Successful Switch

Meeting Missions: Gaining Trust, User Adoption with New MSP

Looking to identify highly skilled contingent workers in the shortest amount of time possible, a multinational technology conglomerate sought a bold, trustworthy partner with vision who could make an immediate impact. Confident in our talent and sourcing capabilities, tech-enabled solutions and compliance expertise, the client engaged Allegis Global Solutions (AGS) as its managed service provider (MSP) partner with the launch of a third-generation contingent workforce program in 2020.

The client’s seven-year incumbent provider operated in a transactional, risk averse manner that limited the program’s value. The previous MSP predominately served as a payroll provider, so the client was not familiar with competitive sourcing and didn’t have a true understanding of the value an MSP can bring. And, due to the payroll shift, many of the hiring managers – who were previously incentivized to find their own workers under the incumbent program – did not trust or see the quality of the new program.

Despite the value our client’s stakeholders knew AGS could provide as their new MSP, any change can unsettle users, particularly when the MSP transition was happening simultaneously as they moved to a new vendor management system (VMS). We knew we had to drive value and evolve the client’s contingent workforce by prioritizing change management and user experience.

Persistence has paid off. Over the first few years, AGS focused on the basics of program implementation through collaboration and relationship-building with client stakeholders—all of which has led to greater user adoption and client support. We established a world-class benchmark program that was scalable as the client continued to grow.

Taking Action: Transformation Using Change Management, Competitive Sourcing and AI

With an ultimate goal of the Universal Workforce Model in mind for the program, the client recognized they would first need hiring managers to self-serve — while still receiving personal support from AGS along the way.

Improving Processes with Change Management

The client’s business units were essentially working in silos—experiencing the same issues, but not learning from each other’s solutions. Adding to the disconnect, the client had never received proper resource guides from their previous provider. To resolve these issues, AGS introduced a comprehensive change management process to identify relevant improvements then rolled them out to multiple business units. Further, we assigned a change manager to the program to ensure global engagement and sign-offs – including the standardization of invoices and transition to a remote contingent workforce – were successfully achieved.

The project manager not only ensures accountability and change adoption but has provided visibility to the client and the team regarding improvements such as increased team confidence, better-supported remote team members and centralized documentation. Further, these actions have helped the client achieve cost savings goals by scaling up or down, as necessary, using headcount and resource tracking.

Gaining Trust Through Competitive Sourcing

To help the client understand the value of competitive sourcing, AGS developed an enhanced, real-time service level agreement (SLA) dashboard. This enabled the AGS program team to proactively identify opportunities for improvement. For example, visibility from a cycletime report demonstrates how AGS has helped correct hiring manager behavior to address requests sitting open with candidates waiting to work. Speeding up this process decreased the number of candidates who failed to start, and the program recently saw the largest percentage of fills (88.9%) that met or exceeded goal.

Enhancing Visibility Using AI

The client lacked visibility into its statement of work (SOW) agreements, resulting in unknown levels of risk and compliance. While it would take a high level of effort to manually analyze if rates being paid align to market rates, we enlisted our partner Brightfield TDX to analyze SOWs for two client business units. Using TDX’s AI to conduct market rate research, we were able to provide additional insight and value beyond just rate card results.

Delivering Impact: Maintaining Enhanced MSP Program Through Continued Improvements

Today, our partnership continues to grow. Currently, we track more than 120,000 resources across 120 countries, manage all staff augmentation globally and spearhead an effective misclassification program. Other impacts of our client’s transition from its incumbent MSP provider to AGS include:  

• Steady increase in supplier diversity globally.The program has seen an increase in diverse suppliers by 50% in EMEA and is now at 20% diversity spend. In North America, four suppliers enrolled in AGS’ diverse supplier mentorship program in 2023, and they were added to three additional AGS programs, which led to the distribution of 500+ requests and a 113% increase in average headcount. Further, we collaborated with the client and The Mom Project in North America on the Reconnect 3.0 program, which was an opportunity to support legal professionals returning to work after more than two years.
• Significant boost in spend under management and workers in program. At the time of engagement, the program was at $600M of spend under management and has now climbed to $790 million in spend under management, with approximately 4,400 workers in the global contingent workforce program. Greater spend under management is directly correlated to understanding total cost of workforce and minimized risk.
• Increase in competitive sourcing. Demonstrating the shift in user perceptions and adoption since the launch of the MSP program with AGS, the percentage of hires through payroll suppliers has dropped from 60% to 10%. With more than 1,400 new managers now in the program, the client has championed the use of competitive sourcing and direct sourcing within the program.

While improved user experience and adoption doesn’t happen overnight—especially when you transition to a new MSP—our intentional efforts to help this client improve and evolve has resulted in impressive results. Today, our annual Voice of the Customer (VOC) survey results show a best-in-class net promoter score (NPS) of 86 – a 50-point jump from the start of the engagement – proving that effective change management, commitment to user experience and consistently delivering new value can make the switch to a new MSP a success.