to call himself the chief monster at Monster Worldwide.
Taylor has co-authored a book, "Monster Careers," which gives job seekers a step-by-step plan for finding the job of their dreams.
The recruiting company Monster Worldwide set up shop in 1967 with Monster.com, one of the first dotcom sites, making its appearance in 1993. Since then, it has grown into the world's leading online career site.
Today, the Monster global network consists of 22 local content and language sites in 20 countries and serves 20 million unique visitors monthly. Taylor, who was in India recently spoke to Business Standard about tackling competition and Monster India's growth plans.
Excerpts:
Having acquired JobsAhead.com, what is your strategy for growth in India?
There are no immediate plans to acquire any more websites in India. Our critical mass and strong market share will allow us to focus on organic growth in the next year-and-a-half. Monster India has doubled in size each of the three years.
If there are acquisitions, they will possibly be websites that would fill in Monster's key areas and not primarily career sites. For instance, a college or university site would fit in well with Monster's plans.
When will you integrate Monster and JobsAhead?
We are aggressively integrating teams, consolidating offices and working on common branding strategies. The integration will be completed by September.
Your closest Indian competitor, Naukri.com, has an aggressive advertising campaign. How do you plan to counter that?
Globally, our advertising strategy has been focused on pulling online traffic to our site. So we advertise on the internet through numerous online partners. In India, a television ad campaign will be released shortly. Monster's advertising agency is Mudra Communications.
How is your online recruitment market divided in India?
Around 95 per cent of Monster India's client base is from the IT and business process outsourcing sectors. Less than five per cent is from the manufacturing sector. We are talking to companies in the sector to grow the segment. The client base here is expected to remain skewed towards IT and telecom for some time to come.
India has a huge potential to meet demand for knowledge workers around the world. While NRIs have been reportedly returning to India for various reasons, the scenario is likely to turn around in less than a year.
How does the Indian acquisition impact your global revenues?
It is relatively small in the global picture but the story is big. JobsAhead.com was a profitable business when we purchased it. So it will not be a drain on our resources. We are pushing towards $ 10 million in revenue.
How cash rich is Monster.com?
Globally, Monster would have over $100 million in cash reserves with 20-22 per cent profit margins. Profitability in India would be in the same range.
Could you outline Monster's growth rate in India?
Monster's growth? We have doubled in size each of the last three years. We don't share projections.
And the figures for India?
We don't give break ups either of Europe or of Asia and we are in the quiet period. You could figure out that profitability in India would be in the same range.
What are your acquisition plans for Asia?
China. We tend to look for a company that will complement ours or boost our leadership position. Or in some cases, like we bought Job Pilot in Germany. They were number one and we were number three.
How will your Indian acquisition aid your growth here?
Once you have acquired critical mass and strong market share, it is actually more profitable to roll ahead. You acquire companies to give you the boost, to guarantee the number one position.
So you won't make further acquisitions in India.
We never say no because, for instance, a college or university site here would be a nice match. We bought a big university site "� Jobtrack "� in the US. It is now called Monstertrack. The site works with 3,000 colleges and universities and powers their interview and internship software.
