Organizations in every industry have come to rely on third parties for their day-to-day operational needs, and that’s particularly true for organizations who have set aside a budget for a contingent workforce.
These businesses use staffing agencies to source non-employee workers, helping them to access hot skills, lower their workforce costs and access greater business flexibility and agility.
Yet managing multiple vendors is far from easy.
In fact, a survey from Deloitte found that “a full 87 percent of respondents admitted they had faced a disruptive incident with third parties in the last two to three years, with 28 percent reporting they had suffered a major disruption and 11 percent experiencing a complete third party failure.”
When it comes to managing staffing agencies and externally-sourced workers, a vendor management system (VMS) is crucial.
Before we get into how a VMS benefits your staffing agency management process, let’s first take a look at why spreadsheets just won’t cut it as your vendor management process.
Why you can’t rely on manual spreadsheets to manage your staffing agencies
Despite the challenges that come with successful vendor management within your externally-sourced workforce, many organizations are still using manual methods such as spreadsheets, in-house databases or Sharepoint-like websites to manage their staffing agencies.
These methods of managing your staffing agencies are simply ineffective. They are time-consuming, lead to human error, and leave your company with fragmented processes and no standardization of vendor rates across hiring managers.
The result? Your business has absolutely no visibility or control over its externally-sourced workforce. That’s where vendor management software will help.
How a VMS improves your staffing agency management and contingent workforce process
A vendor management system is a web or cloud-based software platform that empowers your business to manage its staffing agencies through the centralization, automation and consolidation of data.
By acting as a system of record for your company’s staffing agency processes, a VMS will give your business complete visibility and control of your staffing agencies and externally-sourced workforce processes.
Here are just a few of the key ways vendor management software works:
Consolidate all of your staffing vendors
With a vendor management system, all of your staffing agency data is stored in one centralized location. That means your staffing vendors are consolidated in one place, for all hiring managers to access.
Everyone within your organization will be working from the same information, no matter where they are accessing the data from. The result? Your company will gain clear visibility into staffing agency performance and you’ll be able to standardize staffing agency rates across your entire business.
Manage your entire externally-sourced workforce
The vast majority of vendor management systems will only address hourly-based temps through staffing agencies. However, there are new VMS systems that will help your organization manage the process to source and pay all externally-sourced workers.
That means with some vendor management software platforms, you’ll be able to manage all of your externally-sourced workers. That includes hourly temps, fixed-fee contractors, directly-sourced workers, independent contractors and even permanent hires through a staffing agency.
Automate your staffing agency processes
Unlike a spreadsheet where entering information and data is time-consuming and often susceptible to human error, a VMS will automate all of the processes associated with managing your staffing agencies and non-employee workforce.
Through the use of a vendor management system, your organization will be able to automate processes such as invoicing, process requisitions, onboarding, process approvals and so much more. In turn, you’ll realize significant soft cost savings as a result of improved efficiencies.
Want to learn more about how vendor management software works and how it can help your organization manage both its staffing agencies and externally-sourced workers? Reach out to Conexis VMS today. We would love to answer any questions that you may have.
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