This week’s all-new Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast, sponsored by PRO Unlimited, reflects back on the year that was as we look forward to a 2022 that is founded on innovation, progressive business thinking, and work optimization.
Tune into Episode 609 of Contingent Workforce Weekly below, or subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, Stitcher, or iHeartRadio.
Nearly five years ago, the merger between Vendor Management System (VMS) giants Beeline and IQNavigator was a monumental event in the workforce management solutions industry. Two-and-a-half years earlier, software conglomerate SAP purchased Fieldglass for $1B, by far the biggest transaction in the VMS technology arena up until that time. And, just three years ago, business spend management leader Coupa purchased DCR Workforce, with the solution now integrated into the platform’s core offering and known as Coupa Contingent Workforce.
These were watershed moments in the history of workforce management software, with four major VMS players undergoing mass-scale transformations that would forever shape the future of the industry.
Late last week, enterprise software giant Workday announced that it agreed to acquire fast-growing VMS solution VNDLY in a $510M deal. The monetary terms of the soon-to-be-confirmed transaction sent shockwaves throughout the industry; VNDLY’s “vendor-friendly” and API- and integration-flexible software quickly became an enterprise-grade platform in a short period of time (it was founded in 2017), impacting the world of work by presenting both HR and procurement practitioners (as well as Managed Service Providers) with another technological option in a fairly mature software space.
The acquisition of VNDLY certainly seems like a market-shifting event, however, the world of work and talent is markedly different than it was even three years ago. Thus, we need to look at this event from a different lens than the ones we traditionally use to measure the impact of a major market acquisition.
Yes, this is a major score for Workday, no matter how we view the deal today. Workday invests half of what SAP did over seven years ago for the one the industry’s fastest-growing and most flexible VMS platforms. VNDLY’s strengths lie in its advanced cloud infrastructure, incredibly strong provisioning tools, robust SOW management and service procurement modules, truly agile analytics, and real-time workforce visibility. And, its core automation is incredibly configurable and designed to be a flexible VMS platform. The opportunity for Workday is clear: sell their HR clients on the merits of bringing procurement-led vendor management automation into the HR tech fold. A tall task, for sure, considering that one of several visions for the original SAP Fieldglass deal revolved around the synergies with SAP SuccessFactors (many of which have not yet been realized).
However, the workforce solutions industry is different than other business software realms. When SAP bought Fieldglass (remember, for a BILLION dollars), it was market-shifting. There were a handful of leaders in the space that felt the impact immediately. It was the same for the Beeline-IQN merger; it transformed the market heading into 2017 and opened the doors for a new way of looking at vendor management software. Coupa buying DCR was a move that spoke directly to the company’s appetite for addressing a major gap in the procurement technology market.
The VNDLY acquisition, and especially its price-point, are eye-popping. This is amazing news for the workforce management space, especially for a team that grew from startup mode to enterprise technology faster than anyone else. They deserve major kudos and the future is indeed bright for VNDLY and its technology as it arms itself with the power of Workday’s vast global reach (and deep, deep R&D resources). We cannot, however, get too focused on “prisoner of the moment” analysis here; there’s so much more to our industry than a single provider changing hands to the tune of a half-billion dollars.
It is critical to remind ourselves that we are truly living in an age of workforce technology innovation. Utmost is redefining the concept of total talent management and providing near-unrivaled workforce visibility to its clients. PRO Unlimited is actively transforming itself into a forward-thinking, end-to-end platform for all talent and workforce activity. Beeline morphed fundamental pieces of itself by offering extended workforce technology that traverses beyond its powerful VMS platform (and tapping into the reach of its talent technology ecosystem to do so). Platforms such as ELEVATE, Eqip, and Pixid are bringing unique viewpoints to the market.
We also need to look no further than the direct sourcing technology arena for even more instances of workforce management innovation. WorkLLama is one of the most exciting and groundbreaking platforms in the industry. LiveHire’s direct sourcing automation is revolutionizing talent pool strategies. Opptly is bringing a new technological voice to the market based on decades of workforce management expertise.
Companies like Upwork are reconceiving the role of digital staffing by blending a deep talent marketplace with innovative, end-to-end workforce management functionality. The Mom Project’s robust technology, deep talent marketplace, and focus on DE&I positions it as a truly unique and inventive solution. Talmix is bringing to market a unique blend of talent marketplace and direct sourcing functionality. Platforms like Prosperix are bringing a Future of Work dynamic into the workforce solutions fold.
To dig even further into what others in the space are doing, let’s revisit PRO Unlimited’s past 12 months of activity: the company bought leading rate management solution PeopleTicker, expanded its European MSP reach with the acquisition of Brainnet Group, entered into the industry’s first partnership with the unique Eightfold AI, bought fellow market-leading MSP/VMS hybrid Workforce Logiq, and then, most recently, acquired the dynamic direct sourcing platform WillHire.
Simply put: the workforce solutions arena is in a much different place than it was several years ago. Innovation is rampant today, and, the greater workforce technology ecosystem (VMS, EWS, direct sourcing, digital staffing, talent marketplaces, etc.) are collectively reimagining how businesses 1) drive efficiencies around the engagement and management of the extended workforce, 2) derive workforce scalability through dynamic engagement automation, 3) augment the inherent flexibility of extended talent, and, most critically, 4) aid how businesses get work done.
