Getting Started

Working long hours. Approaching deadlines. Juggling multiple projects at once. Hiring managers face a multitude of stresses stemming from their day jobs. The hassle of sourcing, hiring and onboarding contingent workers can’t be another one. With limited time and resources, organizations are looking for ways to accelerate processes without alienating these hiring managers.

Business leaders are often intimidated by the overwhelming task of centralizing its contingent workforce program after years of manual processes. Whether you have no program in place or you have an existing program performing below par, finding a solution can be daunting. The idea of overhauling existing processes and finding a Vendor Management System (VMS) that can accommodate your distinct business policies, processes and objectives can seem impossible.

Evaluating a Vendor Management System (VMS) can be an overwhelming process if you don’t know the right questions to ask in a Request for Proposal (RFP). You will want to conduct a thorough review of the vendor’s business model, core VMS functionality and differentiating offerings such as business intelligence, integrations and customer service. As you begin to assess different vendors, this document can help guide your RFP and ensure the most important areas to your business are addressed sufficiently.

This e-book explores why and how social tools can be leveraged specifically to improve your Vendor Management System (VMS). You’ll discover new social VMS functionality in the marketplace that will soon be as mainstream as tweeting, and you’ll learn why implementing them correctly and securely is so crucial to effective collaboration.

Learn the capabilities and benefits that a Vendor Management System (VMS) can provide.

Procurement organizations that market themselves effectively drive greater identified and implemented savings across both simple and complex services categories. More important than getting initial savings to stick, companies that successfully market procurement will succeed in creating a virtuous cycle that sparks enthusiasm for new and existing programs, building upon initial momentum.

The contingent and contract workforce is both big and important. Yet, in most organizations, it is loosely managed and all but ignored by HR. Do your hiring managers work directly with staffing vendors? Do pay rates for similar contractors fluctuate widely? Is co-employment risk managed? Do you know how many contractors you have on staff at any given time?

It’s a brave new world when it comes to the technology behind today’s software solutions for Contingent Workforce Management and other critical business initiatives. Software as a Service is now de rigueur for a broad spectrum of industries and solutions. As more companies and entire market segments find appropriate utilizations for on-demand applications (another name for Software as a Service) it has become increasingly important to understand some of the key points of differentiation between these applications.

Initiating a large scale project to manage contingent workers and service providers that can involve upwards of $1B in spend can be daunting. Once your team makes decisions about how to structure the program and what vendors to partner with, the real work begins.