Specialist Providers of Extended Workforce Rate Benchmarking and Analytics — Series Wrap-Up

Back in December, we initiated a five-part series with a brief titled A new species: Specialist providers of contingent workforce rate benchmarking/analytics. In that brief, we identified three third-party (standalone, vendor-neutral) providers that are, broadly speaking, data management and analytics providers and establishing a framework for analyzing providers, capabilities and services from a business-buyer standpoint.

The subsequent three parts of the series reviewed and analyzed each of those providers — PeopleTicker, HCM Strategies and Brightfield (TDX) — and their solution offerings. While all three have been centered around salary and rate benchmarking service/capabilities, they have also extended, to greatly varying degrees, their workforce-related analytics offerings. (See their Vendor Analysis profiles here, here and here.)

In this fifth and final part of the series, we synthesize our findings and provide insights into the market and the differences among the vendors. Spoiler alert: The three providers are quite different and will variously fit different types of organizations with different needs. We also discuss our research approach, moving forward on a broader basis.

When we started this series in December 2019, we could not have imagined what would lie ahead of us and where the world economy, businesses and workers would be now. But we are certain that we are entering a new economic and business environment in which data and analytics will be far more critical than ever.

Our perspective on this situation is reflected in our ongoing series (Coronavirus affects the world of work — How can businesses cope with the COVID-19 outbreak? (Part 1) and Coronavirus affects the world of work (Part 2): Facing the next phase of the crisis); and the importance of workforce data and analytics in this crisis period is discussed in this CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE series brief.