success story
Beeline VMS helps global professional services firm manage worldwide external workforce
VMS increases efficiency, controls costs, and mitigates compliance risks.
- Industry
- Consulting
- Client Since
- 2007
- Category
- Contingent Staffing, Services Procurement, Resource Tracking
The challenge
One of the world’s largest consulting and professional services firms, this company has more than 700 locations in over 150 countries. In addition to more than 230,000 employees, the company uses a large external workforce of temporary workers and outsourced service providers.
For many years, the company managed much of its contingent workforce via spreadsheets. As a result, they were unable to properly report, track, and enforce compliance for the various types of extended workforce labor. This resulted in supplier payment issues, inaccurate forecasting, difficulty reconciling hours against project plans, and an inability to effectively manage their supplier base.
The company looked for a solution that would allow them to automate their procure-to-pay process and integrate supplier and contractor data into their existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial systems. They wanted to implement a set of industry-standard best practices companywide, as well as the technology and centralized structure to manage all external workers.
Beeline ensured effective supplier management and the ability to create cost savings through rate card management, early payment discounts, and competitive bidding. As a result, the client’s IT group reduced costs by 10% during the first year.
The solution
After an extensive build-or-buy analysis, they determined that a Beeline VMS solution exceeded the firm’s ability to rapidly build a tool and release enhancements in a timely manner. They also chose to create a centralized program management office to manage extended workforce labor suppliers, staffing it with existing employees. Beeline VMS was implemented in two phases.
Phase 1
Contingent Staffing for all hourly workers and Resource Tracking for service workers not sourced through the VMS
Phase 2
Services Procurement for fixed price and deliverable-based contracts
After completion of the second phase, the client managed over $400 million in contingent labor spend and more than 10,000 individuals using Beeline VMS technology.
The results
- Beeline VMS provides the operational efficiencies the client formerly lacked. The VMS serves as the system of record for invoicing and time and expense tracking, ensuring that the client’s contractor base meets all regulatory and internal compliance requirements. Their newly efficient invoicing processes also safeguard against duplicate payments to vendors.
- The Beeline team worked with the client’s program office to create an ethics and compliance qualification for every requisition so users cannot work around the process. This ensures effective supplier management and the ability to create cost savings through rate card management, early payment discounts, and competitive bidding. As a result, the client’s IT group reduced costs by 10% during the first year Beeline VMS was live.
- Global reporting and analytics capabilities enable the client to enforce worker classification rules, helping to mitigate compliance risks.