Your Complete Guide to the Ins-and-Outs of a Vendor Management System (VMS)

Everything you need to know about vendor management systems and how they can revolutionize your organization's management of the non-employee workforce, and the vendors associated with it.

Improve How You Manage Your Contingent Workforce

Today’s use of contingent workers is giving organizations an increasingly growing number of opportunities to reach their workforce targets in more ways than the traditional employee hire. This is bringing huge benefits to businesses around the world.

Yet, as the contingent workforce grows and companies tap into it more than ever before, organizations must adjust how they procure and manage these workers and vendors associated with it.

That’s where a Vendor Management System (VMS) comes in.

A VMS is an essential aspect of any organization’s contingent workforce management program.


What is a VMS?

A vendor management system is a software platform, which is typically web or cloud-based, that acts as a mechanism for organizations to facilitate all of the processes involved in managing a contingent workforce program. 

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A VMS will centralize, automate and consolidate your entire contingent workforce processes in one easy-to-use software solution. This tech solution will allow you to manage vendor relationships and measure vendor performance, as well as procure, manage and pay non-employee workers sourced either through a staffing agency or another sourcing avenue. 

By acting as a system of record for your company’s contingent workforce, a vendor management system will capture and store the data you need to make better vendor and hiring decisions in one centralized location (as opposed to being fragmented across your entire organization). 

How Does a Vendor Management System Work?

Now you understand exactly what a vendor management system is, but you’re probably still wondering how it works. Well, let’s take a bit of a deeper look at how exactly a VMS improves your management of both non-employee workers and the vendors you use to procure them. 

VMS data on laptop

A vendor management system essentially works by acting as a centralized database for all of your contingent workforce management processes, storing all the information you need on one seamless platform.

It does, however, go above and beyond that. The functionalities of a VMS allow you to automate processes such as invoicing, process requisitions, process approvals, onboarding and much more to dramatically improve the accuracy and efficiency in which your company performs the processes related to managing vendors and non-employee workers.  

Why is a VMS Important for the Management of Your Contingent Workforce?

The contingent workforce - which is made up of temporary workers (temps), independent contractors, consultants and gig workers - has grown exponentially over the past few years.

Workers in office

Just take a look at some of these statistics!

  • Roughly 25-30 percent of the US workforce is contingent. Not only that, but it is expected that more than 80 percent of large corporations plan to “substantially increase” their use of the flexible workforce in the coming years (Intuit).
  • Many large companies estimate that a staggering 30 percent of their entire procurement spend goes toward contingent workers (Deloitte).
  • More than 40 percent of workers are now employed in “alternative work arrangements”, such as contingent, part-time or gig work (Deloitte).
  • Contingent workers contribute 15% to total workforce productivity: This significant contribution to productivity highlights the importance of contingent workers in achieving business goals and sustaining competitive advantage. 
    (McKinsey Global Institute Analysis)                

Yet, despite the growth in the contingent workforce, a large number of organizations are still using spreadsheets, in-house databases or Share-Point-like websites to manage their staffing agencies and contingent workers.

These manual and time-consuming ways to manage a contingent workforce simply do not work. 

No matter how diligent your organization is, these manual methods will lead to human error, time-consuming processes, and process inefficiencies. The result? Fragmented processes across your business, inefficient admin, vendor and worker overspending, and an overall lack of visibility into the performance of your non-employee workforce management program.

The use of a vendor management system, however, can completely transform your company’s ROI when it comes to the contingent workforce. 

In fact, 89 percent of organizations that are considered “best-in-class” in contingent workforce management have implemented vendor management systems into their programs (Aberdeen Group Research).

What are the Benefits of a Vendor Management System?

A VMS will bring a huge ROI to your company’s contingent workforce management program, and that’s because it’s capabilities will significantly improve your processes, reduce costs and lead to far greater visibility into your program.

Candidate waiting for interview

Here are just some of the many benefits of a vendor management system that your business will realize from the use of a vendor management system.

Improved efficiencies: The automation of processes such as onboarding, time entry and approval will save your organization countless hours and lead to better internal efficiencies across your company. 

