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Technology and Innovation

On Extended Workforce Growth and the Future of Work: A Discussion with Utmost CEO and Co-Founder Annrai O’Toole

There is no debate as to the role and impact of the extended workforce. Upcoming Ardent Partners research (The State of Contingent Workforce Management 2021) finds that 82% of businesses across the world believe that their extended and agile workforce enabled them (and continues to enable them) with true workforce and staffing scalability in the face of a global pandemic and its far-reaching implications. And, now nearly halfway through 2021, the extended workforce will continue to grow in size and impact: 98% of business leaders stated that this workforce provides critical strategic value to greater enterprise.

Just yesterday, Utmost announced that it secured $21 million in Series B funding. Since its inception in 2018, the Extended Workforce Management System (EWS) platform has not only been passionate about the way businesses harness the power of the agile workforce but has differentiated itself from the contingent workforce solutions market through its unique features, functionality, and forward-thinking innovation.

I had the opportunity to chat with Utmost CEO and co-founder, Annrai O’Toole, about the funding news and what it means for the company:

Christopher J. Dwyer: Congrats on the recent news about the Series B funding. Why did Utmost go the Series B route? And, what attracted the new investor to Utmost?

Annrai O’Toole: A Series B was always in the plan. As you know, enterprise software is complex, and to meet the requirements of Global 1000 companies using Workday, and we needed a top-notch team to build out the key features these customers need.

As for why Mosaic Ventures invested: they recognized the changing nature of work. The legacy systems focused on, as the name suggests, vendor management instead of the entire extended workforce. As your (Ardent Partners) research shows, the typical enterprise workforce is 43% non-employee and only growing (Editor’s note: this figure has grown to 46.5%, as found by upcoming Ardent research). Mosaic recognized this trend, and those enterprises needed a solution to manage this workforce. But not yet another siloed system. Workday customers need an extended workforce system that directly aligns with Workday instead of building and maintaining complex, costly integrations that fail to give total visibility.

CJD: It must have been an exciting experience to fundraise in an entirely virtual environment. What was it like?

AOT: I’m not sure I would depict it as exciting! It was certainly different. It’s a tradeoff of efficiency vs personal connection. No need to fly around to meet people in person so it’s certainly more efficient in that regard. However, you don’t sense people’s body language so it’s harder to gauge how it’s going. Of course, we had none of that this past year, and I know most of your readers went through the same things in their own business. The industry adapted, and VC investment has continued at a strong pace!

CJD: How does Utmost plan to harness the Series B funding?

AOT: We will be primarily accelerating product innovation and expanding sales/marketing presence in North America and Europe. We have lots of great product ideas we want to see come to life: decision-based hiring support, a whole new take on invoice processing and of course our unique “global work graph.”  We also want to get that product to as many customers as possible. What that means is we will be hiring – lots: software engineers, excellent product folks, sales, and marketers who can help us deliver value to our customers.

CJD: What can customers expect to see in the future, especially regarding Utmost’s product roadmap and upcoming features and tools?

AOT: First and foremost, our roadmap will adapt to customer needs. Many of the traditional VMS platforms on the market have slow feature release cycles and are essentially still mired in an “on-premise” technology stack. “The difference between a walrus and a gymnast” is how one of our customers referred to a legacy provider and Utmost when it comes to deployment and product innovation.

With that said, there are a few areas that we plan to focus on:

  • Richer and more context aware sourcing workflows across both role-based and outcome-based engagements with the extended workers.
  • A “Front Door” to simplify centralize all hiring manager requests for work or workers.
  • First-rate Supplier and Worker Apps.
  • Best-in-Class, semantically rich, automation and integration with your key HR system: Workday.

CJD: The VMS and Extended Workforce technology market have grown increasingly competitive over the past 18 or so months. What makes Utmost so different?

AOT: Workday customers choose Utmost because of how closely aligned the software is with Workday. Rather than manage a whole separate data model for your extended workforce, Utmost aligns with Workday so you can achieve total talent management. You need to be able to view and manage your extended workforce in the context of your permanent employees.  It is either/or — Total Workforce means seeing both sets of Workers in a semantically consistent environment.

Other VMS platforms can build integrations with Workday, but only Utmost provides these rich behavioral semantics and matches the user interface of Workday to seamlessly synchronize all the relevant data from both systems. It’s that connection that makes the lives of HRIS teams and hiring managers much easier. And from a workforce planning perspective, you can’t do that unless you have a holistic view of the workforce.

Beyond the connection with Workday, Utmost acts as a “Front Door” to all types of work or worker requests. A typical VMS can handle SOW or staff augmentation work requests but cannot oversee contractors very well, and of course, an employee request is siloed from the VMS. Utmost guides hiring managers to the correct type of resource and reduces worker misclassification and simplifies the hiring manager experience. A manager shouldn’t need to know the difference between SOW or staff aug or contractor. She just wants the right resource at the right time to get work done; Utmost enables that.

Lastly, it’s the talent lens. Workers are more than their rate card. They have skills, previous engagements, nd performance scores. That history should travel with the worker. Utmost worker profiles are designed not only for the enterprise but for the worker herself. A robust contingent workforce program simultaneously promotes the worker, the supplier, and the enterprise. Most VMS are built from the enterprise perspective first. Suppliers and workers have to create logins for every new client and no real-time visibility into their engagements.

