The VMS landscape is changing fast. What started as a procurement tool for managing contingent labor has evolved into a strategic platform for workforce management — and the power dynamics are shifting.
Smart staffing agencies aren’t just navigating VMS programs — they’re using them to unlock entirely new business opportunities. Some are even evolving into MSPs themselves, though that path isn’t for everyone.
In this interview, Christopher Ryan, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer at Avionté, sits down with Rob Geist, SVP of Growth at Simple and co-host of the Staffing Made Simple podcast series, to expand on the insights from Rob’s highly popular and well-reviewed CONNECT 2025 session on the evolving MSP/VMS landscape.
They break down why agencies are increasingly driving VMS adoption, what it really takes to leverage these platforms for growth, and tackle the age-old MSP question: who should pursue it, who shouldn’t, and how to thrive, regardless of which path you choose.
Key Takeaways:
Christopher Ryan: Rob, let’s start with the fundamentals. There’s often confusion between VMS and MSP. Can you help clarify the difference?
Rob Geist: Absolutely, and you’re right. Many seasoned staffing professionals and people in HR still don’t know the difference. A Managed Service Provider (MSP) is an organization responsible for managing everything for you. It’s the old Ross Perot concept — “one throat to choke.” The MSP provides the team to manage the program. So, the bigger the program the more resources they’ll need to dedicate to it.
As an MSP, you are responsible for collecting orders from the client, submitting them to staffing agencies, tracking which agencies are performing best, conducting compliance audits across all firms, and handling consolidated invoicing. The VMS is just the technology they use to manage all the things the client expects them to do.
Christopher Ryan: So essentially, with an MSP, you’re outsourcing the entire contingent workforce program to one third party, and they use a VMS as their management tool. And so, both are typically vendor-paid?
Rob Geist: That’s correct. If you take an MSP-VMS program that’s, let’s say, 3% vendor paid, some percentage goes to the MSP provider, and some percentage goes to the VMS tool.
Looking at the SIA landscape, you’ll see that almost 94% of MSP-VMS relationships in the United States are vendor-paid. Interestingly, if you go over to Europe, it’s flip-flopped for some reason, but procurement leaders here decided long ago to make it vendor-paid, and that’s the way it’s been.
Christopher Ryan: Now, I know many entrepreneurial staffing agencies look at that management fee and think they want a piece of it. Is becoming an MSP realistic for most agencies?
Rob Geist: I would say no, it’s not for everyone, and I’d be happy to talk to anyone about this. There’s a lot more that goes into being an MSP than people think. You’ve got to set up lines of communication with all the hiring managers and get all those orders. You have to do compliance audits, which could add risk to the MSP provider, making sure all the staffing firms are doing their I-9s, E-Verify, and background checks.
The treasury function is typically something an MSP provides, so the client pays one invoice to the MSP provider, and the MSP provider then pays all the sub-vendors. If your accounting team’s not up to that task and you don’t have a way to EFT funds to all these staffing firms, how are you going to manage that?
I suggest that if people are really looking at it, they go get a consultant to teach them how to put processes in place to become an MSP. Don’t just wing it because Debbie worked for an MSP provider 15 years ago and remembers how to send invoices.
Christopher Ryan: It sounds extremely administratively intensive with huge compliance risks. What you’re saying is that you would need completely different skills than a regular staffing agency.
Rob Geist: 100%. I’ll give you a real-life example. I had a partner call me from Florida. They supported a retailer with 200-300 associates within the state, but this retailer also had distribution centers all over the United States. They wanted to pitch becoming the MSP for a $90 million program.
I said, “Guys, you’ve never done this before. You’re talking about a huge change for them. What makes you think this client’s going to hand over the keys to the castle to someone who only does business in one state?”
Then, when I explained how labor intensive it would be and suggested pursuing our channel partner program instead, they realized what the client really needed was just a VMS, and they could make money off all the other states they weren’t doing business in.
Christopher Ryan: Wow! That’s interesting. So, let’s step back and talk about a VMS from the employer’s perspective. What exactly is a VMS, and why do employers need one?