Complete visibility into your program: Since your entire contingent workforce management program is now stored in one location, instead of being fragmented across different departments and hiring managers, you’ll have complete visibility into where you may be overpaying vendors or mismanaging contingent workers.

Vendor consolidation: With your vendors consolidated into one location, your VMS will act as a central hub that gives you all the information you need to evaluate whether each staffing agency you use is helping you to meet your company’s unique workforce targets. This leads to more insightful and strategic vendor choices. 

Reduce costs: By helping you to get the lowest prices from vendors, cut down on rogue spend in your contingent workforce management program and save money on process efficiencies, a VMS can help your business improve its contingent workforce management expense - to improve your bottom line and become more profitable. 

How to Select the Right VMS for Your Company’s Requirements

Any successful contingent workforce management program must use a vendor management system to underpin and centralize the entire strategy, and that means you have to find a software solution that works for your organization’s specific requirements. 

Team meeting

With Conexis VMS, there is now an innovative, easy-to-use vendor management system that has been built specifically with the user in mind. This is a significant change from the complex legacy systems of many VMS providers.

When looking for a vendor management system, keep these key questions in mind:

  1. Does it have features such as requisition processing, time tracking, invoicing, approval management, and onboarding tools that will automate how you manage staffing agencies and contingent workers?
  2. Will it consolidate your vendors in one location and integrate easily with your other systems?
  3. Does the solution work for your organization’s unique budget requirements?
  4. Will it help your business to monitor and track vendor performance? 
  5. Will it centralize all of your contingent workforce management data in one easy-to-use, seamless portal, helping to improve the visibility of your program? 
  6. Will the improved visibility you have into your contingent workforce program ensure compliance and proper classification of workers?

Free Guide

To help you in understanding more about the benefits of a VMS, and how to choose the right Vendor Management System for your company, download a free copy of our  "Ultimate VMS Buyer's Guide"

This comprehensive guide provides you with everything you need to know when choosing a VMS; including the top 30 questions to ask vendors and a checklist when meeting with VMS Providers. Whether you are in the market for a new vendor management  solution, or just getting started, this guide is for you!

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How much does a Vendor Management System Cost?

In the past, vendor management systems were only developed for large enterprises with huge contingent workforce spend. The problem was, these systems were designed to be incredibly complex and that left mid-market organizations with the choice to either use expensive and complicated systems, or ineffective spreadsheets instead. 

Worker on laptop

The rise of Software as a Service has changed those pricing models. There are now a range of vendor management systems that are available at cost-effective rates.

The most important thing to look out for when choosing a VMS within your budget is its ease of use. Your business deserves a system that is easy to implement, seamless to operate and gives you the contingent workforce data you need to improve results.

You don't need to spend alot to get a vendor management system. At Conexis VMS, we offer pricing models that start at $499.00/per month. Find out more at How much does a vendor management system cost?



About Conexis VMS

Conexis stands out from other VMS solutions due to its unique functionality and features, such as open APIs and flexible data solutions, our pricing, our customer care, our easy to use design and our fast implementation. With our market-leading work shift, scheduling, timekeeping, and credentialing capabilities, Conexis is the only VMS that can handle all skill categories without clunky third-party add-ons. 

Conexis is leading the VMS Industry in innovation as our system is built on the latest cutting-edge tech stack meaning we can offer a sophisticated, secure, more flexible and scalable VMS at a much lower cost than the traditional VMS providers. You can read more about why we built Conexis on our company page -  because we were using legacy VMS providers that didn's provide us with the functionality and ease of use we needed - so we built our own. 

Find out why companies are choosing Conexis VMS and reach out to schedule time to meet or book a demo

Learn more at the Conexis VMS Education Center

Visit the Conexis VMS Education Center - a one-stop library to answer all of your VMS and Contingent Workforce Questions.  

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Our powerful vendor management system has been specifically built for any spend volume, making it the perfect solution for small to medium-sized businesses looking to improve their contingent workforce management strategy and save money.

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