Charging Ahead

Meeting Missions: Boosting User Adoption and Client Experience in APAC

In today’s competitive landscape, better customer experiences often lead to better business outcomes. For more than a decade, Allegis Global Solutions (AGS) has served as the managed service provider (MSP) partner for a global fintech company – starting in North America in 2009 and cascading to other regions in subsequent years.   

Since we expanded to Asia-Pacific (APAC) in 2015, our MSP programme has encompassed staff augmentation, profile workers and the addition of an application, development and maintenance (ADM) service for technology contractors across 14 countries in the region. Essentially, we manage the entire contingent workforce recruitment process – from the interview and offer stage to onboarding and offboarding – using the Fieldglass vendor management system (VMS).

In a long-term partnership, we’re always looking for ways to improve, evolve and innovate. Through these efforts, we discovered there was a disconnect in the process between our client and the suppliers.

Taking Action: Balancing Client and Supplier Relations

Recognising the need for improvements in the client-supplier relationship, AGS spearheaded multiple efforts to improve efficiencies and overall client end-user experience and adoption.

First, we conducted a supplier focus group, giving suppliers a platform to share feedback, challenges and opportunities for improving their partnership with the client. Supplier feedback was largely positive, with most indicating they felt satisfied and actively engaged with the programme.

Through that forum, we identified that the resignation process had room for improvement, so we partnered with the programme office to roll out a resignation notice quick reference guide for all suppliers. The guide aims to streamline how suppliers inform the programme office about contractor resignations, as well as reduce ambiguity and the number of supplier follow-ups required by the programme office to collect all the necessary information required when a contractor resigns.

Further, we initiated efforts to improve supplier performance. Our programme office teamed up with one supplier to identify ways to improve their successful finish rate. This activity led to the supplier boosting contractor engagement to ensure that contractors do not resign before their contract end date. We worked with another supplier – in conjunction with AGS’ Supplier Mentorship Program – to improve the supplier’s response and rejection rates. Within six months of this mentorship effort, the supplier’s percentages showed distinct enhancement, improving their response rate from 57% to 100%, and their rejection rate from 44% to 11%.

Delivering Impact: Maintaining Expanded Programme, Offering Continued Improvements

Today, our long-term partnership continues to grow, currently maintaining a total programme headcount of about 3,000 in APAC – including India. The recent interventions in the client-supplier relationship that we spearheaded have already resulted in impressive gains for the programme, such as:  

• Steady increase in average response rate and first response time. When we first initiated the supplier improvements, response rate was at 81%, and climbed to 93% in just six months. The average response rate improved 15% over the course of the year. Further, the average first response time in the period met the goal of just two days.
• Decrease in average rejection rate. By helping certain suppliers better understand what the client was looking for in their contingent talent, we were able to help improve rejection rates by focusing on candidate quality. At the onset of conversations, supplier rejection rates were at 76%. In just three months post-intervention, they had dropped to 32%, and the average over the year dropped to 45%.
• Significant speed improvements to average start submittal time. At the time of our supplier forum, start submittal times sat at 33 days, but by the end of the year, it had accelerated to only five – gaining almost a whole month of productivity for our client by accessing talent faster.
• Improving performance of candidates. Successful finish percentage stood at 68% when we first began working on client-supplier relations and jumped to 82% within six months.

Clients and suppliers are both critical stakeholders in the overall success of an MSP programme, and with this client, our intentional efforts to improve and evolve have resulted in impressive results. A recent Fieldglass survey reported 100% client satisfaction with our APAC programme and based on results of our annual Voice of the Supplier surveys, we have achieved a “Best in Class” rating from the suppliers for two consecutive years.