Rob Geist: People want one central place to view their entire contingent platform. Think about a client with sites all over the place. Maybe they have two contingent workers in Poughkeepsie and 100 in Dallas. It’s hard for somebody in the corporate headquarters in Missouri to have visibility on all this.
A VMS offers a centralized platform to manage your entire staffing program under one roof.
Christopher Ryan: I see. So, why should an employer care so much about having that consolidated picture?
Rob Geist: Well, think about it from just a reporting perspective. Everyone wants real-time visibility of where they’re spending their money, especially in this day and age, where everything’s tightening up. I’m hearing more and more clients say they want to use less contingent labor. Well, how can you do that if you don’t know what you’re spending and where you’re spending it?
You’d be shocked! When I talk to clients who don’t have a VMS, I ask how much headcount they have, and they say, “Well, it’ll take me two weeks to talk to my different sites and accounting to get you that answer.” How many staffing agencies do you have? “Well, it depends. If managers are running rogue, I might have more than I even know about.” What’s your average markup? “It’s all over the board.”
Without having everything in one place, they have no way to visualize this data and know what they’re spending and where.
Christopher Ryan: So ultimately, a VMS is a labor cost management tool – a way for companies to manage their contingent workforce with as much rigor as they use for their full-time workforce?
Rob Geist: Yeah, I often describe it as an HR management tool for your temp staff. Think about what ADP does for full-time employees in an organization. A good VMS does the same thing for your temp workforce.
Christopher Ryan: And you’re seeing this adoption moving beyond just large enterprises?
Rob Geist: More people are procuring VMS tools to manage their staffing programs. What was once just an enterprise tool that only Fortune 500s had is now moving down market. All the people who worked for those Fortune 500 companies are now working for organizations that are smaller and growing, and they have contingent labor programs they have to manage.
In fact, according to SIA’s most recent VMS Global Landscape Summary – 78% of new contracts in 2024 were awarded to organizations not currently using a Vendor Management System. VMS adoption is clearly increasing across various market segments, particularly among clients with lower staffing spend, with 60% under $10 million annually. Organizations are starting to realize they can’t manage their programs without having a tool like ours. It’s critical.
Even if you’re trying to use less temporary labor, which many companies are saying they are, you still need a VMS tool to manage it, to have visibility over it, so you know what you’re spending and where you’re spending it.
Christopher Ryan: Got it. Now, many staffing agencies view VMS as something that separates them from the employer or causes problems. But you’re suggesting agencies should actually be driving VMS adoption. How does that work?
Rob Geist: Absolutely. One of the biggest objections staffing agencies have with prospects today is “we have enough staffing agencies.” When I pull up to a warehouse and see three staffing firms with 100 people, it’s really hard to differentiate yourself.
So why not have different conversations? When a prospect says they’re not adding new staffing firms, you can ask: “Is it hard to manage multiple staffing agencies and workers from all these agencies? Because, if so, I’ve got a strategic partner in Simple that we can introduce you to.”
This opens the door for them to be more of a thought leader and less of a vendor. It lets people know they’re thinking outside the box, and it helps them find workforce management solutions beyond traditional staffing. And, oftentimes, this opens the door for them to start offering staffing support.
Christopher Ryan: So, instead of walking in saying: “We’re a staffing agency with white glove service…” – because everyone says that – you can offer something completely different?
Rob Geist: Exactly. It’s a conversation on a completely different level. I worked in staffing and know how hard it is to differentiate yourself from competitors. We all said we did better screening, met our people in person… Well, guess what? Clients tell me all staffing agencies say the same things.
You have to get more creative. Having this differentiator in your pocket makes life so much easier for your salespeople. You don’t have to bring it up to everyone, just the ones you think would benefit.
Christopher Ryan: So, let’s shift to Simple and your work with staffing agencies. Simple offers staffing agencies the opportunity to become what they call a “channel partner.” What’s the economic opportunity for staffing agencies in this model?
