Developed by ProcureStaff Technologies, Consol is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that automates the process of vendor selection through to invoice processing and payment. ProcureStaff Technologies is a subsidiary of Volt Information Sciences and a sister to recruitment firm Volt Europe, which will also become a channel partner for the platform.

Carolyn Nolan, vice-president of sales for ProcureStaff Technologies, told Recruiter that it has chosen the channel partner route as opposed to building a direct sales force because it believes that staffing agencies and MSPs will be able to service their clients better.

“They have such deep client relationships with them,” she said. “MSPs can act as agents and bring us opportunities or, in some cases where appropriate, become resellers where they will be responsible for implementing the tool and for ongoing support of it.” Volt Europe will be marketing the platform to its customer base, which includes those with whom it is engaged as MSP. The neutrality of the platform, however, means that those outside of its client base, which Volt identifies as a potential user, can take the technology without becoming a recruitment client.

Consol also has a built-in reporting tool that provides users with a high level of transparency and business intelligence (BI) regarding their processes and operations (it has a global licence for the Cognos BI engine).

Nolan believes the BI capability will be particularly useful for providing data and analytics on the temporary labour and project-based engagement market.

“A lot of companies in the US and UK have been using BI in many parts of the business but it hasn’t been incorporated until recently into the temporary labour and statement of work side of things,” she explains. “A lot of MSPs want to help their clients manage this as the spend is invisible to a lot of procurement managers.”
www.procurestaff.com