FOUR EQUATERRA EXECUTIVES NAMED 2006 HRO SUPERSTARS
BY INDEPENDENT PANEL OF ADVISORS

NEW YORK (January 27, 2006) —EquaTerra, a multi-national outsourcing and insourcing advisory firm, today announced Chairman Mark Hodges, CEO Mark Toon, European HR Practice Lead Tim Palmer and EquaTerra Public Sector President Glenn Davidson have all been named 2006 HRO Superstars by an independent panel of judges enlisted by HRO Today magazine.  This represents both Hodges’ and Davidson’s fourth appearance on the list of top HRO advisors and opinion leaders (in its four-year existence), Toon’s third, and Palmer’s first.

The panel of judges said Hodges is “[the] Visionary leader of market-leading sourcing advisors”; Toon is, “Operational head of the revolutionary lifecycle sourcing concept”; Palmer is a, “U.S.-style sourcing advisory leader in Europe”; and Davidson is, “HROA’s first chairman [and] HRO’s best Beltway semi-insider.”

All named 2006 HRO Superstars were asked by HRO Today magazine to answer a variety of questions including, “What do you think will be the most important areas of HRO in the future?”  EquaTerra’s executives’ answers were as follows:

Hodges said, “Redesign of the retained organization and global services delivery [will be the most important future HRO areas.]”  He also noted that the most important skills HR professionals need to succeed are the ability to manage third party vendors, consultative skills with business partners, and focusing on the “what” and not the “how” of HR practices, and that the HR process areas that will begin to get outsourced more frequently are pan-European payroll, Time & Attendance and Learning/Training.

Toon said, “Buyers of HRO services must consider the changing face of the maturing HRO provider market.  The continuing flurry of mergers and acquisitions activity had led to the disappearance of smaller, niche service providers that have failed to achieve the desired results with their short list of clients.  Buyers will see an expansion of skills and process depth due to M&A activity among complimentary providers.  Further, buyers may soon experience commodity pricing for certain processes.”

Palmer said, “From a European perspective, I am particularly interested in the way that HR outsourcing is globalizing. Two years ago it was hard to buy joined-up HR services outside the U.S. and U.K. We are now routinely seeing global contracts come to tender, and each provider has a different approach to handling the challenge.  No one yet has a full credible story for the global multinational and it will be interesting to see which models win out.”

Davidson said, “In the future, I doubt that we’ll even discuss HRO as a stand-alone box of services.  The HRO channel of BPO will become increasingly specialized – HRO providers will be seen as “think tanks” of innovation within companies, those who keep up with and create their own best practices.” 

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