Build a winning business case
Accelerate growth and elevate client value through technology
Make the case for staffing automation technology
Staffing is a hyper-competitive industry. Suppliers compete for talent, and they compete for share-of-customer.
Many staffing suppliers are turning to technology to differentiate their offering to customers and prospects. By bringing technology like a vendor management system (VMS) to their customers, they can accomplish several objectives:
1. Add value to their customer relationships, driving innovation and automation for their critical accounts.
2. Gain visibility into their customers’ requisition flow, allowing them to allowing them tallowing them to capture more market share strategically.
3. Automate internal processes, allowing their account teams to focus on revenue-generating activities.
Suppliers that embrace VMS technology to support their customers stand out in a crowded market. Building a business case for a VMS – for your company or your customer – is a critical first step. We’ve prepared this guide to assist you on this important journey.
It’s time to automate
If you or your clients still use manual processes to manage contingent workforce programs, you may be limiting productivity and increasing both costs and risk. Introducing the right contingent workforce management technology will let you add new service options, raise your level of service partnership, and grow your business. It starts by building a business case for a simple, scalable, easy-to-use VMS.
Assess your current state
Understanding current processes is the foundation for improvement. Gather objective data such as headcount, current spend, business rules and processes. Then add subjective information, such as known inefficiencies and other pain points.
Tap stakeholders for information
Contact leaders in key functional areas (human resources, procurement, sourcing, IT, hiring managers, finance, legal, security) across all business units and geographies. Each function has a stake in the outcome, so these contacts should provide you with the data and insight you need from an internal perspective.
You will need to know:
• Current contingent workforce spend
• Number and types of workers
• Applicable company policies
• Sourcing/supplier strategy
These factors should be itemized by:
• Labor category
• Geographic region
• Business unit
• Trends over time Your analysis should also include any known issues, such as:
• Compliance concerns
• Security problems
• Process gaps, redundancies, or incompatibilities
Supply chain inputs
Alongside internal analysis, include your labor supply chain’s perspective. Your partners should be able to provide relevant information, including:
• Headcount
• Turnover
• Skill sets
• Classification mix
• Cost structures
• Financial metrics
• Invoicing methodology
Identify pain points
As you collect objective data about current methodology from your stakeholders, also solicit their opinions about what causes them pain. Understanding how your processes function is only part of the equation. It’s just as important to uncover what’s not working — and why.
A thorough discovery process that incorporates the individual concerns of all functional areas will not only help you set the priorities for your VMS, it will also help you recruit supporters for your business case among stakeholders.
2 Engage stakeholders
All organizations are structured differently, but some universal truths exist when choosing the right stakeholders. According to Staffing Industry Analysts, engaging functional leaders from procurement, human resources, and operations is critical. Their buy-in is the preeminent driver of the success of any technology implementation.
Therefore, if you engage them in defining your organization’s current state, they should be able to provide recommendations to help determine your automation goals and objectives.
Show benefits to other stakeholders
Other internal groups that should provide facts, opinions, and guidance are finance, IT, security, and legal. These departments can help define improvements needed and any potential risks. They are also more likely to support the program and its adoption of technology if they understand how a VMS will help them.
In addition, finance can play a crucial role in your business case development by helping to estimate investment risks and benefits and recommend an ROI methodology. Remember, there are no facts in the future, only estimates.
The role of the executive sponsor
Executives provide the authority and credibility needed for a significant organizational change to be successful. Your executive sponsor should be a key stakeholder in the system’s success — a senior executive in the company’s procurement, sourcing, or human resources department.
The sponsor must be in the correct position to authorize resources and provide guidance to shape decision-making at all levels. The sponsor must also rally the organization’s senior leadership to support the initiative. If the organization’s executives don’t visibly promote and support the technology, the program will never be able to deliver its full value to the business.
Therefore, it is critically important to choose the right executive sponsor (or sponsors) and provide them with the data from stakeholders throughout the organization. This way, they can apprise other executives of the benefits of implementing a contingent workforce management solution.
3 Prioritize goals and objectives
Contingent labor usage is accelerating due to economic uncertainty, skill shortages, and the number of workers who prefer flexible work schedules. With this growth potential, businesses must maximize their vision for this workforce segment. Better visibility and management capabilities are not the only benefits advanced technology can provide.
