SI Review: November 2013

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The Buzz: Beyond the MSP and VMS

A new flexible online platform

By Andrew Karpie

SkillGalaxy is a new work arrangement intermediation platform unlike the majority of the online staffing models (which seem to disintermediate staffing suppliers and potentially others in the talent supply chain).

The company was quietly launched less than eight years ago by Rahul Jain, the CEO of Bitsoft, a Chicago-based company with operations in India. Jain has designed and developed VMS and other workforce management systems over the past decade.

It bills itself as an online workforce management platform that enables employers to hire traditional or contingent staff directly or with assistance from SkillGalaxy’s network of registered suppliers and recruiters. Based on a single business process automation and data management and analytics platform, the company is able to fulfill the services of a talent management system, recruitment process outsourcer, managed service provider and/or vendor management system.

Crossing a New Frontier

The platform also supports an online platform version of the talent supply chain for enterprises that want their employee hiring and contingent workforce procurement processes to be more direct (business-to-worker). In the employment scenario, this means that an enterprise can hire through direct access to an online job-board-like marketplace. In a contingent workforce scenario, that means that an enterprise can access and engage contingent workers directly through an online staffing firm-like marketplace.

In addition, the company offers an on-demand service model through which enterprises can register as ecosystem members at no cost and then only pay for the services they use when they use them. There are also service agreements and pricing structures for planned and more continuous use of the platform, which would presumably yield additional economies of scale for enterprise clients. Unlike “enterprise-technology vintage” staffing supply chain systems, SkillGalaxy is not only comprehensive, but is also designed so that it services can be established and consumed rapidly and flexibly by enterprises, and without same large investment commitment.

The Buzz

Staffing supply chain systems and models are not the “end all, be all” in work arrangement intermediation. New technology-based platforms can be designed and shaped to do different, and often innovative, things. Work arrangement intermediation platforms need not all be investment heavy, rigid supply chain control mechanisms or disintermediating, direct talent-as-a-service marketplaces. This platform seems to show that many different models and innovations are possible, and others are likely still coming that may change our entire concept of the world of staffing.

Andrew Karpie is an affiliate analyst at Staffing Industry Analysts. He can be reached at akarpie@staffingindustry.com