On the Thursday afternoon edition of Mad Money (with Jim Cramer), Workday’s Chief Strategy Officer, Pete Schlampp, stated that the focus on the VNDLY acquisition was “attaching to this trend in the pandemic; workers want more flexibility and companies want to have more control over their extended workforce.” He added that businesses want “to be able to flex and expand quickly” and the VNDLY acquisition will allow Workday users to execute total workforce optimization.
Schlampp is correct in the sense that businesses want more scalability and that workers want more flexibility, however, linking these major workforce attributes solely with the COVID-19 pandemic is absolutely selling short the continued growth, evolution, and impact of the extended workforce over the past several years, as well as the vast amount of innovation that has been developed and offered by a wide variety of platforms for the years before the public health crisis hit. Consider that:
The ultimate point is this: today, it’s not just about managing suppliers and vendors and merely augmenting a contingent workforce management agenda on the world of talent, but rather looking at how to manage the workforce effectively in optimizing how work is done. Several years ago, a VNDLY acquisition by Workday would be the biggest transformative shift across the workforce management technology landscape. Today, it represents one of many innovative approaches to getting work done.
The Background:
Given the many advancements and accelerants happening in the greater world of work and talent, the very notion of “interconnectivity” has become a critical way of businesses, workers, suppliers, and services to interact in an on-demand manner without the barriers of old. And, with digital transformation sparking many more businesses to reevaluate existing processes and systems with the goal of being more dynamic, there is increased pressure for both organizations and highly-skilled workers (and services) to “meet” each other in real-time.
Enter Bench.
Why They Were Selected:
The Bench platform, otherwise known as a “Digital Ecosystem Enablement Platform” (DEEP), is a robust solution that empowers the development of trusted networks of capabilities and services by connecting customers, businesses, partners, and suppliers quickly and seamlessly. Bench’s unique offering allows businesses to monetize supplier partnerships, consolidate talent and service networks, and complement existing products/services with well-aligned partners.
Bench excels in enabling a seamless ecosystem that promotes communication and discovery amongst an organization’s total network of suppliers, contractors, and talent…meaning that when a customer requires a complex approach to a critical project, the Bench platform can efficiently catalyze collaboration between partners whilst maximizing the value of automated time-and-materials processes, SOW management, etc.
In Their Own Words:
Companies of all sizes are reimagining every aspect of their business models, creating demand for Information, Community, and Technology (ICT) services at an unprecedented pace and scale. The intensity of competition is forcing ICT businesses to not always engage partners/suppliers to receive design input, availability and competitive pricing.
Add to the mix a rapidly changing services landscape, and many simply walk away from opportunities.
In an ideal world, these businesses need to make informed decisions, backed by robust data and real time market intelligence, to bid on opportunities with confidence.
Unfortunately, the answers are trapped in spreadsheets, emails, and ad-hoc sales processes. Answers which are typically out of date and require considerable time and effort to find.
The net effect of this is many businesses commit proposals to customers and then hope they can deliver at the mercy of their suppliers/partners. Or worse still, they simply miss out on opportunities “leaving money on the table”.
Why? The answer is simple. There’s no fast, easy, seamless way to engage their services and partner ecosystem early in the sales cycle. Until now.
The Outlook:
Bench does not fit the “typical” mold of a modern-day digital staffing technology platform. However, it utilizes its powerful ecosystem functionality to boost the collaboration between a business, its services architecture, its suppliers, and total talent in responding to new sales inquiries. In a world that relies on digitization and dynamic technology to connect various pieces of contemporary business, Bench stands out as a truly innovative platform that has the potential to revolutionize how enterprises transform their business models.
In a Future of Work-driven world that prioritizes flexibility, digitization, and interconnectivity, Bench is well-positioned to help enterprises reimagine their services, products, and solutions with its robust digital ecosystem enablement model.
For the past eighteen months, we’ve heard one refrain more than most: “The Future of Work is flexibility.” While the underlying and foundational elements of the so-called “next normal” are indeed rooted in flexibility, we’re overlooking so much when limiting the Future of Work movement to a rise in agile and flexible talent, agile and flexible processes, and an agile and flexible business culture.
Let’s forget for a moment that the very concept of “remote work” has dominated nearly every business discussion over the past year-and-a-half; while Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 41% of workers are now operating in a remote or hybrid model (compared with 23% during pre-pandemic times), these conversations don’t change the fact that, moving forward, this will become (if it isn’t already) a standard way of working.
The deeper discussions around and within the Future of Work revolve around innovation, not just flexibility or agility. Flexibility itself is just one strategy to apply to how work gets done; innovation, on the other hand, is how work is optimized. The Future of Work revolves around the many slivers of innovation that help businesses: 1) tap into the skills they need in an on-demand fashion, 2) harness the power of new and emerging technology platforms, 3) transform the very way they think about business leadership and business development, and, 4) reimagine the very ways the workforce contributes to and addresses how work is done.
