28468 Blue Arrow Client Advisory Guide_WEB - Flipbook - Page 8
Far too often, supply chains suffer from hidden
spend, with unknown or unexpected costs of
resources pushing up budget requirements.
Whether this is linked to unplanned hiring
needs, inconsistency around agency markup
agreements or differing salary brackets, the
financial impact all adds up. The simple fact is,
labour costs, agency fees, and administrative
overheads can quickly escalate - especially
when managing large, decentralised or
regionalised workforces. Without a strategic
approach, organisations risk:
Overspending on recruitment and staffing services.
Inefficient procurement cycles and manual errors.
Poor visibility into workforce ROI and supplier
performance.
With the right strategies, approaches and tools,
though, HR and procurement teams can achieve
significant savings while maintaining high standards
of service, compliance, and workforce performance.
Here’s how to drive cost savings in your
workforce management.
A strategic approach
to sourcing
Consolidating suppliers and leveraging volume
discounts is perhaps one of the most effective
ways to reduce costs. It’s important to not only
focus on high-performing partners that can
guarantee both good rates and the best people,
but also have standardised pricing structures.
Consistency across the supply chain ensures
premium rates aren’t being paid unnecessarily.
Then, of course, there is also the issue of potential
pay inequity due to inconsistency in the talent
supply chain.
Where there are ways to minimise the number
of vendors being engaged, without risking the
supply of resources, it’s worth considering
the approach. Having fewer points of contact,
external partners and contracts to stay on top of
will reduce administrative time and costs while
also helping to reduce risks of non-compliance.
It’s also advisable to consider cost-effective
methods of improving processes. Manual
procurement and workforce management
systems are not only time-consuming, but also
prone to errors and inefficiencies. This is where
hidden spend can often end up overlooked,
with invoice discrepancies or timesheet errors,
for example, creeping in to manual data entry
and inadvertently creating a mismatch between
budgets and actual spend.
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