Author Archives: Andrew Karpie

The management consultant and research firm Everest Group recently conducted a survey to get a clearer picture of how well organizations manage their contingent workforces, what practices they have adopted and to what extent.

Spend Matters assisted in the survey design, and Everest Group completed the survey and analyzed the data using its Pinnacle Model framework. The firm will soon be publishing its Pinnacle Model report, “How Best-in-Class Organizations Manage Their Contingent Workforce.”

Earlier this year, Spend Matters and Everest Group joined forces to produce three online sessions based on the findings (video recordings are available for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

In this Spend Matters PRO brief that has been unlocked for our readers, we preview a subset of the survey results. The brief begins with a short explanation of Everest Group’s data methodology. It then discusses the five areas that provide a representative picture of and key insights into the current environment. The brief concludes with some of our thoughts on where things stand today — not so much for high-performing organizations, but for low-performing ones.

Today, we’ll take a big-picture view of the sector for extended workforce tracking solutions, and we’ll offer some tech selection considerations.

Part 1 of this three-part Spend Matters PRO series outlined the three general types of potential solutions (VMS, FMS and EWS, extended workforce systems). And Part 2 presented overviews of three providers/solutions that gave concrete examples of those types.

The examples showed that there are solutions that offer capabilities that could enable extended workforce tracking and management for an organization. They also showed that solutions vary in different ways that will impact suitability/value of a solution for a given organization (e.g., whether an organization is using a particular enterprise solution like Beeline, SAP Fieldglass, WorkMarket; the extent of requirements for a mobile solution, etc.). From the standpoint of organizations thinking about their current options, it is a complicated and evolving solution space.

Part 3 will now close the series with an analyst perspective on the current state of extended workforce solutions and suggested considerations for business executives and practitioners seeking technology solutions for the comprehensive tracking/management of their extended workforces.

In Part 1 of this three-part Spend Matters PRO series, we asserted that amid the COVID-19 crisis, some organizations may be focusing their attention on and gaining visibility into their external or extended workforces (comprised of temporary staffing workers, independent contract workers and service provider workers). Considering that business practitioners might be thinking about available options for enabling technology, Part 1 also examined the landscape of solutions that could potentially enable companies to track, gain visibility into and control their entire extended workforces.

The landscape was broken down into three general types of solutions:

• VMS (related to or based on vendor management platforms)
• FMS (based on freelancer management systems/direct sourcing solution platforms)
• EWS (extended workforce system designed as a platform for managing all workers)

Part 2 of the series offers summary overviews of three providers that serve to illustrate one of the three types.

Part 3 will close the series with an analyst perspective on the current state of extended workforce solutions and suggested considerations for business executives and practitioners.

Three vendors have been chosen only to highlight the issues and give concrete examples of what’s in the market. Let’s look at the providers/solutions: Beeline, ADP’s WorkMarket and Utmost.

As the economy begins to tentatively lurch forward amid the coronavirus disruption, and large and midsize organizations begin to reconstitute their workforces and supplier relationships for a new normal business environment, we may see an adjustment of focus on their flexible, non-employee workforces.

We do not know what organizations’ extended workforces (a mix of temporary staffing, service provider or independent contract workers) will look like by the end of the year (and it is something that will certainly vary by industry segment/type of business and even individual company).

But it would not be outrageous to assume that pandemic lessons learned and uncertainty (about even the short-term future) will translate into organizations that are more flexible and reliant on extended workforce as ever before (and perhaps more savvy about the deployment of their workforce, both employees and non-employees).

Organizations that are recognizing that their visibility into their extended workforce is incomplete may be wondering about how this problem can be overcome, fairly quickly and at the least cost possible. As any good procurement practitioner knows, VMS solutions have been the work horses for tracking contingent workforce in the past, but that has largely been limited to temporary workers deployed from staffing suppliers. Beeline and SAP Fieldglass provide extended workforce tracking modules that enable basic tracking of any type of non-employee worker (without the VMS functionality).

New solutions have emerged in recent years that may be able to serve the purpose of tracking and, to some extent, managing the full breadth of extended workforce (temporary staffing, service provider or independent contract workers). Some of these solutions provide VMS capabilities, while others were not conceived to do so, but they were designed to encompass all worker types (in some cases employees in addition to non-employees).

