Elevated Resources: What Makes It Great (Temp Staffing/VMS SolutionMap Analysis)

ELEVATE VMS — a product of Elevated Resources Inc., a contingent workforce services provider — is something of a new kid on the block in the evolving contingent workforce and services (CW/S) enterprise technology solution market. So it’s likely that few practitioners have heard of this VMS. But that’s because ELEVATE was not typically marketed as a technology solution separate from the Elevated Resources MSP and other service offerings.

This changed in early 2019 when Elevated Resources experienced a large increase in interest and demand for the ELEVATE VMS solution apart from the company’s service offerings. So while ELEVATE is a new face in the VMS solution market, it is actually a sophisticated technology platform and SaaS application that has been developed over a period of years within Elevated Resources.

Right out of the blocks, ELEVATE’s target market is almost exclusively mid-size organizations with $1 million to $100 million in contingent workforce spend. Today, it is true that ELEVATE might not stand up competitively to a top-tier VMS for the use case of, say, a 50,000-employee organization operating in 25 countries. But it can very well stand up as a robust, truly cost-effective solution for midsize organizations with a predominant presence in the U.S. (though the solution’s geographic footprint is being expanded). In addition, ELEVATE VMS has the experience and know-how of Elevated Resources standing behind it; and in the Spend Matters SolutionMap, the company has achieved outstanding client survey scores.

Spend Matters breaks down the broadening and evolving CW/S enterprise technology solution market into three main categories. Those are solutions to manage:

* Temp Staffing, the primary historical focus and largest category of spend under management for established VMS providers (e.g., Beeline, Coupa-DCR Contingent Workforce, SAP Fieldglass, etc.)
* Contract Services/SOW (Statement of Work), the spend category now contributing the highest growth to VMS providers’ spend under management.
* Direct Sourcing of Workforce/Services (DSW/S), while the largest volume of spend under management and numbers of users lie in the Temp Staffing solution category, top VMS providers have been evolving and increasingly providing capabilities to enable clients to directly source and engage contingent workers and manage the corresponding spend and risk.

At the time of our Q3 2019 Solution Map RFI submission, ELEVATE provided solution capabilities for temporary staffing to a handful of clients (these have been validated through client references). While Elevated Resources was able to demo a substantial range of SOW management capabilities, the rollout of that part of the solution was early stage and no client references were submitted. Therefore, for the Q3 SolutionMap, ELEVATE was only evaluated in the Temp Staffing category.

So where does Elevated Resources and its VMS fit into the burgeoning CW/S solution market? As of Q3 2019, the Spend Matters vendor ranking system, SolutionMap, contains functional and customer satisfaction benchmarks on more than 50 providers within the overall procurement technology landscape, including 14 providers within the CW/S segment. But where does Elevated Resources stand out most and help “set the bar” for the Temp Staffing segment? And why should this matter for procurement and HR organizations? Let’s delve into the SolutionMap benchmark to find out where Elevated Resources is great.

“What Makes It Great” is a recurring column that shares insights from each quarterly SolutionMap report for SolutionMap Insider subscribers. Based on both our rigorous evaluation process and customer reference reviews, each brief offers quick facts on the provider, describes where it excels, provides hard data on where it beats the SolutionMap benchmark and concludes with a checklist for ideal customer scenarios in which procurement, finance and supply chain organizations should consider it.