Five Scenarios for VMS 2025: Scenario 1 — Status Quo

In this multi-part Spend Matters PRO series, we explore the future of VMS, not because we consider ourselves futurists, but because we think — as stated by my colleague Jason Busch in the introduction to the series — it is “critical for procurement organizations as they have the power to define how these technologies serve them rather than the other way around.”

The introduction laid out the thesis for the series — that the future of the VMS (the long-dominant technology solution model for managing contingent workforce) has become uncertain. Second, it pegged what a VMS is (or was) in terms of the Spend Matters SolutionMap categories saying:

As part of Spend Matters SolutionMaps for contingent workforce and services (CW/S) enterprise technology, we think of VMS as the solution for managing temporary staffing suppliers and workers. That is, within the Temp Staffing map — rather than Contract Services/Statement of Work or the Independent Contract Workforce maps.*

* Some providers of VMS solutions have, to some extent, expanded their platforms to address services/SOW and independent workforce. Hence, the major VMS providers’ solutions address more than just temp staffing. And those could be thought of as broader, but still specialized, solutions for sourcing and managing contingent or external workforce.

The introduction also mapped out five potential scenarios for the future of VMS by 2025:
* The status quo, a largely independent VMS ecosystem, continues and new technologies, like artificial intelligence, lead to a better overall VMS experience and even “MSP bot-type” services.
* Integrated VMS and procure-to-pay technology suites gain momentum.
* Managed services providers (MSPs) rule the day as offerings evolve and increasingly leverage software as a competitive advantage (a market that could include new entrants as well).
* Talent management and human capital strike back — people are not widgets, and the VMS must operate in an increasingly dual HR-and-procurement universe in which value and outcomes become as important as price and timesheets.
* Temporary staffing (and hence the VMS) loses its influence as the core technology “anchor” that companies “buy first” when tackling services procurement.

In this part of the series, we look at “Scenario 1 — The Status Quo” in which VMS continues to evolve and flourish as a distinct, specialized enterprise solution (alongside e-procurement and human capital management) for sourcing of temps and, potentially, other forms of contingent workforce and also managing the spend and risk that comes with them.

Note: A scenario is not so much a prediction of a future state as it is the building of one possible future state, carried out with a mix of reasoning and imagination. Ultimately, scenarios are tools that assist planners and executives to think about the future.