• 3 min read

Student Loan Provider Replaces an Incumbent Vendor Management System (VMS)

Client Profile: A nationwide student loan provider

Challenge

In early 2018, our client chose Simplify VMS to manage their contingent labor management program in the U.S. Prior to engaging Simplify VMS, the client’s hiring managers and procurement specialists experienced several challenges with their existing VMS, including:

  • The client’s incumbent VMS required significant manual effort, and approval workflows were cumbersome and confusing; replacing the VMS tool became an immediate mandate

  • They didn’t have one centralized process or tool to manage their contingent workforce; creating a significant burden surrounding supplier engagement (e.g., billing reconciliation, talent sourcing, etc.)

  • They didn’t have full visibility into non-employees working for their organization; where they were located, which agency they were from, or which compliance procedures were followed (if any) to onboard them

  • As a result of ongoing integration issues, the traditional benefits associated with employing a VMS were not realized

Through a competitive RFP bid process, the client decided to go with Simplify VMS due to its strength in integrations, overall system configurability, and for its flexible approach that supports programs with scalable spend.

“Centralizing our contingent workforce program’s processes and information into one main channel shows us the value of having an integrated tool that organizes our data, people, and processes. Having everything organizes made it easy to pull reports, which helped guide our labor strategy. The tool has saved us time, but more importantly the analytics and reporting have enabled us to identify gaps in our labor strategy that we didn’t know existed. The end result: we’re able to optimize our program’s contributions to the firm, while also saving time and money.”

Solution

As part of the VMS onboarding process, significant efforts on both the client and VMS side were made to scope the program’s challenges and build a long-term success plan together. For instance, by becoming the single channel of information for the entire program, the VMS became the client’s go-to tool throughout the business day. This alleviated a significant amount of administrative burden on the client’s HR team as the VMS managed and provided easily retrievable reports on their talent supply chain. This also provided the client sponsor and VMS coordinator the time needed to focus on developing a talent acquisition and supplier rationalization strategy.

By developing a strong, symbiotic, relationship between the client and Simplify VMS’ center of excellence team, trust was established and confidence in a successful long-term strategy was achieved, allowing stakeholders in both organizations to drive positive business outcomes. As a result, the client supported onboarding Simplify VMS’ recommended data analytics partner for additional transparency into the labor market. Onboarding of a new tool paved the way for driving the program’s visibility into its contingent workforce and talent supply chain, and also helped consolidate and optimize program spend through one overarching process.

Result

By having a trusted technology partner, the client sponsor had enough confidence in the relationship to consolidate a recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) effort, a function whose scope fell outside of the program, to be included within Simplify VMS’ efforts, which ultimately resulted in $300,000 in validated cost savings.

By onboarding the right VMS, the client sponsors have integrated successfully with their ever changing technology stack, consolidated their program spend, developed internal buy-in to help further build the program (which is expected to double in 2019), gained visibility over their contingent workforce, and have already achieved significant cost savings in a short period of time.

Overall, the client sponsor, in conjunction with the VMS implementation and center of excellence teams, achieved efficiencies out of the program and created metrics which supported HR initiatives, while driving down contingent labor program costs by over 10% in their first year.