Rob Geist: We’ve partnered with staffing firms throughout the country to be a tool in their toolkit. If a client asks for a VMS recommendation, we give the referring agency a discounted VMS fee – we charge them as little as possible – and then we actually pay them a commission just like a salesperson on the fee we collect from the rest of the staffing agencies in the program.
Let me give you a real example. We had a firm in Cincinnati introduce us to a client in Indianapolis with sites all over the country, in almost every state. This client had a $30-40 million spend. The firm was regional, so they probably had 15-20 temporary workers with this client, but they ended up paying a small percentage for the people they placed and got commission on the rest of the spend. They were earning revenue from temporary workers placed by other agencies, even in states where they didn’t want to do business.
Christopher Ryan: So, they could expand their footprint without actually expanding their footprint?
Rob Geist: That’s exactly right. One of our channel partners calls it “mailbox money,” and that’s exactly what it is. They take that commission and roll it into their gross margin. They’re much more profitable, and everybody makes more money.
I’ll give you another example. We had a staffing partner bring us to a client, and the only thing they asked was visibility of where their spend was so they could go try to sell to those sites. We gave them a heat map, so they could see how many people were at each site, and their salespeople were able to go to those sites, get their foot in the door, and grow with that organization.
Christopher Ryan: There are numerous VMS tools in the marketplace. What makes Simple different, and why are you growing so rapidly?
Rob Geist: Several things. Number one, as our CEO, Jason Oswald, always says, “It’s not just a tool, but it’s the people behind it.” It’s our support team, our implementation team – everything we give our clients and the suppliers that support our clients.
A lot of our competitors, if you need help or support, you’d have a hard time getting ahold of somebody. What does that do? It makes the staffing agency recruiter not want to deal with that VMS because they don’t know how to use it, or they don’t feel like it supports their business. We’ve always taken a hands-on approach to supporting everyone equally, so the tool isn’t an impediment for people to fill jobs.
Second, everyone claims their staffing program is unique. So, having a tool that’s not just out-of-the-box, that’s customizable, that we can work around your current processes, is a huge piece of the puzzle. A lot of VMS tools are “you get what you get.” With Simple, we come in, do an analysis of your business, and build the tool around your processes so it’s not a wholesale change for everyone.
Christopher Ryan: Any other key differentiators?
Rob Geist: One of our big differentiators in the commercial light industrial space is that we have our own timekeeping system, which we can deploy along with our VMS tools. If clients want to use our timekeeping tool, we can give them one central timekeeping system for their entire temp workforce, including deploying time clocks to their warehouses.
Christopher Ryan: So, even with five different staffing agencies, could all workers use the same time clock?
Rob Geist: You took the words right out of my mouth. Whenever I walk into a warehouse and see five different time clocks from five different staffing agencies, that’s an opportunity for me. Think how confusing that could be for a worker knowing which clock they’re supposed to use.
Christopher Ryan: And yet so many VMSs still get low satisfaction ratings. Why do VMS tools in general have such low NPS scores?
Rob Geist: I think it all goes back to having a team to support you. You know how many people tell me they’ve implemented software. I train them and show them how to use the tool, and I tell them our support team will follow up, and they’re like, “The last software we procured, I haven’t heard from those people since the salespeople called me.”
Most of our competitors deploy the system, and people never hear from them again. Staffing programs are dynamic – they change. You’ve got three sets of leadership that have changed since they implemented the VMS, and processes have changed. That group isn’t going to be very happy with how things were set up.
We actually change for our clients all the time, and that’s how we keep our clients.
Christopher Ryan: So, how do your satisfaction scores compare to the industry?
Rob Geist: Our NPS score is typically around +50 among buyers and agencies, where the industry average is around -28. Additionally, our internal employee survey was +96, which speaks volumes about the team that is delivering the product.
Christopher Ryan: Wow! That’s impressive. So, many people describe implementing a VMS as a year-long project requiring armies of consultants. Is this accurate at Simple?
