Around 21 clients have already gone live during the soft launch of a new vendor and workforce management system (VMS) from 3 Story Software (3SS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hays.
The recruitment firm bought the company after it went to the market to look for a new VMS to replace its existing platform, Hays Work Flow. “Our analysis around what was available showed the 3SS product to be in a different league,” said Tim Cook, chief executive of 3SS and global head of digital and business innovation at Hays. “This is VMS 2.0 in a big way.”
Cook told Recruiter that in the UK and in those markets where Hays is a major player, it will be the preferred reseller of the software but in other global markets where it is less well known, it will market it as 3 Story Software, a Hays Company, and license the product to other managed service providers (MSPs). “So in the US, for instance, we are happy to license the product to other MSPs,” he explained, adding that as well as delivering a product that solves many of the challenges that exist in the VMS space, it is also opening up “new and interesting directions” for Hays. “To power the world of work, you need to have more than one solution in your bag,” he said.
3SS works in the cloud and is sold as software-as-a-service (SaaS) making it faster and cheaper to deploy than traditional VMS platforms. It can be used to manage contractors and project teams on the basis of milestones, a statement of works, specific tasks or on continuous service. “There’s a big drive globally to push the contingent workforce into a statement of works or project services environment and that’s what the software is built to do,” said Cook. 3SS can also manage permanent recruitment for full-time hiring which means that a manager can see all of their workforce activities in one system.
The system has been deployed to end user clients such as Bayer, Computacenter and Polo Ralph Lauren. Andy Moffitt, practices director at Computacenter, told Recruiter that while people are focusing on 3SS as a back-office tool, the biggest benefit for the company has been Hays’ ability to understand its needs and requirements more fully through the system. “So we are getting an improved service as a result,” he says.
