There was a king in 300AD; lets call him Vendor-king to avoid any "battles". He believed he would get the best of the advice if he appointed several marshals instead of few. His reasoning was not flawed, he thought that considering all the options and eliminating the bad ones is the way to go. The king lost an important battle during those times, I think you have guessed the reason-he was listening to his marshals when the war was going on, and couldn't take strategic wartime decisions.

Why do I need a VMS? -Well, I'm not too intrigued by "Vendor-kings" scheming abilities, that's why. Typically, Organizations (clients in this case) work with lot of vendors (suppliers) for procuring "temps" or "contingent workers". The process begins by someone from the client side initiating a requirement. As shown below the vendor gets the requirement, searches for the candidate and the approval process begins at the client's side.

At the clients side:

It's all go-go-good up till here. But once the organizations start to follow the same process with all the suppliers, one believes it gets nearer to the "Vendor-king" scenario. Client, then, has to keep track of things like:

* Which supplier provided which candidate
* Who works better? And at what rates?
* How much do I owe to xyz company
* How to monitor them
* What about the logistics?

Clients' wanted to cut cost as well as save time by sourcing these tasks to somebody. Exactly the reverse is what seems to be happening, they are provided with more data to handle. Instead of them concentrating on the business, they again have to think about the recruitment process. That is where the concept of MSP spawned.

MSP is like an interface for client, to the procurement process (numerous suppliers and the associated processes). It is what OS is to us when interacting with the hardware on the computer. An MSP typically takes care of things like:

* Job requirement management
* Vendor management
* Contractor time and expense capture
* Consolidated billing
* Business reporting

VMS or Vendor management system is the base on which MSP manages all the above-mentioned tasks efficiently. VMS is primarily a technological answer to all the questions posed by procurement process. Both the MSP can use VMS, to effectively manage the entire procurement process with a single platform. Next post will give direct answers to "Why VMS", so keep posted.

So now the "Vendor-king" passed on better advice to the descendents, I am not much into political history of Greece, but I know about Mughals, one of the kings called Akbar, trusted only one of his bureaucrats, Birbal, for all the decision-making. I wonder if staffing companies and clients can read something from that.