With millions of furloughed workers and commercial closures, the COVID-19 pandemic has not been kind to small and local businesses. Now, with a roadmap to recovery underway business owners are looking for creative and cheaper options to re-start their businesses and taking inspiration from Central Asia.

The commercial re-purposing of shipping containers could be an important pathway to post-COVID economic recovery for small business owners. Containers converted into commercial spaces are a sustainable, cheap and flexible option for those looking to open businesses in the UK and Europe.

This practice has been instrumental to Central Asian economies since at least the early 2000s. One early proponent was the entrepreneur, Timur Tillyaev, who founded Abu Saxiy market in 2007 by converting 680 abandoned containers into stalls:“Re-purposed shipping containers are very cost-efficient and therefore popular with traders. There is no doubt they have contributed to enormous growth in the Central Asian retail economy,”said Timur Tillyaev. Today, Abu Saxiy provides employment for over 5,000 people and has over 3,000 retail points, making it an essential economic player for Uzbekistan.

So how might these markets help European businesses? One of the key advantages is that unlike typical retail leases, businesses operating out of repurposed containers can have the flexibility of short or long-term lease agreements and therefore safeguard their businesses from long and expensive commitment periods. According to some estimates, average re-purposed container lease prices are half as expensive as traditional shop spaces. Furthermore, it is relatively cheap for a business to set up a converted container as a shop or restaurant, and practically feasible in any location.

While the practice of converting shipping containers into retail spaces is not new, it is growing in appeal for small businesses in the uncertain post-pandemic world. Before the pandemic several trendy pop-up container parks, such as Boxpark in Shoreditch and Pop Brixton, were already well-known to Londoners. In 2021, entrepreneurs sharing Timur Tillyaev’s vision see a much more expansive future for containers parks across the UK.

Based on the Central Asian model of using converted containers to create spacious, sizable and fully functional markets creating thousands of jobs, the UK is beginning to open its eyes to the economic possibilities of this model. Container park outlets are starting to pop-up in Manchester, York, Newcastle and beyond. But this shouldn’t be the limit.

In Central Asian countries container markets are more substantial contributors to the economy that the trendy pop-up spaces attracting young hip crowds in the UK, Europe and US. They offer huge varieties of products sold by thousands of small businesses and independent vendors and are an important part of local culture. Markets like the one set up by Timur Tillyaev are the go-to place for local consumers and tourists to buy practically any item they may want. They are also important outlets for wholesalers and key points of trade between China and European markets.

Kyrgyzstan’s Dordoi container market is spread over more than one million square metres and has become the largest taxpayer and employer in the country. Given their flexibility and open-air capabilities, many feel there are opportunities to recreate this model in the UK where market trading is already a significant element of the economy. There are over a thousand markets in Britain, including traditional and specialist markets, with a collective turnover of £3.1 billion in 2017-18. With new variants of Covid-19 implying that we may have to change our habits in the longer term, outdoor trading could see these figures grow and there is a post-pandemic economic opening for large container markets catering to all sorts of customers and accessible to any business or vendor. There is real reason to be hopeful that this economic model may help thousands of businesses out of the post-pandemic economic slump and provide a long-term future for container markets as a creative solution.

Timur Tillyaev knows first-hand that this model works. As one of the pioneers in the sector, while undertaking the Abu Saxiy market project in Uzbekistan, he oversaw the transformation of re-purposed containers into fully-functioning retail spaces with high safety standards, electricity and installed windows. Traders in Uzbekistan immediately saw all the advantages and seized the opportunities, turning Abu Saxiy market into the 5^th largest in Central Asia.

It is now time for small business owners in the UK, Europe and beyond to take inspiration from these Central Asian practices and to take a second chance on their businesses with a flexible, affordable and sustainable model to support them.

Choosing any form of technological tools or recruitment software for your recruitment agency could be daunting at first. There are numerous SaaS websites on the internet competing with their counterparts, trying to prove a point regarding who has the best and well-featured CRM for recruitment, Applicant Tracking System, skills-based assessment tools, interview scheduling software etc. This might all be confusing to recruitment entrepreneurs, who are just starting to wrap their heads around recruiting. Therefore, in this article, Recruit CRM will discuss how to choose a recruitment software for your recruitment agency.

Do You Even Need A Recruitment Software?

If you’re a recruitment entrepreneur, you pretty well know that your agency recruiters will need a Recruitment CRM if they work in-house. This is primarily because they’ll have to manage an increasing candidate pool; they’ll be proactively sourcing candidates, communicating with both candidates and clients to maintain fruitful relationships and so on. So what are the few pointers you must look out for to conclude whether you need a recruitment software?

• You actively source
• You have a responsibility of maintaining a diverse candidate pool
• You’re unable to recruit for those hard-to-fill open job roles
• Time is being wasted
• You’re still using the same old excel sheets to input data and manage the same

If this is what your agency recruiters are up to, then yes, you will need a recruitment software as soon as possible to balance work and time spent.

Top 5 Features Agency Recruiters Must Look Out For In A Recruitment Software

The main goals a recruitment agency strives to achieve when investing in a recruitment software are streamlining the hiring process, automating repetitive tasks, saving time, real-time data and analytics, and staying organised. Take a look at these 5 points below:

1. Must Be Customisable

A staffing firm needs to choose a software that can be customised according to their own personal and business needs. This will ensure that recruiters can work flawlessly and won’t have to switch ATS’ and CRMs repeatedly just because there’s one crucial feature missing. Remember that an Applicant Tracking System that can be configured as per your needs will always be the ultimate winner of the lot.

2. Interviews Can Be Scheduled & Managed

Another essential feature that recruiters need to keep in mind is not to look for a separate interview scheduling software. This will not be cost-effective, and constant switching between various software and apps can waste time. Instead, go for an ATS and CRM software that already comes with an interview scheduling and management feature. Figure out how much your ATS can automate. A good ATS and CRM will help you schedule interviews with candidates and clients and sync the same with everyone’s calendar.

3. 24*7 Customer Support

Imagine this— you’ve been stuck at a particular stage in your hiring cycle, and the entire hiring phase has been frozen because of it. It’s the middle of the night in the country where the ATS’ headquarters are, and there’s no customer support available. You’ll have to wait for another 8-10 hours to solve this query, and it’s going to be midnight now in your place. This cycle continues. Do you now understand the importance of 24*7 customer support? Research and find out which recruitment software in the market provides round-the-clock customer support and is fast because at the end of the day, all recruiters want is a sound investment in productive recruiting tools.

4. Real-Time Data & Analytics

Apart from providing top-notch security with GDPR and SSL sessions, ensure that your recruitment software also provides you with real-time data and analytics. Why is this important? Simply because you would now know which part of the hiring funnel you should invest more money in, which recruitment strategies are working, which aren’t and so on. Recruiters must be in touch with data to make informed decisions on how they’re approaching hire and something that would be useful in the long run.

5. You Must Have The Ability To Book A Free Demo

Now that you know some of the core features that recruiters need to look out for in a recruitment software, this is another feature that can help you understand whether the company is good enough for you. Book a free trial or a free demo, talk with their customer support team, ask them to come live on a webinar to teach you the basics of the software. This will ensure you’re informed in-depth about the ATS and CRM software. Once you’re pleased with all the features, you can, of course, go ahead and buy a plan as per your search firm’s needs.

If you have any more essential features in mind, comment below and let us know!