Customer Success Stories | Vendor Management System

SMART TRACK VMS: Powering Up Nuclear Energy

A large power plant needed a new Vendor Management System (VMS) to replace their outdated, inflexible VMS to help onboard between 5,000 to 6,000 contractors, depending on the season. The VMS had to be compatible with all segments of the company from corporate/IT to call center as well as have the flexibility to serve two immensely different divisions as well as incorporate a wide variety of diverse yet often separate integrations for each of those business units.

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GAMIFICATION - LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

A digital services company with more than 5,000 employees in 35 offices nationwide was working with Smart Track by DCR. They were having difficulty enticing their end user to use the Vendor Management System (VMS) effectively and completely. The client was already running Smart Track by DCR as their VMS for more than two years with overall success. However, one of their challenges was getting their end users to fully incorporate the all of the components. The end users thought that it was a boring chore to log in to the VMS, complete the tasks and input additional information.

FLEXIBILITY IT’S JUST A STRETCH

Due to the government enforced restrictions, the client needed to subcontract a percentage of the spend to different diversity categories, including a Native-American owned company which would be difficult just to find. There were strict rules about the capture and tracking of the diversity spend, specifically on tracking multiple categories. In this case, the government had also tied a portion of the profit to be paid out only after the subcontracting goals were met. If the restrictions were not strictly adhered to, significant penalties could be imposed and keeping the project contract and receiving payment would be in jeopardy. A financial loss to the contractor was imminent.

INTELLIGENCE - WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW CAN COST YOU

The client had no experience creating and reviewing any kind of complete and coherent data on their labor force so had no knowledge of how much was being spent company-wide in overtime hours, per diem, travel and other expenses.

MORPHING COMPLEXITY INTO SIMPLICITY

The client had almost no existing processes in place other than a basic payroll system. They needed to adopt a program in a matter of weeks to coincide with the conclusion of the payroll company contract. Additionally, almost 1,000 staff members, staffing professionals, and workers located in numerous locations would need to be trained on any new system.

QUASHING CHAOS: A STORY OF INNOVATION

The client had no dedicated hiring managers, only floor managers who had their own responsibilities and very little free time to create extremely detailed job descriptions or profiles of the types of candidates desired. Suppliers tasked with finding qualified candidates for the company were struggling, as they did not possess a clear understanding of the skill sets and experience required of workers. Complicating matters further, the requirements fluctuated often depending on the contracts being fulfilled. As a result, hiring and retaining capable and competent labor was chaotic, causing delivery to suffer.

SOW: MAKING A STATEMENT

The client had been using a VMS that proved unsuccessful in completely fulfilling their needs. To better this, many pieces of a puzzle had to fit together, and many factors had to be considered including a mix of onshore (U.S.) and offshore (India) projects, thousands of workers tracked just for headcount purposes, and multiple suppliers supporting both their contingent workforce as well as outsourced projects. There were also multiple systems in place, one for each department including HR, accounting, and procurement. The current VMS was supporting contingent workers but not supporting the entire non-employee workforce.

SOW: PLAYING FOR THE ADVANTAGE - CALCULATING ALL THE RIGHT MOVES

Complexities abounded: In addition to multiple SOW projects, the program was extremely complex in scope. The myriad projects were consolidated into one large all-encompassing SOW program with a series of deliverables that spanned across four continents, including seven countries with six suppliers who each had various task orders and payment schedules to maintain.

TACKLING CHANGE MANAGEMENT

The company faced numerous challenges primarily due to the fact that it had hundreds of contingent workers spread across several business units, and each unit had its own specific individual process requirements.

xCHANGE: THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

The client needed to reduce the time to fill available contract positions and to retain non-employees for extended or multiple contracts. These tasks were dependent solely on suppliers, and while Service level agreements (SLAs) were being monitored and the activities of the suppliers were being tracked, there was no way of assisting suppliers in finding qualified candidates more quickly. Additionally, there was no way to attract candidates who were interested in working for the company or to ensure existing workers would even consider returning to complete additional contracts.