As such, the following outlets of innovation are truly what will drive the Future of Work into 2022 and beyond:
Make no mistake about it: the Future of Work and flexibility will be forever linked, especially as we crawl our way out of the most uncertain period of both our personal and professional lives. However, when we get to the very core of the Future of Work movement, innovation must be its nexus for businesses to truly optimize how work is done.
[Editor’s Note: “FOWX Alert” – The Exchange’s coverage and analysis of the Future of Work industry’s most important news, including major announcements, M&A, and other breaking stories.]
To say that global workforce management solutions provider PRO Unlimited has been aggressive in disrupting the market is a vast understatement. In the span of less than a year, the company has:
And, this week, PRO Unlimited announced that it will acquire Workforce Logiq, one of the workforce management technology landscape’s biggest and most mature players. This news is yet another indicator that PRO will continue its aggressive approach towards realizing its goal of becoming an on-demand, agile, and flexible end-to-end platform for managing non-employee and extended talent.
What is particularly interesting about this acquisition that both PRO and Workforce Logiq are like-minded solutions; both have industry longevity on their side and offer hybrid Managed Services Provider (MSP) solutions and Vendor Management System (VMS) technology. In addition, both companies have harnessed innovative approaches towards workforce management technology, particularly in the arena of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics (in fact, we just spoke with Workforce Logiq’s Chief Strategy Officer, Joe Hanna, about this topic on FOWX).
“Both companies have a similar “platform” vision with two like-minded executive and product teams,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited. “We essentially both saw the market in the same way, so we knew that [the acquisition] was already heading in the right strategic direction. The cultures between PRO and Workforce Logiq are incredibly well-aligned, as well, and there are many talented people that are now part of the PRO family.”
Together, the two solutions will represent a massive disruptor in the contingent workforce management (CWM) solutions marketplace. This acquisition will allow PRO to expand its global reach even further and enable existing Workforce Logiq clients the sheer breadth of offerings under the PRO umbrella. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange instant analysis is as follows:
Beyond the obvious “scale” factors of the acquisition (such as combining two of the industry’s largest providers from RPO, payrolling, and other standard workforce management operations), there is something much larger – and more critical – at play: the fact that PRO Unlimited now has incredible positioning as an end-to-end workforce management solution that leads with innovation, data, and intelligence. Workforce Logiq’s main differentiators from the MSP pack have always sat in its wide-ranging abilities to plug-and-play real-time labor market, job role, rate, and other forms of deep intelligence into its core managed service operations. That PRO now has these functionalities at its fingertips is a true competitive transformation for the platform.
“There are incredible synergies here between the two solutions,” Akeroyd said. “Adding Workforce Logiq’s deep ocean of data and their innovative analytical tools to PRO’s end-to-end platform are going to be very impactful in how we continue to transform contingent workforce management for our customers. This is an acquisition that truly allows us to accelerate on our vision.”
(Financial terms of the acquisition, which is expected to close in Q4, were not disclosed. Stay tuned to the Future of Work Exchange for more insights on the evolving workforce management technology landscape.)
An all-new edition of the Contingent Workforce Weekly episode, sponsored by DZConneX, a Yoh company, features a discussion with Matt Pietsch, Chief Strategy Officer at High5. Matt and I chat about the digital staffing industry, the evolution of direct sourcing, the outlook for the Future of Work movement, and much more.
Tune into Episode 604 of Contingent Workforce Weekly below, or subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, Stitcher, or iHeartRadio.
[Editor’s Note: Today’s article is a guest contribution from Sunil Bagai, CEO of Prosperix.]
When describing the Future of Work, it’s worth keeping in mind a quote from the sci-fi author William Gibson: “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” Over the past two decades, we’ve all seen industries transformed by technology – travel agencies barely exist anymore, taxis are in a battle with Uber and Lyft for their very existence, and we can purchase virtually anything from groceries to cars online. Travel, transportation, commerce, and entertainment, have all become infinitely more frictionless (and often more affordable) experiences.
All of these examples occurred in established industries that had seen sustained success – and stagnation of technology and business innovation. Many players in those industries were utterly caught by surprise and got left behind. Their customers abandoned them, and why wouldn’t they? It’s not just the application of data and technology to solve problems that’s changed – our perceptions of what’s possible need to change as well.
For businesses to evolve from where they are today to where they aspire to be in the future, they must think and act differently. To help businesses realize their highest potential and deliver meaningful impact, they need new ways of building and managing a thriving workforce.
The world of hiring, and contingent hiring in particular, has been a world of silos and limited data for a long time. That’s led to a particular view of contingent hiring, one that’s full of inefficiencies and process issues. Ferrying data between an ATS, VMS, Talent CRM, and other solutions leads to leakage and an inability to treat hiring as a holistic process. As technology solutions continue to merge traditionally siloed functionality, a world of possibility is opened up for the future of work. Below are some of the principles that guide us at Prosperix, that we believe will create a future that leads to prosperity for all of the stakeholders in the hiring ecosystem.
The future is already here, it’s just not everywhere yet. To learn more about our vision for the Future of Work, reach out to us at solutions@prosperix.com.