This three-part Spend Matters PRO series focuses on solutions that may enable organizations to gain visibility into their entire extended workforces. Part 1 focuses on the state of technology solutions that organizations could use to keep track of their extended workforces, breaking down three types or categories of solutions. Part 2 will provide a summary of a solution/provider from each of those three categories, and Part 3 will offer analyst insights on what organizations should be thinking about as they evaluate their options.

As we enter June, many of us are thinking about what lies ahead in terms of how contingent workforce will be used in the COVID-19 “new normal” disequilibrium we will be in through this year and most likely next year.

Temporary staffing has been the largest category of contingent workforce that companies have spent their dollars on (knowingly, at least). In 2019, organizations in the U.S. spent over $150 billion on temporary staffing and on average engaged just under 3 million temporary workers each month.

Not surprisingly, COVID-19 closures resulted in massive cancellation of orders/requisitions. According to one source, Brightfield/TDX, orders/requisitions for new temp jobs were slashed by almost 100% from week 2 of February to week 1 of April (something which could seem like a nuking of the staffing industry).

But what has really happened in the past months, where are we now and where are we going to from here?

Welcome to the June 2020 edition of Spend Matters Insider’s Hot List, a monthly look at the contingent workforce and services (CW/S) space that’s available to our PLUS and PRO subscribers. For those new to the Hot List, each edition covers the prior month’s important or interesting technology and innovation developments in the CW/S space.

May seems to have been a slow month in terms of new technology and innovation developments, with the exception of — perhaps not surprisingly — the freelancer/SMB neo-bank area. One possible explanation of this shift in attention of CW/S solution providers from expansion and innovation is that the coronavirus crisis has them focusing on customers and remaining a going concern. In any event, the June Hot List will cover the key developments that came across our radar last month.

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.

The SIG Procurement Technology Summit, being held online this week, has been providing its attendees with an immersion in “industry trends, innovations and solutions that are shaping high-performance teams and best-in-class procurement organizations.” While procurement is responsible for efficiently securing materials, goods and services, procurement of SOW-based services may be one area in which fit-for-purpose technology is wanting. SIG was not about to miss this gap.

Fiverr International Ltd., the online freelancer/digital services marketplace, has reported its financial results for Q1 2020, showing that it took a coronavirus hit but is rebounding.

This comes a day after our post on the earnings report for Upwork, the online freelancer marketplace and managed solution company. As we mentioned in that coverage, now is a time when many wonder if the massive increase in working remotely and the shifting needs of, and new restrictions on, organizations will lead to a greater use of remote contingent workers and service providers.

A recent Spend Matters PRO brief focused on the potential of online platforms with remote workers to fill gaps in the uncertain times of the COVID-19 disruption (see CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE: Contingent Workforce and Services Solutions — How to find the right workers, services in a crisis). Both Upwork and Fiverr are mentioned in that PRO brief.

Let’s look at Fiverr’s dip and revival in the coronavirus era and see what it means for the wider contingent workforce market.

This month’s Hot List clearly shows that April was certainly one in which developments and innovation were not dampened amid the COVID-19 crisis. As they say, “necessity is the mother of invention.” We’ll let you decide if that has been the case in our industry ecosystem as you read our Hot List coverage.

In the contingent workforce and services (CW/S) category of Spend Matters’ Coronavirus Response series, our focus has been on solutions that are able to, at a minimum, help rapidly ramp up extended workforce to deal with resource shortfalls as well as manage and track as well as track and manage external workers, projects and services providers.

We are examining four categories of relatively new types technology-enabled CW/S solutions for: (1) sourcing and managing remote/online work; (2) sourcing and managing mobile-equipped workers across geographical locations; (3) direct sourcing of workforce and services; (4) and managing data and producing analytical outputs.

In this brief, we turn to third-party digital solutions for data management and analytics that organizations can use in a number of ways to cost-effectively source and manage their extended workforce (contingent workers and service providers’ workers). These solutions collect, manage and process large amounts of market data — and sometimes procurement data — and generate different types of value-added outputs for a variety of purposes.

A selection of data management and analytics solution providers — PeopleTicker, Brightfield (TDX) and ENGAGE Talent (a Workforce Logiq company) — will be highlighted below. This list, however, is not exhaustive.

