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What is a Vendor Management System or VMS?

August 19, 2014

A Vendor Management System (VMS) has everything you need to automate all categories of your non-employee workforce. Delivered through a powerful platform, Beeline helps automate your current processes, saving you time and money.

Understanding what a VMS is and how it can affect your bottom line is important to the success of your business. The world of manual processes is ancient. With technology, you can now streamline human processes and open the door to greater cost savings, visibility, compliance, and more. By implementing vendor management software, you can also automate many steps in the procurement cycle, reducing the time to fill positions.

Reporting and analytics capabilities are a powerful component of Beeline. Your company data tells an important story and a VMS will help you tell it. Share insight with stakeholders, modernize processes, and make better business decisions based on facts rather than assumptions. At Beeline, we are committed to helping businesses simplify the complex world of non-employee labor. Gain an advantage and run your program confidently when you put Beeline to work for your organization.

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Visibility and control

Organizations increasingly depend on contingent talent to give them more flexibility and agility. Much of this contingent spend is not actively accounted for in corporate budgeting, planning, and forecasting. Companies, including Fortune 500 and Global 1000 enterprises, have historically implemented a vendor management system (VMS) to source and manage contingent labor and statement of work (SOW)-based contractors.

While a VMS is crucial to successfully managing contingent workforce programs, a VMS alone cannot adequately support the growing strategic importance of the extended workforce, global competition for talent, a surge of technology innovation, heightened focus on personal data, ownership, and talent diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Decades of VMS success built into the world’s first Extended Workforce Platform

Companies now need a future-forward platform to solve the complexities of managing the modern external workforce - including looking for data on non-employees at the same depth and detail as they do in their ATS, HCM, and ERP systems - allowing them to understand this population deeply while maintaining an arm’s length relationship. Beeline Extended Workforce Platform has market-leading VMS functionality at its core and powerful layers of intelligence, connectivity, and experience to solve the complexities of managing this modern external workforce.

Key benefits of a VMS

  1. Cost savings - Eliminate rogue labor engagement and maverick spending. Gain hard dollar savings by consolidating suppliers and benchmarking
    rates and soft dollar savings through process improvements like consolidated invoicing, reduced timecard and invoice errors, and compliance tracking.
  2. Visibility - Analytics and reporting enable you to make better business decisions by revealing the types of labor you are using as well as how and
    where you are spending money on contract and project-based labor.
  3. Compliance - Transparent analysis of all stages of the procurement lifecycle provides greater control and the ability to enforce procurement policies. It can also mitigate exposure to co-employment and tenure litigation.
  4. Quality - Measure and monitor the performance of your suppliers and non-employee workforce while creating an efficient process for acquiring and onboarding talent.
  5. Operational efficiency - Automate as many steps in the procurement cycle, reducing the time to fill positions.

Selecting a trusted VMS provider

  1. Trusted partner commitment - You’re choosing a partner, not just a technology tool. It’s critical to find a provider that is willing to invest in a relationship with you and support you through all stages of your program’s lifecycle.
  2. Ease of use - The technology should be easy to learn, navigate, and use by both frequent and infrequent users. Guided user experiences such
    as up-front decision guidance tools, as well as in-application training options and help, should be available.
  3. Flexibility - You know your business best. Your provider shouldn’t dictate your use of technology but instead, empower it. Ensure that you can integrate easily with your critical enterprise software applications.
  4. Visibility - Monitoring and measuring your contingent talent is key to the application of successful workforce strategies. Selecting a provider with robust reporting and predictive analytics capabilities is critical to maximizing the value of your investment.
  5. Global reach and local knowledge - Select a provider who understands tax and labor laws and the unique culture and business customs in all areas where you do business.
  6. Experience - The provider you are considering should have a deep understanding of the contingent workforce industry and decades of experience you can trust. They should accommodate all labor categories and easily expand to include a statement of work (SOW)- based contractors and private and public talent pools.
  7. Innovation - Select a provider committed to keeping your program on the leading edge of this rapidly evolving industry and will push the envelope to ensure your success. Your chosen provider should be modern with a look to the future, as well as provide an effortless experience with exceptional usability and efficiency.

Staffing Industry Analysts’ VMS Landscape and Differentiators report compared 16 VMS technologies worldwide. Beeline received the “best imaginable” in 5 of 6 areas:

  • Supplier Engagement & Management
  • Time, Expenses, & Invoicing
  • Statement of Work
  • Direct Sourcing
  • Reporting & Analytics.

Beeline Extended Workforce Platform is a next-generation VMS, explicitly designed for the challenges of external workforce management today.