What are the best vendor management systems in staffing?

Considering a vendor management system (VMS) implementation? The vendor management industry is enormous and expected to reach $3.96 billion by 2024. There are plenty of software review sites which address the VMS market. The best independent review we’ve seen is from Investopedia, but suppliers’ perspectives were not explicitly included in the review. 

Vendor management systems are web-based software that allows contingent workforce management teams to manage staffing solutions more efficiently. The software can be used for both temporary and permanent staffing services and simplifies the entire process of collecting and procuring contingent staff. Some of the features of vendor management software are: 

• Option to onboard contingent workers easily

• Provides meaningful hiring metrics

• Gathers payroll data 

• Initiates, automates, and facilitates transactions

Choosing the right VMS to manage your contingent workforce must be done with care. You need to find software that works for your specific business needs and logic. You should compare several VMS options before making a decision: 

1. The first step to choosing the right VMS for your business is understanding the challenge or opportunity. You must understand the business case for technology and how the technology will be adapted to the organization’s contingent workforce operations.

2. The second step is engaging all stakeholders – Procurement, Human Resources, the Contingent Workforce Operations team (could be an internal Vendor Management Office or a Managed Services Provider), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).

Arthur Ransier, Director of Business Strategy at nTech, emphasizes “gathering input from Finance, Legal, supply chain partners, hiring/engagement managers (consumers of the service), contingent workers (if they’re expected to use the VMS), and the Executive Sponsor & C-Suite Executives. When engaging stakeholders, document specific functional requirements per business scenarios, business rules, manual tasks, service-level agreements, key performance indicators, responsibilities, workflows, reporting requirements, existing IT infrastructure, entity relationships, and any other nuanced part of contingent workforce operations or a planned roadmap.”

A crucial challenge of the incumbent contingent workforce management team or MSP is its overstated abilities. According to the Staffing Industry Analysts, countermeasures like contractual SLAs and penalties should be defined to negotiate remedies. This should also be applicable for enterprise systems like VMS.

Explaining the importance of vendor management systems (VMS), Jimmy Iannuzzi, VP and General Manager of nTech, says, “As a supplier of staffing services, a good VMS can help enable our delivery and operations efforts. From a supplier perspective, the right VMS allows for an intuitive and easy-to-understand requisition/job record and efficient submission process, with clear timesheet and invoice procedures.”

Looking for the right VMS? Here is a list of our favorites.

There are many benefits of using a VMS. Once you have decided to get a VMS software, the first question will be which one you should get, given the many available options. Here are some of nTech’s favorite vendor management systems(in no particular order): 

Beeline

Beeline automates all processes of the non-employee workforce. Helping vendors streamline all human processes, Beeline enables more significant cost savings, compliance, and visibility. Beeline has a powerful VMS functionality with layers of intelligence that allow for solving the complexity of managing a modern contingent workforce.

Fieldglass

Fieldglass offers similar functionality to Beeline. Beeline’s workflows are more straightforward for the supplier, but Fieldglass offers better reporting functionality, namely the ability to share standard reports amongst users. Fieldglass is an open cloud-based VMS that procures, engages, pays, and manages the stream of contingent workers. Fieldglass provides you complete visibility into the external workforce, improving supplier and worker efficiencies, reducing costs, enforcing compliance, and increasing the program's efficiency. 

VNDLY

VNDLY is a VMS with a more modern interface and streamlined experience. It’s mobile-friendly, easy to use, and can fully integrate into your technology system. Built on a cloud environment, it’s more scalable and safer than traditional server-based software systems. It adapts according to the specific needs of the business. It’s easy to use on phones and desktops without downloading any special applications. One does not require training to manage program components like invoicing, posting jobs, or developing custom fields and reports. 

At nTech, we provide innovative, customized staffing solutions that cater to your business needs. We bring a high level of fluency to our client's VMS. The ability to run reports, capture and analyze data, and uncover progress through reporting is key to our partnership. This understanding allows our delivery teams to interact with our clients in meaningful discussions instead of taking their time seeking status updates.