Your guide to gaining visibility, cutting costs, and reducing risk across outsourced services
Introduction
Managing contingent labor is already complex — and when it comes to outsourced services, the challenge only grows.
If you’re like many HR and procurement professionals today, you’re tasked with overseeing your contingent workforce — but critical services procurement activities often happen outside your view. Projects are awarded, suppliers are hired, and budgets are spent without centralized oversight. The result? Higher costs, hidden risks, and missed opportunities for value.
You’re not alone. Services procurement is one of the biggest blind spots for organizations managing their extended workforce today.
In this guide, we’ll share practical steps, real-world examples, and best practices to help you take control of your services procurement — and turn it into a strategic advantage for your business.
Table of contents
Setting the stage: Why it matters
What’s at stake
Use technology to control SOW-based service contracts and project-based initiatives
Workforce technology success stories
Take the next step towards better services procurement management
About Beeline
Setting the stage: Why it matters
Today, nearly half of the average workforce is made up of non-employees — including contract workers, consultants, independent contractors (ICs), and statement of work (SOW)-based service providers.*
Yet, despite this growing reliance on external resources, nearly 60% of the extended workforce is still not fully accounted for in corporate planning, budgeting, or forecasting.*
A big reason? The increasing use of professional and support services — typically contracted through SOWs — which often operate outside traditional procurement channels.
According to Ardent Partners, “complex contingent labor,” including professional services and SOW-based projects, represents the largest category of contingent labor in most organizations.* And yet, less than half of businesses today centralize the management of service procurement as part of their overall contingent workforce program.
That lack of control can cost you — in dollars, in compliance risks, and in lost opportunities to optimize performance.
What’s at stake
In this guide, we'll explore the three biggest dangers of unmanaged services spend — and how you can overcome them.
• Blind spots: Lack of visibility into spend, resources, and performance
• Wasted money: Rogue spending, scope creep, and hidden costs
• Compliance risks: Worker misclassification, co-employment exposure, and security gaps
We'll also show how leading organizations use technology to regain control over services procurement, drive measurable ROI, and better align external services with business goals.
Blind spots that drive up costs and risks
If you can’t see it, you can’t manage it.
Without centralized visibility into your services spend and contracted resources, you face higher costs, increased security risks, missed savings opportunities, and slower decision-making. Visibility isn’t just a reporting advantage — it’s a business necessity.
Why visibility matters
• Prevent overbilling and overspending: Transparency makes it easier to spot billing errors and manage costs effectively
• Drive compliance and talent access: Companies with clear visibility achieve better regulatory compliance — and attract the best service providers
• Deliver value upfront: Budget insights across departments help teams propose the right solutions at the right cost
• Empower executive decision-making: A centralized view of services spend gives leadership the insights they need to make faster, smarter business decisions
Wasted spend and scope creep
When services procurement runs without guardrails, budgets spiral. SOWs are often used to bypass standard controls, leading to inflated rates, vague deliverables, and projects that quietly grow beyond scope — all without proper oversight.
Without centralized management, you’re likely overpaying, using suboptimal suppliers, and missing key opportunities to negotiate better terms and outcomes.
With the right visibility and processes, you can rein in spend, hold suppliers accountable, and ensure your dollars are driving genuine business value.
Red flags to watch for
• Hourly roles disguised as fixed-fee SOWs
• Projects that lack clear deliverables or milestones
• Frequent change orders with no budget impact review
• No tracking of actual output vs. contracted scope
Compliance failures and brand exposure
Cost savings are important, but compliance is non-negotiable. Misclassified workers, unmanaged access, and weak controls don’t just create legal risk — they put your brand and bottom line in jeopardy.
When SOWs are used to avoid hiring policies or standard onboarding, you open the door to co-employment claims, security gaps, and policy violations. Without consistent tracking and governance, it’s easy to lose sight of who’s doing the work, how they’re classified, and what systems they can access.
Compliance is more than a box to check — it’s protection for your business and reputation.
Why compliance breaks downs
• SOWs used to avoid contingent workforce policies
• Lack of worker classification tracking
• No consistent onboarding/offboarding for contractors
• Unmonitored access to facilities, data, and systems
• Little alignment with internal policies or documentation standards
Use technology to control SOW-based service contracts and project-based initiatives
Companies that don't use technology to manage every category of external workers lack visibility for a substantial portion of their extended workforce. Without visibility this population is not accounted for in corporate budgeting, planning, and forecasting.
