Six Steps to a Successful Vendor Management System
A vendor management system (VMS) promises freedom from the chaos that can be caused by juggling the vast array of components in a staffing supply chain. It does this by pushing everything through a central processing point. Yet the business side of making these transitions can be complicated and disastrous if not well planned. How do you ensure a successful VMS implementation? After spending months with companies and vendors in developing ContractCentral we’ve learned some valuable lessons about making the transition to vendor managment system.
1. Know why you’re buying a VMS
Organizations deploy VMS systems for different reasons. Will your VMS foster competitive bidding to lower staffing costs? Speed requisition broadcasts? Reduce the time it takes to find and manage contract workers? You’ll save time and money by building a prioritized list of those reasons, understanding must-haves and trade-offs, and using that list to spec, evaluate, plan and build a VMS solution tailored to your business.
2. Establish success metrics up front
How will you define success or failure in your VMS implementation? Identify at least one measure of success for each of the items on your priority list, and develop metrics that enable you to prove the value of the new system. Establishing metrics early, before the project has started, allows you to create and track baselines. These days CFOs are increasingly concerned with making total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) a central facet of the solution. Establishing a hard dollar value can be tough (be sure to ask prospective vendors for suggestions) but can go a long way toward winning loyal support from senior management.
3. Map VMS against your own business processes
Any major solution implementation can require a few tweaks to your business process as it’s deployed. The trick is to prevent tweaks from becoming major process re-engineering (unless, of course, a re-engineering is part of the plan).
Before telecommunications company ADC deployed HotGigs ContractCentral, it studied its existing staffing operations and determined that some re-engineering was necessary. Those changes became an early part of the deployment plan, allowing the team to craft retraining and support strategies to ensure a smooth transition.
4. Understand your costs
The industry rule of thumb says a VMS shouldn’t cost more than 1 to 3 percent of your hiring budget, and you can anticipate saving 10 percent to 25 percent of your staffing costs through increased efficiencies and more competitive bidding.However, don’t overlook hidden costs. How will your employees manage staffing during the transition? Have you budgeted for retraining your users and participating vendors? Does your contract include post-deployment enhancements? Is there an early penalty for canceling a VMS purchased for a set term?
5. Put yourself in your vendors’ shoes
Be realistic about your staffing vendors’ costs as well. The higher the cost of integration with your new VMS, or the more deltas there are between their system and yours, the less likely you are to get accurate inputs and prompt responses.
5. Build a training plan
If training is needed, are there online training and support modules available? How much training time will each user need? Are there different views available of the user's desktop in the VMS based on their role and relationship to the system?
6. Plan to scale
One of the greatest success factors of a software application is its rate of adoption with the people who are supposed to use it. If your initial roll out is successful, your users will inevitably begin to use it in new ways, find new reporting requirements…and sooner or later you’ll be faced with a need to scale. Make sure your VMS can handle the load without the need for extensive custom-coding, an expensive proposition. In addition, opt for the smartest, most flexible reporting structure possible.
1. Know why you’re buying a VMS
Organizations deploy VMS systems for different reasons. Will your VMS foster competitive bidding to lower staffing costs? Speed requisition broadcasts? Reduce the time it takes to find and manage contract workers? You’ll save time and money by building a prioritized list of those reasons, understanding must-haves and trade-offs, and using that list to spec, evaluate, plan and build a VMS solution tailored to your business.
2. Establish success metrics up front
How will you define success or failure in your VMS implementation? Identify at least one measure of success for each of the items on your priority list, and develop metrics that enable you to prove the value of the new system. Establishing metrics early, before the project has started, allows you to create and track baselines. These days CFOs are increasingly concerned with making total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) a central facet of the solution. Establishing a hard dollar value can be tough (be sure to ask prospective vendors for suggestions) but can go a long way toward winning loyal support from senior management.
3. Map VMS against your own business processes
Any major solution implementation can require a few tweaks to your business process as it’s deployed. The trick is to prevent tweaks from becoming major process re-engineering (unless, of course, a re-engineering is part of the plan).
Before telecommunications company ADC deployed HotGigs ContractCentral, it studied its existing staffing operations and determined that some re-engineering was necessary. Those changes became an early part of the deployment plan, allowing the team to craft retraining and support strategies to ensure a smooth transition.
4. Understand your costs
The industry rule of thumb says a VMS shouldn’t cost more than 1 to 3 percent of your hiring budget, and you can anticipate saving 10 percent to 25 percent of your staffing costs through increased efficiencies and more competitive bidding.However, don’t overlook hidden costs. How will your employees manage staffing during the transition? Have you budgeted for retraining your users and participating vendors? Does your contract include post-deployment enhancements? Is there an early penalty for canceling a VMS purchased for a set term?
5. Put yourself in your vendors’ shoes
Be realistic about your staffing vendors’ costs as well. The higher the cost of integration with your new VMS, or the more deltas there are between their system and yours, the less likely you are to get accurate inputs and prompt responses.
5. Build a training plan
If training is needed, are there online training and support modules available? How much training time will each user need? Are there different views available of the user's desktop in the VMS based on their role and relationship to the system?
6. Plan to scale
One of the greatest success factors of a software application is its rate of adoption with the people who are supposed to use it. If your initial roll out is successful, your users will inevitably begin to use it in new ways, find new reporting requirements…and sooner or later you’ll be faced with a need to scale. Make sure your VMS can handle the load without the need for extensive custom-coding, an expensive proposition. In addition, opt for the smartest, most flexible reporting structure possible.
