Bill Price, COO of OnForce, Shares His Perspective
For the last seventeen years I have worked in the IT staffing industry. I started out as a software developer and worked my way up to senior management positions in technology. Over the years the business has treated me very well but it has gone stale.
I’ve always felt the professional staffing business was ripe for change. The process of manually capturing a client’s labor need, bringing that need to a recruiter, then sending resumes back to the client before finally (and hopefully) placing a candidate was outdated and inefficient. It felt like a fundamental change was needed and then the Vendor Management Services and Managed Service Provider business models were introduced. This was exciting at the time since technology could empower a service buyer and offer overall labor cost efficiencies through automation – a step in the right direction. But this wasn’t really a new model, it was simply an improvement on the existing model and certainly nothing revolutionary.
The primary functions of staffing agencies are sales and recruiting (with some cost saving benefits). At one time, staffing models made sense since they could retain teams of professionals that served their clients. However, as professional staffing companies grew nationally, and cost and profit pressures increased, these companies were not able to maintain a consistent stream of talent. At the same time we’ve seen the quiet rise of the independent contractor and the continued evolution of the transient nature of IT professionals. The result: staffing companies began vying for the same pool of talent! Where is the value add? What differentiates these staffing organizations now? Virtually nothing except possibly reach and maybe quality or speed to deliver but these aren’t enough. Next enters, commoditization, another step on the path to change.
During the last two decades we’ve seen many examples – eBay, Craigslist, Angie’s List…etc… – of how technology has advanced to match a buyer and seller. So why can’t we match the needs of staffing buyers directly with a network of labor resources using technology without the middleman? This would be a truly revolutionary idea. The answer is we can! This is exactly what OnForce does (and has been doing for several years). In fact, OnForce is a pioneer of this new business model. We offer our clients an on-site, W2-like experience for task-based assignments using independent contractors. This is exactly why I joined OnForce: to help lead the path as a pioneer, to be a game changer. With the rise of the independent worker and the shift into the individual economy, OnForce is well positioned to drive the revolution and I am very excited to be a part of it.
Reference: OnForce Inc