Beeline Services Procurement gives you the most comprehensive and compliant way to gain control of your organization’s entire professional and support services spend. With this control, you can confidently procure the best resources at the best prices and quality, giving your company a competitive advantage. Because users value Beeline’s intuitive and user-friendly interface, you can expect widespread adoption across your organization and among your suppliers.
"My SOW suppliers gave me a lot of resistance – up until the point they logged in and realized how easy and transparent everything was. They can work with managers on the terms and financial aspects of the SOW, they have full transparency on where they are in the process, and they are paid earlier because it is so streamlined. Now, they are asking me to get every category into Beeline. They are actually excited about it."
Director of Specialized Shared Services, FORTUNE® 500 financial services firm
Workforce technology success stories
How the right technology provides a competitive advantage
Global workforce visibility, compliance, and cost-control
• A multinational client with hundreds of suppliers globally and complex regulatory and security requirements needed to ensure both policy and regulatory compliance
• After thoroughly evaluating the vendor management technology marketplace, they chose Beeline Enterprise
• Beeline Enterprise tracks, manages, and optimizes all non-employee labor, including services procurement
• Today, Beeline Enterprise provides workforce visibility, compliance, and cost control while supporting local regulatory requirements, taxes, and business practices in more than 40 countries
• Now this client has end-to-end visibility and reports back on all metrics in concise, measurable ways to enhance procurement processes, workforce planning, corporate governance, labor relations, and security
Compliance, comprehensive reporting, and access to all contractor data
• A financial holding company acquired several large companies during 30 years in business
• They needed a technology solution that could provide a full governance model and integrate with their critical business systems
• The client uses this functionality to seamlessly transition from unmanaged headcount tracking to managed sourcing of contingent staff and professional services
• Beeline Enterprise elevates the client’s contingent labor management program and provides comprehensive contingent staffing and services procurement functionality, with best-in-class user experience
Discover how this financial leader moved from chaos to control
Mitigating security and compliance risks In a highly regulated industry
• This client has been leading provider of asset management, fiduciary, banking, asset servicing, and fund administration services for more than a century
• They needed to manage a blended extended workforce that incorporates contingent staffing and professional services provided by both onshore and offshore suppliers
• In three phases, they implemented Beeline Enterprise across three labor categories: onshore and offshore IT staff augmentation, non-IT staffing, and outsourced services
• In addition to significant cost savings due to rate card enforcement, Beeline Enterprise plays a vital role in measuring and managing vendor performance
• By standardizing, automating, and streamlining onboarding and offboarding, the VMS technology helps to mitigate security and compliance risks, critical concerns for a company in the highly regulated financial services industry
Learn how this firm tightened compliance while cutting costs
Take the next step towards better services procurement management
Managing services procurement effectively doesn’t have to be overwhelming.
Start small — and build toward major impact
The first step is understanding the scope of the opportunity — and the risks of inaction. Explore resources that clarify best practices and reveal how leading organizations are gaining visibility, control, and value from services procurement.
Make your business case
Once you're grounded in the value, it’s time to engage your stakeholders. Whether you’re working with Procurement, HR, or Finance, Beeline can help you build a clear, credible business case for change.
How to get started
When you’re ready to move forward, here’s where to begin:
• Map where your services spend currently lives
• Identify the biggest blind spots, risks, or inefficiencies
• Standardize one process, such as SOW templates or onboarding
• Engage internal partners across functions
• Leverage technology like Beeline Enterprise to bring visibility to a target area first
Start with one win — and build momentum.
Ready to take control?
The risks of unmanaged services procurement are too big to ignore — but the rewards of getting it right are even bigger.
With Beeline Enterprise, you can:
• Gain full visibility across your services spend
• Eliminate rogue costs and scope creep
• Minimize compliance risks and protect your brand
• Enable smarter, faster decision-making across your organization
Ready to see what’s possible? Contact Beeline today for a free consultation or demonstration.
About Beeline
For over 20 years, Beeline has empowered businesses worldwide to achieve competitive advantages with their extended workforce. Beeline Extended Workforce Platform gives companies the visibility needed to mitigate risk, 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.