Rob Geist: We call it the “I-word”. We don’t want to scare people off with implementation. That’s part of what Simple does well. We have a team that will come in and help make sure we get all the data we need. We ask clients to give us the data to set up the system, notify their suppliers they’re moving in this direction, so we can get them signed up, and spend time training.
One way we combat terrible implementations is by doing a pilot for change management purposes. We’ll pick a sizable site with a bunch of associates. There are a couple of reasons why we do this: one, we figure out the “don’t know what you don’t knows.” Sometimes we ask implementation questions that clients don’t even know the answers to. And we have to be able to shift and fix things as we go.
Two, you build an internal set of champions. Users who think, “This is going to cause me more work,” and end up saying, “Wow, this made my life better.” They can advocate for you to all the other sites, helping with change management.
Christopher Ryan: So, typical technology implementations can last a long time, which is why some companies are reluctant to make a major change. How quickly can you get a pilot up?
Rob Geist: Typically, a pilot is four to six weeks, and we’re up and running. That includes everything.
Christopher Ryan: That’s incredibly fast compared to implementing other major HR systems.
Rob Geist: Sometimes we do get lumped in with payroll systems and how complex they are. But typically, most of our clients already have a system like that up and running. They’ve got all their job titles, departments, cost centers, sites – all the information we need can be pulled out of reports in their payroll system. They can give us that information, and we can set it up from there.
Christopher Ryan: I’m impressed. After decades in this business, I’ve found that a fast, well-executed implementation drives customer satisfaction more than almost any other factor. So, looking ahead, what trends are you seeing among Simple customers that staffing agencies should be aware of?
Rob Geist: Clients are getting increasingly particular about compliance. I’ve had so many clients call and say, “Rob, how do I make sure my staffing agencies are doing their E-Verify and background checks?” We’ve got gates in place for that, but in the current landscape, that’s becoming more and more of a conversation topic.
We’re getting back to pre-COVID levels of clients having the same number of suppliers; instead of having 15, they’re having four or five that can support them because it’s getting easier to recruit. But we’re only one hiccup away from going right back to the other side.
As much as I hate to say it, people are really looking at their headcount and saying they want only 10-15% of their headcount to be temps or contingent laborers, and they’re sticking to that. Whereas in the past, they just needed people to get boxes out the door or food manufactured.
Christopher Ryan: Are you seeing growth in skilled trades and project-based work?
Rob Geist: I do, and it’s funny. It’s growing in that space because that space is growing. There used to be fewer staffing firms that tailored to that industry because it was harder to recruit for them. But now we’re getting more clients who need skilled labor people using skilled labor staffing firms.
It used to be that CDL drivers and skilled laborers were so hard to recruit that clients would say, “We’re going to do our whole program but leave our skilled labor vendors out.” Now they’re not doing that because it’s such a big part of their spend.
Christopher Ryan: So, this has been a very informative conversation. Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners about navigating this landscape?
Rob Geist: First, I want to be clear that Simple isn’t just a tool for large enterprise employers. While we have customers that spend upwards of $150-200 million a year on contingent workers at individual worksites, even an employer with a temp spend of as little as $5 million per year can benefit enormously from consolidating their contingent labor on the Simple platform.
You get instant visibility into your contingent labor costs, and you also get huge downstream benefits in HR, Accounting, and Finance. The ability to accurately assign and measure labor costs, streamline billing, and have a real-time view of everyone working in your building is massive. You can also track compliance and get a real-time update on every contingent worker and contractor inside your facility.
I also want to circle back to our success and momentum in the marketplace. Of course, Simple has great technology. But to succeed in this business, you also need great people. I attribute our success to having a team that cares, is hardworking, and a sales organization that wants to partner with people to make things better—not just for our clients but also for the staffing agencies that serve them.
All those little things we’ve done over the years to help employers and staffing agencies work better together have paid off, and it’s making staffing firms come to us and want to partner with us, which is invaluable. Building a sales force from our staffing partners has been amazing, and we’re grateful to all our channel partners!
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