Key Takeaways
- Procurement teams often face challenges with effective vendor management, cost reduction, and compliance.
- A vendor management system (VMS) can help solve these primary pain points, centralize vendors in a single system, organize legal documents, and reduce costs.
- By speeding up procurement cycles, a VMS in staffing enhances the efficiency of talent acquisition teams, enabling faster hiring and better outcomes.
Listen: How to overcome procurement challenges in recruiting.
Any procurement team will echo the idea that improving efficiency is the name of the game. From selecting and onboarding vendors to accessing data and analytics to saving costs and reducing risk, a procurement leader smooths out all bumps along the road to bringing on new talent.
Yet, onboarding new search firms often begins with informal deals and word-of-mouth referrals, which can be difficult to track and manage effectively, let alone keep compliant. Add to that the challenges of cost reduction and pressure to fill orders fast, and it's easy to see how procurement teams get overloaded.
For procurement professionals, using a VMS can help solve problems with current procurement systems. In this blog, we'll dive deeper into typical procurement challenges and tips for how to solve them using a VMS.
Challenges for procurement management in recruitment
A procurement professional's main role is effective vendor management, with cost reduction and compliance always in mind. Here are some procurement challenges staffing teams face, plus how a VMS can solve problems with current procurement systems.
Challenge: Limited access to data and analytics
Challenges for procurement often include not having the right access to data and analytics. One recurring issue we hear from employers is that they don't have the reporting or insights they need to make informed business decisions. For example, procurement teams often lack visibility into spending with third-party search firms. Without that data, they can't focus on cost reduction or identify if they're overspending.
How a VMS helps:
A VMS in staffing keeps all contracts and vendors in one secure system and provides access to analytics that allow for better decision-making.
Challenge: Informal supplier selection
Supplier selection is another common challenge. Informal deals and lack of transparency can lead to difficulties, especially if leaders find someone they want to work with and move forward without formalizing the process. This leaves procurement in a reactive position.
How a VMS helps:
With a VMS, suppliers are vetted to ensure compliance with governing policies, streamlining the selection process and improving procurement efficiency.
Challenge: Red tape with onboarding selection
Often, onboarding a new search firm can take months. This type of delay can negatively impact sourcing speed and overall efficiency.
How a VMS helps:
With a VMS, all search firm engagement is pre-vetted and included. For example, if an employer comes to the procurement team with a specific search firm they want, and that firm is not yet in the VMS, they can be onboarded to the system in a matter of days. In contrast, the employer's internal process could take several months. The VMS reduces red tape and speeds up onboarding significantly.
Challenge: Lack of control over costs
Cost management is another top priority for procurement. When a search firm has a direct contract with an employer, verbal agreements can happen before procurement gets involved. This can be problematic if the verbal agreement on pricing is more costly than expected.
How a VMS helps:
A VMS gives procurement teams full control over pricing, allowing them to adjust costs based on organizational needs to avoid overspending.
Challenge: Compliance risks
How a VMS helps:
Keeping all recruiting contracts and agreements within a VMS helps companies keep all their legal documents in a central platform.
Challenge: Inefficient use of time
Finally, time utilization is a critical factor. Reducing the lengthy cycle times for procurement processes improves the efficiency of talent acquisition teams and the overall department.
How a VMS helps:
One of the biggest selling points of a VMS is speed. When procurement teams can increase their speed to onboard staffing vendors, it's a win for the client, the talent, and the procurement professionals who achieve their goals faster.
How Aquent Scout can help
Procurement leaders constantly seek ways to optimize resources to drive better outcomes for the organization. With the right VMS, organizations can stop worrying about being overloaded and start focusing on making the right connections between preferred vendors and open roles. A VMS can help avoid the headaches of procurement challenges and, in turn, streamline hiring, improve communications, and keep control over pricing.
With Aquent Scout, Talent Acquisition (TA) Teams can engage all their preferred vendors with on-demand access to a curated recruitment marketplace of contracted search firms. Scout gives you control over pricing, simple vendor management, and compliance confidence within a single smart system.
Learn about how Aquent Scout can help you say goodbye to procurement overload. Contact our team today to learn more.
