Managed Service Providers (MSPs) play a critical part in helping organizations manage their extended workforce. MSP services go well beyond helping organizations fill positions, as they encompass talent advisors who guide organizations on their journey to source and manage all their non-employees and respective suppliers.

A vendor management system (VMS) digitizes the interaction between the MSP and the buyers and suppliers of talent. However, it should be noted that the impact the VMS has on the MSP is much more than a simple and configurable workflow engine. The VMS is directly correlated to the overall success and business viability of the MSP.

Below are just some of the main expectations an MSP requires from a VMS in order to be successful:

• The MSP must have the ability to automate tasks to minimize administrative functions and lower delivery costs and the overall total cost of ownership (TCO). In turn, this enables the MSP to focus on higher-value strategic activities.
• The MSP needs technology to quickly deploy integrations to improve efficiency, remove redundancy, increase compliance and minimize risk.
• It must have integrated case management tools to easily interact with customers and quickly respond to their talent needs. This should be done without the need to do tracking and reporting manually.
• It must push data to identify trends and quickly respond to changing customer demands. This improves the management of teams and resources.
• A capable MSP should provide real-time reporting to easily track program service level agreements (SLAs), key performance indicators (KPIs) and overall customer satisfaction. This makes it easier to highlight the value of the solution to program stakeholders.
• A VMS needs to continually evolve and innovate to drive new opportunities and help expand the MSP’s footprint within organizations as they work toward total talent management solutions.
• Both the MSP and VMS must have the ability to be agile to deploy new solutions and respond to ongoing requests. In turn, this reduces the time to value (TTV) that these solutions provide organizations.

All of these are critical to the overall success of the MSP’s core function. As a result, this MSP and VMS relationship are much more than just a partnership. It’s a bond that requires both to stand together to solve their joint challenges. They need to be integrated every step of the way as they are critical to each other’s success.

Flextrack is a leader in non-employee workforce management and is focused on expanding the idea of humanizing technology. Our mission is what drives us to create strategic workforce programs that are inclusive of all. To learn more visit flextrack.com.