A vendor management system (VMS) promises freedom from the chaos that can be caused by juggling the vast array of components in a staffing supply chain. It does this by pushing everything through a central processing point. Yet the business side of making these transitions can be complicated and disastrous if not well planned. How do you ensure a successful VMS implementation? After spending months with companies and vendors in developing ContractCentral we’ve learned some valuable lessons about making the transition to vendor managment system.
1. Know why you’re buying a VMS
Organizations deploy VMS systems for different reasons. Will your VMS foster competitive bidding to lower staffing costs? Speed requisition broadcasts? Reduce the time it takes to find and manage contract workers? You’ll save time and money by building a prioritized list of those reasons, understanding must-haves and trade-offs, and using that list to spec, evaluate, plan and build a VMS solution tailored to your business.
2. Establish success metrics up front
How will you define success or failure in your VMS implementation? Identify at least one measure of success for each of the items on your priority list, and develop metrics that enable you to prove the value of the new system. Establishing metrics early, before the project has started, allows you to create and track baselines. These days CFOs are increasingly concerned with making total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) a central facet of the solution. Establishing a hard dollar value can be tough (be sure to ask prospective vendors for suggestions) but can go a long way toward winning loyal support from senior management.
3. Map VMS against your own business processes
Any major solution implementation can require a few tweaks to your business process as it’s deployed. The trick is to prevent tweaks from becoming major process re-engineering (unless, of course, a re-engineering is part of the plan).
Before telecommunications company ADC deployed HotGigs ContractCentral, it studied its existing staffing operations and determined that some re-engineering was necessary. Those changes became an early part of the deployment plan, allowing the team to craft retraining and support strategies to ensure a smooth transition.
4. Understand your costs
The industry rule of thumb says a VMS shouldn’t cost more than 1 to 3 percent of your hiring budget, and you can anticipate saving 10 percent to 25 percent of your staffing costs through increased efficiencies and more competitive bidding.However, don’t overlook hidden costs. How will your employees manage staffing during the transition? Have you budgeted for retraining your users and participating vendors? Does your contract include post-deployment enhancements? Is there an early penalty for canceling a VMS purchased for a set term?
5. Put yourself in your vendors’ shoes
Be realistic about your staffing vendors’ costs as well. The higher the cost of integration with your new VMS, or the more deltas there are between their system and yours, the less likely you are to get accurate inputs and prompt responses.
5. Build a training plan
If training is needed, are there online training and support modules available? How much training time will each user need? Are there different views available of the user's desktop in the VMS based on their role and relationship to the system?
6. Plan to scale
One of the greatest success factors of a software application is its rate of adoption with the people who are supposed to use it. If your initial roll out is successful, your users will inevitably begin to use it in new ways, find new reporting requirements…and sooner or later you’ll be faced with a need to scale. Make sure your VMS can handle the load without the need for extensive custom-coding, an expensive proposition. In addition, opt for the smartest, most flexible reporting structure possible.
1. Know why you’re buying a VMS
Organizations deploy VMS systems for different reasons. Will your VMS foster competitive bidding to lower staffing costs? Speed requisition broadcasts? Reduce the time it takes to find and manage contract workers? You’ll save time and money by building a prioritized list of those reasons, understanding must-haves and trade-offs, and using that list to spec, evaluate, plan and build a VMS solution tailored to your business.
2. Establish success metrics up front
How will you define success or failure in your VMS implementation? Identify at least one measure of success for each of the items on your priority list, and develop metrics that enable you to prove the value of the new system. Establishing metrics early, before the project has started, allows you to create and track baselines. These days CFOs are increasingly concerned with making total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) a central facet of the solution. Establishing a hard dollar value can be tough (be sure to ask prospective vendors for suggestions) but can go a long way toward winning loyal support from senior management.
3. Map VMS against your own business processes
Any major solution implementation can require a few tweaks to your business process as it’s deployed. The trick is to prevent tweaks from becoming major process re-engineering (unless, of course, a re-engineering is part of the plan).
Before telecommunications company ADC deployed HotGigs ContractCentral, it studied its existing staffing operations and determined that some re-engineering was necessary. Those changes became an early part of the deployment plan, allowing the team to craft retraining and support strategies to ensure a smooth transition.
4. Understand your costs
The industry rule of thumb says a VMS shouldn’t cost more than 1 to 3 percent of your hiring budget, and you can anticipate saving 10 percent to 25 percent of your staffing costs through increased efficiencies and more competitive bidding.However, don’t overlook hidden costs. How will your employees manage staffing during the transition? Have you budgeted for retraining your users and participating vendors? Does your contract include post-deployment enhancements? Is there an early penalty for canceling a VMS purchased for a set term?
5. Put yourself in your vendors’ shoes
Be realistic about your staffing vendors’ costs as well. The higher the cost of integration with your new VMS, or the more deltas there are between their system and yours, the less likely you are to get accurate inputs and prompt responses.
5. Build a training plan
If training is needed, are there online training and support modules available? How much training time will each user need? Are there different views available of the user's desktop in the VMS based on their role and relationship to the system?
6. Plan to scale
One of the greatest success factors of a software application is its rate of adoption with the people who are supposed to use it. If your initial roll out is successful, your users will inevitably begin to use it in new ways, find new reporting requirements…and sooner or later you’ll be faced with a need to scale. Make sure your VMS can handle the load without the need for extensive custom-coding, an expensive proposition. In addition, opt for the smartest, most flexible reporting structure possible.
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