Interview with Pierre Sarkis: How is Pierre Sarkis unlocking the power of HR data?
Human resources data plays a pivotal role in modern organizations, serving as the lifeblood of informed decision-making and strategic planning. The importance of HR data lies in its ability to provide valuable insights into employee engagement, talent management, and organizational culture. By analyzing this data, HR professionals and business leaders can make data-driven decisions that enhance employee satisfaction, optimize resource allocation, and ultimately drive the success of the organization.
Hence, comes Side.
Portrayed as a good substitute for spreadsheet in HR reporting, this platform grants registered HR managers access to a wide array of data, including headcount evolution, male/female ratio, talent acquisition funnel, average tenure by department and much more. In this Q&A, Pierre Sarkis, the CEO and Founder of Side, provides an in-depth exploration of the product and elucidates how HR managers can fully leverage its capabilities.
When was Side launched?
We launched Side in September 2023, serving mid-sized companies looking to improve their people's decisions and digitize their HR functions. Our solution is designed to be both powerful and accessible, allowing organizations to achieve these goals without requiring substantial investments or embarking on a full software migration.
How can HR professionals utilize it, and what specific insights does it provide?
Side offers out-of-the-box templates or customized dashboards for visualizing and reporting key HR metrics. We think of our tool as a starter kit for organizations seeking to leverage their people's data for decision-making around the workforce while spending minimal time and resources on data analytics infrastructure that often falls outside of HR departments’ domain of expertise. We've prioritized accessibility by seamlessly integrating with existing data systems or spreadsheets, automatically unlocking a wide range of insights related to demographics, diversity, turnover, recruitment and more.
What type of HR data do you work with?
For the moment our metrics and dashboards are integrated with current workforce and recruitment data. However, we plan to expand our capabilities to encompass other types of HR data, such as performance metrics, training records, and survey results.
What kind of informed decision-making does the platform enable for HR professionals?
Our platform centralizes HR data, offering improved data visualization and real-time updates without the need for manual intervention. We’ve found that oftentimes getting access to aggregated metrics enables decision makers to see immediate bottlenecks and gaps in their workforce. With our tool, we anticipate that HR professionals can better understand their workforce distribution with regard to departmental segmentation, diversity and inclusion, as well as recruiting needs and shortcomings in employee retention.
What is your revenue model? (per company or registered employee?)
Our revenue model is based on a monthly subscription system per company size, as well as individually priced customized services upon request.
How large is your team?
While I am the sole founder, I benefit from the expertise of Mohammad Jouni as our technical advisor, the assistance of a freelance full-stack engineer, and the valuable guidance in HR analytics and data science from Karen Bouez. Nevertheless, we anticipate expanding our team in the near future.
How many clients do you have on board now?
Side currently serves five customers ranging from an 80-employee company to a 1000-employee enterprise, spanning diverse sectors including IT, education, and distribution.
What challenges are you facing at the moment?
We are facing the challenge of integrating with various data sources, but we are actively addressing this by building the integration capabilities progressively. On the sales front, we are encountering extended sales cycles; however, we are proactively managing this by implementing free trials to enhance adoption rates.
Are you bootstrapping or looking for funding?
We are currently bootstrapping and do not have any plans for fundraising at this time.
Where do you see the company in the next 5 years?
In the next five years, we envision Side as a leader in accessible people analytics, providing a holistic solution for HR teams to optimize their people-related strategies. Additionally, we plan to extend our services to include business intelligence as a service, assisting companies that may lack the resources to develop tailored dashboards for tracking KPIs not only within HR but also across broader business functions.
Pierre's Bio:
Pierre Sarkis grew up in Lebanon where he started his academic journey at the American University of Beirut before moving to France in 2015 to pursue a master's in management at HEC Paris. During his academic years and early professional career, Pierre discovered a passion for launching small side businesses. From e-book selling to creating a hat brand, he embraced the challenges, learning valuable lessons along the way. The process of building and growing these ventures fueled his enthusiasm, highlighting his love for continual learning. His trajectory took a significant turn when he joined Amazon as a Product Manager in Paris. Here, he deepened his interest in developing and deploying internal tools to empower data-driven decision-making. This experience became pivotal in shaping Pierre's approach to leveraging technology for efficient decision support.
Seeking new horizons, Pierre relocated to New York City within Amazon, where he continued to grow in the company until halfway through 2023. Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to make a meaningful impact, he made the bold decision to leave Amazon and create his own company “Side”.
With Side, Pierre aims to assist businesses, particularly HR teams facing resource constraints and a lack of suitable tools. His vision is to empower organizations to make informed decisions for their people, exploiting the wealth of underutilized data at their disposal.
