OrderWork sets sights on national IT network

New IT skills resource pool established to tap into underused IT specialists

Resellers are being urged to sign up to an online IT skills marketplace called OrderWork where they can register to either buy or sell IT expertise and resources.

Toby Strauss, executive chairman of OrderWork, said: “We launched OrderWork in May as we realised that there was a lot of underused capacity in the IT market. Our research has shown that on average companies operate at only 76 per cent capacity and, during quiet periods, companies operate at just 52 per cent capacity.”

VARs register themselves or their company’s specialists on the Order-Work system free of charge. They will then be notified of relevant work and, if they accept, they pay 10 per cent of the work value to OrderWork.

“A large reseller who has a number of projects underway might need to source in extra staff for a month or two to help it handle the workload; or a smaller firm might take on a project and might need to source in certain skills for one area of the project. Our aim is to build up a national network of IT specialists,” said Strauss.

Last month a similar web site was launched. Technical Services for Resellers (TS4R) lists self-employed engineers and UK resellers that are prepared to partner on a project-by-project basis (CRN, 16 October).

Founder and managing director of Ts4R, Rina Abrahams, said: “We don’t charge resellers any fee at all – our revenue comes from advertising. We launched four weeks ago and have got around 100 resellers registered.”

Strauss added: “There are quite a few listings services out there, but our differentiator is that we manage the whole end-to-end transaction, including handling the payment process and providing a rating of all suppliers.”

Pierre Lams, founder of VAR Handheld PCs, said: “The OrderWork site sounds like a great idea. We would definitely consider registering. Based on the speed at which we are growing, to have a resource pool such as this to dip into without paying recruitment agency rates would be very beneficial.”

>> Further reading:

Technical Services for Resellers set to plug reseller skills gap