Prima has been providing software and business solutions within the clothing, footwear and accessories marketplace for over 25 years to form the UK’s largest team of industry-specific software specialists.

Privately owned, they continually reinvest in their product, people and services to maintain a market-leading position, and have been a Gold Standard Investors in People Company since 2012. As a result of maintaining close relationships with their customers, industry specialists and technology partners to stand at the forefront of developments, Prima Solutions continue to deliver agile business solutions, making the best use of technology to meet the specific needs of their customers.

The work

Prima Solutions wanted to deliver a strategic plan to develop and promote key staff into Senior Management positions. They therefore needed new people to underpin this growth, and it was critical that candidates shared the values, behaviours, motivation and intellect needed to maintain and develop the excellent relationships that Prima had in place with their clients and suppliers.

All candidates were put through a competency-based interview, a DISC personality profiling assessment (PPA) to measure their behaviours against the ideal behaviours required, a General Intelligence Assessment (GIA) to measure their intellect in 5 key areas, and a Motivational Map.

The results were that 10 people were successfully hired over a period of 5 months.  During the sixth month, we assessed the motivation of each candidate using the Motivational Map tool.  This generated a report that could be used as part of the candidate’s personal development plan, to build engagement and to make sure that they were motivated to develop their career within Prima.

Key roles

• Project Manager
• Business Analyst
• Designer
• Implementation Analyst
• QA Manager
• Product Manager
• Helpdesk Analyst

Testimonial

“We engaged Blues Point having tried working with other recruitment agencies without much success. We were finding that a candidate looked great on paper but didn’t have the behaviours that Prima Solutions need for business success. A lot of time was wasted by our senior management team interviewing candidates, so we wanted to partner with a recruitment business that could manage the whole process, allowing our managers to get on with their day-today responsibilities.

The PPA allowed us to ensure that people joining the business were able to build relationships with our customers and the GIA helped us to understand how the individual would be able to handle the intensive training and onboarding that a new starter needs to take part in, and how they would cope with the fast pace of our environment.

I am pleased to say that all of the 10 people that Blues Point placed with us are still in their positions nearly 12 months later, and are already adding value to our business.”

Mathew Burrell, Joint Managing Director