The Exploration Company (TEC) is one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe, leading the continent's efforts in space exploration.

Founded in 2021, the company’s mission is to enable everyone to participate peacefully in the building of our space future. To achieve this, TEC are developing Nyx – a reusable and in-orbit refillable spacecraft that can fly to any space station.

Within the first three years after founding, the company has hired more than 100 employees and won existing supply contracts with institutions like the European Space Agency (ESA).

More Facts on The Exploration Company:

• Biggest department: Engineering

• Managers involved in headcount planning: 30+

• Yearly hiring rate: 100%
  
  

Our company is scaling very quickly. Having Basqo connected to our HR and Finance tools allows us to have a live simulation of our headcount and costs, both for actuals vs. forecasts, and to react accordingly. Basqo also became our tool for labor cost budgeting.

Antoine Mondésert

Chief Financial Officer at The Exploration Company

Challenges

Planning took place across multiple, decentralized Excel sheets

With its rapid expansion, the company faces several challenges, including the need to efficiently control and forecast its people costs. Previously, these tasks were handled through various spreadsheets:Approval Sheet:

• Collaboration among chiefs and leads to manage hiring requests and approvals

• Hiring Tracking Sheet: Hiring tracking of approved positions

• Controlling Sheet: Comparison of Actuals, Forecast and Budget

Due to the complexity of syncing planned positions and costs between Excel, Ashby, and Personio, the Finance and People teams, spearheaded by Zoe and Juan, began exploring Basqo as a solution

Solution

Basqo’s integrated platform & approval flow made the difference

Next to having an integrated platform, The Exploration Company decided for Basqo due to its superior Approval Flow. With Basqo, every team manager can request new personnel. This triggers a chain of approvals, usually ending at top management for final approval.

Now Zoe has full transparency of planned positions and hiring progressA report with non-approved positions helps her to evaluate the team’s upcoming recruiting capacity

A live integration with Ashby ensures the team always knows which planned positions are also published. The hiring tracker allows the people team to easily change hiring parameters and visualize their capacity

"Planning in multiple spreadsheets led to synchronization effort and fragile processes. Through Basqo’s integrated solution, we have been able to streamline our headcount planning processes and ensure everything is managed efficiently."

Zoe Choo

Talent Acquisition Senior Manager at The Exploration Company

Integrating The Exploration Company’s existing software with Basqo and having the Finance and the People team operable took less than 48 hours.

Subsequently, all chiefs & leads were invited into the software. Basqo supported the rollout with a dedicated Success Manager and regular check ins. Short workshops and documentations helped to get everyone onboarded as quickly as possible.

"Implementing Basqo has been that straightforward it felt almost instinctive. The team has been exceptionally helpful and supportive the few times it didn’t."

Juan García Maldonado

Financial Controller at The Exploration Company