Less is more: Build Confidence with Supplier Optimization

There’s a myth circulating in the workforce solutions industry. Facing immense cost pressures and ongoing labor market tightness, employers are turning to increasing the number of suppliers to fulfill their workforce needs. Their intentions are in the right place — they are simply trying to secure the best possible rate for the largest network of potential workers. But when it comes to building a reliable network of suppliers, less is more.

Because most suppliers rely on the same talent pools, there’s a lot of overlap from one vendor to the next, which can result in double dipping — or worse. In addition to creating unnecessary redundancies, we’ve found that, by stretching supplier contracts too thin, companies are losing out on the best pricing as suppliers are unable to extend the steepest discounts to smaller volume clients. This acts as a double-edged sword, creating a false sense of security with suppliers that are unable to meet a company’s entire range of needs while undermining efforts to access quality talent when it’s most critical.

If one thing is clear in today’s complex marketplace, now is the time to be working smarter — not harder. By partnering with a trusted expert like AgileOne, you can go from a Hail Mary approach to building real confidence into your workforce strategy. Here are three ways we can help you get there:

1. Optimize

As it turns out, a magic number of suppliers does exist. While it varies from company to company, we can help you find yours. With access to a diverse global network of more than 2,500 suppliers, we provide a supply base that is robust yet flexible enough to withstand market and business fluctuations.

We’ll begin with a top-to-bottom analysis of your supplier contracts, digging in to understand how many suppliers you are utilizing — and for which roles. We’ll measure the performance of each supplier across a number of metrics in order to quantify how effectively they align with your current needs, and categorize supplier contracts as active or dormant. Then, we’ll focus on advising and assisting you with building deeper relationships with your core suppliers.

This process, called supplier optimization, is a proven tactic to enhance the efficiency of your supplier base, which leads to improved quality, cost savings, and increased value.

A supplier optimization process is most effective when it’s conducted alongside a trusted partner in the workforce solutions industry, like AgileOne, which brings decades of experience to the important task of unpacking your suppliers’ full potential.

2. Maintain

It’s not enough to stop at supplier optimization. In today’s unpredictable economic climate, conditions can change rapidly, requiring companies to maintain a thorough and evolving understanding of how to best meet their workforce needs as they turn their attention to implementing their MSP.

I can’t stress enough how useful data can be when it comes to managing your supplier relationships. As the Senior Vice President of Enterprise Transformation at AgileOne, with responsibility for helping companies develop workforce solutions strategies that are truly innovative, I lean on a whole host of metrics when advising our clients through complex decision-making processes.

Leveraging AccelerationVMS — AgileOne’s proprietary vendor management system — we can illuminate opportunities using data that are grounded in projections, rather than trends.

In turn, this empowers your company to make confident decisions using up-to-the-minute analytics.

But while some platforms focus on converting customers into data analysts, AccelerationVMS is powered by people. That means we’ll never put you in a position to try and make sense of the numbers on your own — all while juggling the critical work of people management. Instead, we work alongside our clients to uncover insights that are hiding behind the numbers so you can have the complete confidence of knowing you’re making the right call.

3. Diversify

Underlying everything I’ve highlighted so far is diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The idea is not new — but it’s never been as relevant as it is today, at a time when companies are finding that partnering with diverse suppliers is not only the right thing to do, but it can help companies tap into so-called ‘hidden workers’ as a means of closing the gap on hard-to-find talent. This summer alone, I participated in three webinars and spoke on two panels dedicated to DEI and the contingent workforce. More recently, I attended an event on the topic of DEI that was filled to capacity, welcoming more than three times as many participants as they originally planned for.

The conversations are a key step toward understanding and correcting generations of inequity in hiring, and they’re drawing crowds, underscoring the seismic shift that’s taking place beneath our feet.

I’ve written before about how AgileOne is taking a meaningful approach to DEI, expanding our operations to work more effectively across continents and cultures. Diversity runs deep; in addition to being a woman and minority-certified business, we are proud of our industry-leading 100% Tier 1 Diversity Spend and 42% Tier 2 Diversity Spend across all of our supplier programs. More than a commitment to a more inclusive future for workers everywhere, this reflects our belief that there is no way to think outside the box if everyone thinks, sounds, and acts the same.

At AgileOne, we’re in the business of helping our clients build confidence into their workforce strategies. Reach out to your AgileOne representative or schedule a consultation with us today to learn how we can put our expertise to work for you.