Vendor Management Services

[Marlin Plank]

With all my frustration in dealing with VMS tools over the past years it was interesting to see one of the larger tools Ensemble Chimes fall to bankruptcy last week. In a time where the traditional contingent model is being tweaked and repositioned as RPO and MSP to name a few....which direction will prevail to be the model of the future?

My personal take is that a combination of staffing models will continue to benefit larger organizations and understand that as the economy changes our sourcing strategies will need to continually change as well.

[Simon Meth]

Hi Marlin,

I have no idea since I've been looking at VMS from the sidelines. Perhaps you'd like to write some more on the subject? I could post on http://www.ere.net/blogs/SittingXlegged/ if you'd like an even wider audience for your thoughts.

Thanks,

Simon

[Marlin Plank]

No problem with posting it to your blog Simon, thanks. I had posted previously on the topic and didn't get any response probably as the majority of recruiters on here are either Executive Search which wouldn't be forced into going through the VMS systems (that could possibly change??) or internal recruiters. I always chuckle when I hear the term "tool" for the staffing industry as my experience has been that a lot of the so called "tools" seem to create more headache and time delays than benefit the task at hand. What makes this bankruptcy case even more interesting and sad is all the IT consultant folks that were forced to use this tool and take 3% off their billing rate only to possibly be out months of earnings. It's going to set a bad taste in a many folks mouths and going to hurt companies more than think IMO. Now the race is on to capture these former VMS clients and I'm sure every type of staffing relief scenario is being thrown at them. I'm curious as to what direction these companies will choose moving forward.