Contingent work is becoming increasingly popular among individuals and businesses, with more than one-third of the U.S workforce comprising contingent workers. As the use of the contingent workforce continues to accelerate, businesses are developing contingent workforce programs backed by Vendor Management Systems.
What is a Vendor Management System (or VMS)?
A Vendor Management System is a web-based/cloud based application that governs the procurement and management of a business’ contingent workforce. Using a VMS, businesses can facilitate the end-to-end management of the contingent talent lifecycle from the creation of job requisitions, through candidate sourcing, onboarding, contracting, invoicing, and payment. In addition to automating the contingent workforce management processes, the Vendor Management System acts as a common touchpoint by streamlining communication between businesses, staffing suppliers and Managed Service Providers (MSPs).
Why Contingent Workforce Programs Perform Better with Vendor Management Systems
The lack of standard processes surrounding a business’ contingent workforce management makes implementing and governing a contingent workforce program an arduous task. A 2020 study performed by the Everest Group found that a large number of businesses are behind in developing efficient vendor management processes where staffing suppliers are well managed. To have a swift and efficient supplier selection and management process, investing in a vendor management system (VMS) is imperative — here’s why.
Reduce supplier onboarding timelines:
Without a vendor management system to govern both supplier and candidate data, information often gets scattered across multiple departments in systems that don’t necessarily speak to each other. By using the right vendor management software, businesses are able to retain all the data on a single system. This makes your supplier approval process easier and speeds up supplier onboarding. Additionally, when data resides on a single system, you can avoid inconsistencies in the onboarding process thus shielding your business from legal and compliance risks.
Optimize supplier performance:
Without a vendor management system in place, evaluating supplier performance becomes more difficult; when supplier reviews are done on an infrequent basis, you risk the success of your contingent workforce programs inadvertently jeopardizing your business down the road.
Automate processes:
Manually managing the various vendor management processes like supplier onboarding, contracting, invoicing, vendor performance, etc., disrupts workflows, hinders communication between teams, and slows down your operating speed. In the case of a hiring ramp-up requiring the rapid expansion of your supplier base, the lack of a centralized vendor management system causes your back-office teams to be burdened with data influxes. VMS solutions allow you to automate the entire contingent workforce management process and provide your in office teams data at their fingertips in one easy-to-use solution.
Eliminate rogue spend:
By using a VMS solution, businesses can keep their finances up-to-date by precisely tracking program spend. Having an increased visibility over your contingent workforce programs allows you to identify and analyze the occurrence of rogue spend. By implementing a comprehensive VMS solution, you are able to assess fair market rates in addition to ensuring vendor compliance.
Plan your talent strategy using advanced reporting and analytics:
VMS solutions with advanced data analytics allow you to monitor candidates at every stage of the hiring pipeline — driving candidate visibility, increasing engagement, and equipping you with data insights on your suppliers’ activity. This allows you to initiate a long term talent strategy and enable better enterprise-wide decision-making.
What Makes Prosperix VMS different from other Vendor Management Systems?
Now that we’ve covered some of the value propositions of the VMS as a concept, here are some ways that Prosperix VMS is differentiated from the rest of the Vendor Management offerings on the market:
Fully Integrated Hiring Marketplace:
A VMS solution with a fully integrated hiring marketplace like the Prosperix VMS allows you to start hiring immediately. Using a hiring marketplace, you can manage your existing talent suppliers, as well as access a growing network of thousands of motivated talent suppliers representing every skill, niche and geography. Our built-in supplier network provides democratized access to more talent pools, better coverage and higher-quality candidates so you can quickly fill your open positions.
Real-Time Reporting & Analytics:
A VMS solution with a fully integrated hiring marketplace like the Prosperix VMS allows you to start hiring immediately. Using a hiring marketplace, you can manage your existing talent suppliers, as well as access a growing network of thousands of motivated talent suppliers representing every skill, niche and geography. Our built-in supplier network provides democratized access to more talent pools, better coverage and higher-quality candidates so you can quickly fill your open positions.
Fast and Flexible Hiring Workflows:
Prosperix VMS allows you to create custom workflows which align with processes that work best for your teams. By providing you with maximum flexibility, you can customize each stage of the hiring process and create custom variation according to your requirements.
Automated Supplier Management:
Prosperix VMS takes a new approach to supplier management that reduces friction, leverages automation, and allows suppliers to begin contributing immediately. Advanced algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning govern supplier performance by automatically matching the best suppliers with qualified candidates to jobs. Additionally our VMS solution is built with real-time scorecards so suppliers know exactly how they are performing at all times.
Candidate-Centric Experience:
Vendor Management Systems like Prosperix VMS puts candidates in control of their careers by providing them with greater visibility into the hiring process ensuring a competitive edge in your pursuit of talent. It is important to keep in mind that candidates are users of your VMS solution and ensuring a positive candidate experience is vital to the success of your contingent workforce program.
Simple and Intuitive Workforce Management:
As contingent talent includes workers that are on W2 contract assignments, independent contractors, incumbent vendor workers, and workers hired and engaged through a SOW, Prosperix VMS provides you with workforce insights regarding their assignment details, performance, onboarding status, etc. By doing this, you achieve total workforce visibility, optimize costs, drive efficiencies and enhance worker quality.
No Implementation Time:
VMS integration must be simple, with no time-consuming implementation effort required plus guide you on how to get started using in-app tips and content to simplify completion of the setup process. With an easy configuration and setup, Prosperix VMS allows your hiring managers to publish jobs in minutes.
End-to-End Hiring Lifecycle Management:
VMS solutions are evolving to include features that govern the end-to-end management of contingent hiring lifecycles. With the expanded capabilities of Prosperix VMS, your recruiters can build talent pipelines, assess qualified candidates to ensure higher talent quality, efficiently govern the onboarding and offboarding process, and redeploy workers to new jobs when their assignments end.
While the term VMS focuses on vendor management, the scope of VMSs have been growing beyond vendor management for many years. Prosperix’s hiring solution comprising the Prosperix VMS is pushing boundaries even further by providing new capabilities not seen in standard Vendor Management Systems.
Click below to know more about how Prosperix can help you build an extraordinary workforce
