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Within the contingent workforce management landscape, there are a variety of technology options available for enterprises that seek to streamline the many complexities and components of the contemporary contingent workforce umbrella. A message that I’ve been discussing at length on CPO Rising over the past six months is that to effectively drive both value and effectiveness from contract talent, organizations must be prepared to manage the many “layers” of this arena.
Welcome to the first in a four-part series on the technological landscape within the CWM industry, which primarily revolves around how the “next generation” of these solutions may look by taking into account current market perceptions and the ongoing evolution of the CWM space. Our first entry focuses on Vendor Management System (VMS) offerings and how they may look a few years from now and well into the future.
VMS solutions were originally designed as offshoots of the traditional e-procurement platform and developed to manage the wide swath of staffing suppliers, vendors and agencies, although the current incarnation of this technology bears only a slight resemblance to its original form. Many current VMS providers have restructured their solution suite to reflect the capabilities required in managing the modern contingent workforce umbrella, which includes “classic” temporary labor, complex contract talent (SOW, services, etc.) and independent contractors.
The next generation of VMS technology will not only build on existing offerings as a means of helping companies across the globe manage the current complexities of contract talent, but also expand to include functionalities that can help take CWM into the future:
- The convergence of talent management and VMS. I’ve been speaking all summer about the role of talent in how companies will shape their CWM programs for the future. Organizations are beginning to focus on how they find, engage and retain contract talent, and, in turn, VMS providers will build talent engagement and management capabilities into their current infrastructure to support the development of deep talent pools and social networking strategies.
- Deeper, more “agile” analytics and business intelligence. While most VMS providers offer robust capabilities for business intelligence and reporting, with the CWM category evolving so rapidly, the analytics of the past will not be enough to gain true intelligence into all components of the contingent workforce umbrella. VMS solutions will offer “agile analytics,” which are supremely flexible in nature, friendly to all users (not just CWM stakeholders) and can offer multi-functional appeal.
- Real-time capabilities for services and SOW management. As with analytics, most VMS providers include SOW / services management as part of their core suite. In fact, VMS technology has become geared towards managing the complex layers of the contingent workforce umbrella. How will this evolve in the future? Real-time capabilities don’t just mean visibility or data; companies will require real-time capabilities to offboard contractors or services at a moment’s notice, or will need up-to-the-second data on performance against project milestones for immediate corporate planning.
The current technological landscape for VMS within the contingent workforce management world includes many solutions that are positioning themselves for the future of the space. ProcureStaff’s Consol offering touts itself on the premise of user-friendly analytics and business intelligence, and how CWM-related data culled from its system can be beneficial to a variety of internal functions (not just procurement or HR), such as operations, finance or IT.
Beeline’s SmartView offering plays on a greater “workforce intelligence” theme, helping organizations understand how CWM aspects, such as temporary labor and SOW / services, affect the greater enterprise. The multi-layered analytics in the SmartView solution can help CWM program execs enhance management of complex contract talent and ensure that strategic decisions are made for future forecasting and planning.
The business intelligence tools included in Fieldglass’ VMS platform present both a CWM-specific and procurement viewpoint into contingent workforce data, offering information related to core suppliers (both staffing suppliers and professional services), market rates and trends, and performance management for all types of contract talent. Benchmarking data included in Fieldglass’ offering is also thorough, building on the solution’s vast array of customers across the world.
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