CJD: Where do you see Utmost in a few years? What does the market look like?

AOT: Fundamentally we believe that the future of work is all about the extended workforce. Over the last 20 years the employee experience has been transformed by enterprise applications. However, the extended workforce has been left behind — it’s in a shadow. Worse than that, we’ve had 20 years of treating the worker as a mere rate card. Utmost wants to shake this all up and bring innovation, visibility, clarity and cohesiveness to the whole extended workforce.

We know that enterprises are really asking for something new in the whole area of the extended workforce.  We believe that the market is ready for change too and we’re going to give it our utmost to make things better!

For additional insights from Christopher and Annrai, check out their discussion on the Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast.

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Could NFTs Signal Another Future of Work Pathway for Blockchain?

The first time I learned about nonfungible tokens (NFTs) occurred while perusing Twitter last summer. Seeing that Topps, perhaps the most-revered name in collectable trading cards, was going “full blockchain” a little over a year ago sparked an interesting dive down a rabbit hole of blockchain, the evolution of e-commerce, and, perhaps, yet another link to the Future of Work movement. Will blockchain finally take its rightful place within the pantheon of Future of Work-era innovation, or will it be limited to the crypto-fueled world of NFTs?

NFTs, Explained…Quickly

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are, in essence, a digital record that confers ownership of a specific asset. This record does not bestow “rights” but rather ownership of the asset, details of which are permanently recorded in a public database.

The NFT is stored in a shared global database that runs on, yes, you guessed it…blockchain!

Decentralization is the Future of Work Key

The biggest claim to fame (besides cryptocurrency, of course) for blockchain’s impact within the greater world of business was always its decentralized means of permanently recording information and data in an unalterable way. Back in 2016, which now seems like forever ago (thank you, pandemic!), I wrote about blockchain’s near-limitless potential in transforming how business was done. Innovation, of course, is the pumping heart of the Future of Work movement; blockchain, then, represented a way for businesses to not only transform the way they record information (such as contracts, IP, SOWs, and impactful data), but could also help to streamline the human touchpoints inherent in finance, accounting, payment management, and contract management to permanently eliminate errors and inconsistencies. In the continuing crossover between personal and business worlds, “digital wallets” or “e-wallets” leverage blockchain as a storage device for funds, gift cards, personal information, and more, furthering the growth and impact of blockchain technology.

Even with a pandemic raging across the globe, blockchain still had moves to make in 2020. “Decentralized finance” was a big hit for the blockchain movement as more and more consumers and business leaders alike bought into peer-to-peer transactions that eschewed traditional measures (such as banks and standard payment outlets), and, digital wallets became a trusted means for consumers that wanted to shun cash as a safer payment option while shopping.

“Decentralized commerce,” also known as dCommerce or DeFi, has a simple goal in mind that traverses beyond decentralized banking or finance: untether commerce from monopolistic giants in retail and other major markets. Blockchain-driven dCommerce networks, such as the Worldwide Asset eXchange (WAX), which specializes in the creation and sales of NFTs and similar assets, in addition to the already-proven advantages of digital wallets, could be harbingers of the future of blockchain in other business realms…even in how talent is engaged in the years to come.

“Open Talent,” Frictionless Talent Acquisition, and the Next Great Era of Workforce Management

The concept of digital wallets could point to how talent is engaged and sourced in the very near future. John Healy, Vice President at the World Employment Confederation, believes that this technological progression could very well be the Future of Work movement’s most crucial pathway into connecting people with projects and work.

“Digital wallets are emerging as an essential asset to our personal privacy and safety, and as governments recognize the need to leverage such a tool as a way to have trusted access to verify vaccinations, the next question they are asking is, “What else should be in that digital wallet?” Healy said. “Information regarding your identity, eligibility to work, your education, employment history, certifications and licenses, any assessments, awards or achievements…all part of the solutions that are actively being deployed using blockchain technology. 100%, this is part of how we will reduce friction in the ways that people connect with work – speeding up the time from application to paycheck, and interview to productivity, while also helping improve wellness for individuals and communities.”

If NFTs are the hot tech attribute du jour and bring more attention to digital wallets and the decentralization of commerce and finance through the advent of blockchain, we could certainly soon live in a world that untethers traditional talent networks and places more emphasis on the unalterable permanent scale of information enabled by blockchain. The freeform sharing of ideas, projects, information, intelligence, and yes, even talent, could lead to a relatively frictionless “open talent movement” as a Future of Work undercurrent.

Vaccine records (a topic worth digging deeper into), portfolios of work, certifications, education, and assessments are all critical measures of the true impact and alignment of talent with work and business projects. As decentralization and blockchain continue to transform the world of work, as non-traditional/non-employee talent continues to grow in both size and prominence, and as business leaders continue to rely on talent clouds and talent communities for agile workforce needs, it’s not too difficult to think of an environment in which a peer-to-peer, frictionless, and “open” culture permeates into the next great era of workforce management.

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