In all of my years as an industry analyst, the last few have been especially exciting mainly due to the average organization’s willingness to adopt business intelligence, reporting and analytics as their top strategies in improving complex spend management efforts.
As we’ve learned from this site’s recent series on best practices in contingent workforce management (In case you missed it, check out Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four), analytics and reporting play a major role in the next-generation management of the contemporary contingent workforce umbrella, from tackling traditional temp labor to the nuanced complexities of SOW-based projects and services.
Where does Big Data fit into contract talent management? Well, with the emergence of the more intricate attributes of the umbrella, specifically SOW-based labor, professional services and independent contractors, data and intelligence are critical in understanding the ramifications of these complexities and how they fit into the long-term plans of the greater organization. Ardent Partners has identified three key areas in which Big Data is (positively) affecting modern contingent workforce management:
- Allows executives to budget better for the future. During my history in the research and analyst industries, I’ve been privy to a variety of procurement, finance, HR and IT insights due to my close relationships with end-users around the globe. And, one commonality between these units is an unrelenting focus on the future. Robust data within contingent workforce management not only allows the procurement team to understand the various suppliers within the category (staffing agencies, consultancies, professional / complex services, etc.), but can also help them gauge future spending. And, by funneling that info to finance, the CFO becomes the benefactor of supreme intelligence regarding a significant bucket of spending and where that spending will go.
- Presents an intelligent overview of where each component of the umbrella fits into the greater organization. The interesting item about the umbrella is that most internal divisions are tapping into the total organization’s contractors, consultants, services and contract talent on a regular basis. Data is necessary here to understand the deep levels of utilization for each component, such as status of relationships (for independent contractors), budgets for unit-led projects that are leveraging contract talent or services, links between total enterprise performance and milestones within SOW-based projects, etc.
- Gauges the true effectiveness of projects and services. During my “13 for 2013” series on contingent workforce management best practices, I discussed various means of applying quantitative measures to qualitative areas. For years, end-users routinely asked, “Chris, how can we measure the QUALITY of our contract talent?” Data is one way to do exactly that. The true effectiveness of SOW-based projects, services and contractors can only be measured by leveraging analytics to understand how these items stack up against pre-defined (and communicated) goals, objectives, milestones and delivery dates. What is the percentage of these services / projects that actually hit those targets? How many of these outlets of talent have direct links to critical corporate projects? What are the ramifications of these projects going over budget?
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