Advanced technology also can:
Assure customers that they are working with forward-thinking suppliers
Mitigate compliance risk through better categorization of workers
Improve business intelligence through analytics and forecasting
Provide real-time cost benchmarks across skill sets and geographies
Optimize business planning by interfacing with existing IT infrastructure
Consolidate billing and improve invoice accuracy
Ranking program objectives
With all that contingent workforce technology can do for your company, how can you set priorities? The answer is to start with the five primary reasons companies choose to implement this technology:
• Provide better contingent workforce visibility
• Control costs
• Improve efficiency
• Enhance quality
• Mitigate compliance
All these are essential to your organization, but you need to determine which are most critical to your ability to achieve your business goals. Once you have set your priorities, it will be much easier for you to work with a partner whose technology best meets your needs.
4 Define requirements
Before building a house, the owner, architect, and builder must agree on all the essential elements the house will contain. This blueprint may be modified as construction proceeds, but the more complete your blueprint is, the better chance you have of achieving your goals on time and within budget. It is the same way with contingent workforce management technology. The better you can define your requirements according to your business priorities — separating “must-have” from “niceto-have” capabilities — the more likely you will get the technology solution your organization needs.
5 Evaluate and select a trusted partner
Armed with a thorough understanding of your current state and a vision for the future, you should be ready to evaluate and select a technology partner.
Whether you engage potential technology partners via an RFP or in one-toone negotiations, the right partner can help you bridge the gap from your current situation to your desired future state in both process and quality.
6 Build and communicate your case
Building a business case shouldn’t be intimidating. While your organization may have some specific content and formatting requirements, in essence, your business case should:
• Describe the problem
• Propose the solution — with detailed deliverables and implementation plans
• Estimate the risks and costs
• Show how the benefits will recover the investment in direct financial terms and more abstract but still measurable improvements, such as improved KPIs.
As you construct your business case, you should consider the opportunity cost — and organizational risk — of NOT implementing the latest contingent workforce management technology.
For example, according to an Ardent Par tners research study, 88% of bestinclass contingent workforce management programs currently utilize a VMS, and top-performing organizations are 38% more likely than all others to leverage VMS technology
As companies worldwide accelerate the rate of contingent workforce technology adoption, both to enhance and protect their competitive positions, you will want to embrace the powerful benefits the latest contingent workforce management (CWM) automation technology can offer your company and not cede those advantages to your competitors.
88%
38% of best-in-class contingent workforce management programs currently utilize a VMS
top-performing organizations are more likely to leverage VMS technology
The importance of communications
Even after implementing your VMS, you must continue to sell your program to stakeholders and end-users. Communications should be direct and target specific audiences to specifically delineate how the new program impacts them.
Don’t just focus on the day-to-day changes. Instead, paint a clear picture of how individual users and your organization benefit from adopting the program. Your C-level champion will help others see the value and importance of your program.
When is the right time to start building your business case? Right now.
When managing contingent workers, adopting an effective VMS is no longer a luxury. It is a business imperative. Nine out of 10 companies either have a VMS or are expected to adopt one within the next two years.
Now is the time to prepare a business case that resonates with your company and prepares you to select a VMS that meets your needs.
Let Beeline help you build your business case
Beeline Professional is a feature-rich, quick-to-deploy VMS designed to deliver measurable impact in just 30 days. Gain the efficiency and visibility you need to maximize the return on your staffing efforts. Reach out for a brief consultation, and we can even help you build your client business case.
About Beeline
For over 20 years, Beeline has empowered businesses worldwide to achieve competitive advantages with their extended workforce. Beeline’s contingent workforce management solutions give companies the visibility to mitigate risks, achieve cost savings, and meet dynamic business needs. With tailored solutions that solely focus on the complexities of the extended workforce, clients leverage Beeline products that fit their unique requirements. Through thousands of integrations, clients can connect their extended workforce data from all technology stacks, including major procurement and HR systems.
Join the list of renowned brands benefiting from Beeline’s deeply seasoned experts, collaborative innovation, and industry leading partner network. Explore more at beeline.com