In my last post, I discussed some of the reasons SOW spend is often a second-tier priority in contingent workforce programs.  Here, I want to cover the opportunities companies have to apply best practices to their services spend.

Think about adding visibility and audit trails to competitive bidding among suppliers.  Take that to the next level and allow suppliers to deliver innovative solutions that can save your organization time and money.

Most companies have limited or no visibility into how their SOWs are constructed.  Project managers are pre-defining the deliverables, setting the price and selecting the supplier.

Imagine a program in which:

• Suppliers are vetted for their capabilities, certifications and pricing and tracked against SLAs.
• Your organization leverages a central supply base across multiple departments, operating companies and disciplines and by doing so you achieve volume discounts.
• You engage multiple suppliers on every bid and they know they are competing.
• You enable and encourage your project managers to negotiate.
• Project managers receive multiple proposals from each supplier, sharing best practices from their own customers – often your competitors – on how to best execute a project (a true best practice).
• Supplemental resources such as your procurement and legal departments are incorporated into the process at the points where they add essential value.
• You have a robust analytics engine that enables you to track negotiation, ensure SLAs are being met, track project progress and billing and identify misclassified resources.

Just getting spend into the system will continue to yield minimal returns for most programs.  With proper planning, VMS users can repeat the revolution that has improved contingent workforce management and take savings to a level never before seen.  How much are you leaving on the table?

This post was syndicated with approval from author. The original post can be seen on the Provade Blog.

Related posts:

1. SOWs: Get More from your VMS (Part 1)
2. Managing Your Hiring Managers, Part II
3. 4 Key Compensation Considerations
4. How to Hire… It’s Like Gambling In Las Vegas!
5. Reduce our National Debt by Fixing the Broken Recruitment Process