The overall series addresses seven categories of technology solutions that can help in a crisis:

1. Supply risk management solutions that include supply chain risk, CSR risk, supplier financial risk, etc. (Read this category’s PRO analysis and solution recommendations here.)
2. Sourcing and commodity management, including advanced sourcing, direct sourcing, automated supplier discovery, and commodity management to help dynamically plan and source. (This category was updated April 23 and is discussed in-depth here.)
3. Advanced procurement analytics to enable direct procurement and/or to perform “spend planning” when demand drops out or spikes. (Its profile for this series was updated April 22 and is available here.)
4. Procure to Pay (P2P) that emphasizes working capital, dynamic discounting, payment control and related finance priorities to help inject cash into the P2P process — especially for many cash-starved suppliers. (See details about this category here. It was updated April 24.)
5. Fraud, P2P and vendor management safeguards when new suppliers need to be set up quickly, and also when lowlife fraudsters try to use the pandemic as a way to steal money and IP. (Its profile for this series is here.)
6. Providers with deep contract analytics that can analyze a contract portfolio for affected contracts from suppliers (and customers) for not just force majeure clauses, but other related clauses that tie to the multiple risks popping up at once in the pandemic. (Read in-depth detail on this category here.)
7. Contingent Workforce and Services: See the four items mentioned above.

These data management and analytics solution solutions that we’re examining today also typically provide market rate benchmarking to ensure bill rate optimization as well as insights into labor markets/sources. When it comes to rate benchmarking, solutions generally address both CWs/MSP as well as permanent employees.

The solutions can support organizations in optimizing their contingent workforce management programs based on data and key metrics and benchmark programs against other programs (in the aggregate). Some providers offer capability to cost out and price SOW projects. Some providers go further.

Organizations may find these solutions more useful than ever if they are anticipating using more contingent workforce or services or have more churn in those areas — or want to get a better total talent perspective on extended and permanent workforce roles in the organization and their compensation costs. In the current coronavirus environment, organizations will be looking fundamentally into all segments of their workforces to get what the organization needs to do business, while being as cost efficient as possible.

In the contingent workforce and services (CW/S) category of Spend Matters’ Coronavirus Response series, our focus has been on solutions that are able to, at a minimum, help rapidly ramp up extended workforce to deal with resource shortfalls as well as manage and track external workers, projects and services providers.

We are examining four categories of relatively new types technology-enabled CW/S solutions for: (1) sourcing and managing remote/online work; (2) sourcing and managing mobile-equipped workers across geographical locations; (3) “direct sourcing;” (4) management of workers; and managing data and producing analytical outputs.

The overall series addresses seven categories of technology solutions that can help in a crisis:

1. Supply risk management solutions that include supply chain risk, CSR risk, supplier financial risk, etc. (Read this category’s PRO analysis and solution recommendations here.)
2. Sourcing and commodity management, including advanced sourcing, direct sourcing, automated supplier discovery, and commodity management to help dynamically plan and source. (This category was updated April 23 and is discussed in-depth here.)
3. Advanced procurement analytics to enable direct procurement and/or to perform “spend planning” when demand drops out or spikes. (Its profile for this series was updated April 22 and is available here.)
4. Procure to Pay (P2P) that emphasizes working capital, dynamic discounting, payment control and related finance priorities to help inject cash into the P2P process — especially for many cash-starved suppliers. (See details about this category here. It was updated April 24.)
5. Fraud, P2P and vendor management safeguards when new suppliers need to be set up quickly, and also when lowlife fraudsters try to use the pandemic as a way to steal money and IP. (Its profile for this series is here.)
6. Providers with deep contract analytics that can analyze a contract portfolio for affected contracts from suppliers (and customers) for not just force majeure clauses, but other related clauses that tie to the multiple risks popping up at once in the pandemic. (Read in-depth detail on this category here.)
7. Contingent Workforce and Services: See the four items mentioned above.

In this brief, we turn to solutions for direct sourcing of workforce/services: enterprise solutions that enable businesses to “direct source” (without using staffing supply chain) and engage/manage their own affiliated (bring-your-own) contract workers and specialized service providers in private resource pools. These solutions typically take the form of horizontal, standalone software applications, while some digital work/services platforms are tightly coupled with their own front-end “direct sourcing” enterprise application (e.g., Upwork Enterprise). In the context of this brief, we will focus on the direct sourcing solutions that are horizontal, standalone software applications.

A selection of direct sourcing solution providers — WorkMarket (an ADP company), TalentNet and Shortlist — will be highlighted below. This list, however, is not exhaustive. Before you see the profiles of example solutions, we'll discuss this category of solutions, problems and use cases, and the solution rationale and value.