Christopher Ryan, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer
Two decades is a long time in the staffing technology industry. Platforms rise and fall, trends come and go, and economic cycles test even the strongest companies. Avionté has been through all of it: the Great Recession, a global pandemic, and countless shifts in how staffing agencies serve their clients and talent.
What makes Avionté work? It’s all about our experience. Here’s what twenty years have taught us.
Less than a year after Avionté signed its first customer, the economy collapsed. The Great Recession forced many staffing technology companies to cut people, projects, and services at the very moment their customers needed the most support. Avionté’s lean organization and sharp customer focus became an advantage. Others scaled back while we were positioned to lean in. The Great Recession tested our resilience and created an opportunity for growth. It’s defined us ever since.
When building new software, it’s tempting to take shortcuts. Everyone wants to be first to market. But the trap is rushing innovation to market that creates problems downstream. We learned early on that innovation requires a balanced approach—the discipline to build it right the first time.
AviontéBOLD is the technological backbone for nearly 1,000 staffing agencies, 26,000 users, and a few million temp workers. Our goal is to future-proof customers for an evolving market, while delivering a secure, reliable, and scalable platform on a daily basis. And sometimes, saying yes to one customer’s “special” request can create unexpected challenges for everyone else—especially when it is rushed to market.
Laying the groundwork for advanced features takes more time upfront, but it results in a platform that scales, a user interface that feels natural, and a foundation that supports sustained partnership between Avionté and our customers.
By the early 2010s, Avionté’s growth attracted attention from private investors. We weren’t looking for outside capital, but as offers became more compelling, we faced a critical decision. The question: how do we find investors aligned with our values?
John Long vetted venture firms carefully, looking for a partner who prioritized customer relationships as much as Avionté did, and wouldn’t sacrifice our customer-centric approach for short-term gain.
Serent Capital’s respect for the staffing industry, experience with SaaS platforms, and reputation for working with founder-led companies distinguished them from other offers. After joining in 2014, Serent Capital brought fresh perspectives and expertise to help expand Avionté and prepare for the next stage of our growth.
No technology firm succeeds alone. Maximizing value requires interoperability with other software platforms. With Serent’s support, Avionté initiated its first two software partners in 2014, starting with ADP. Since then, our Avionté+ program (as we now call it) includes more than 100 software partners with a wide array of capabilities for front and back office operations.
Our approach to software partners is unique. We deliberately search for best-in-class partners and integrations. Each vendor is vetted for security and performance, and many are integrated directly into the AviontéBOLD experience so users never need to leave the app to take full advantage of the functionality. Staffing agencies on the Avionté platform can now deploy a complete staffing platform closely tailored to their operating model and workflows.
We have a few sayings at Avionté: Everyone is on the field – no one sits on the sideline. When your name is called, be ready to lead. Take your ego out of the equation when making decisions. You can’t be excellent without the truth.
Many of the early employees hired by John Long are still at Avionté today. Even more important, many of them now hold leadership roles. When Rishabh Mehrotra arrived as Avionté’s new CEO in 2020, he doubled down on leadership, focusing on the development and mentoring of many promising young associates. While Rishabh is no longer with us, his legacy remains—a generation of younger associates he inspired to step up and become leaders at Avionté.
Market conditions in the staffing industry change quickly. Ensuring client success means more than simply providing excellent technology. Our responsibility, as a partner to our clients, is not only to create a platform that serves their current needs, but one that anticipates the future, so they can succeed no matter how the industry evolves.
This vision drove the acquisition of SimpleVMS and WorkN to create a complete ecosystem for staffing success. We’ve invested in top talent to provide thought leadership. We’ve developed deeper relationships with our partners and industry analysts. These connections, fostered over many years, have helped our customers to grow and succeed through major changes in the marketplace.
Avionté’s staffing platform serves as the backbone of modern staffing organizations. Agencies can neither be compliant nor secure unless the technology has been designed to support it. Reliability, scalability, and compliance ensure that our customers will continue to thrive and grow for decades to come. We believe security and compliance are a matter of respect and care for our customers, not an optional perk. Avionté has invested in the infrastructure and processes required to achieve and maintain SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, so that customers can build relationships and win business without worrying about data protection.
This isn’t just a birthday. We are celebrating 20 years of growth and partnership with our people, our partners, and most of all, our customers. Together, we have created an extraordinary community of successful businesses that connect people with work.
It’s been a privilege to grow alongside all of you—so thank you! And here’s to the next twenty!
We’ve put together interviews, photos, and memories from clients and staff in celebration of our 20 year anniversary. Visit 20years.avionte.com to see everything.
