Big 4 Consulting Firm: How Leveraging MBO's Direct Sourcing Platform Saved $250M

In 2015, a Big 4 consulting firm recognized a turning point in the changing world of work; they trusted their data and knew they should make some changes. Their independent contractors were managed through an outdated technology platform and a pricey third-party service provider; neither of which could evolve at the required velocity. Brass tacks, their current way of working was not agile enough to scale.

Together with executive leadership, they set the objective to shift their workforce to an optimized model which strategically mixed a percentage of full-time employees with defined populations of offshore and independent contract labor. Leveraging independent professional talent meant accessing a population with the core skills, heterogeneous thinking, and knowledge to better serve their clients while significantly improving utilization.

The consulting firm looked to reduce the costs and better mitigate the risk associated with managing their existing contingent worker population while attracting and maintaining long-term relationships with high-value independent professionals.

They identified their needs for:

1. 1. a streamlined, end-to end operating model that would handle engagement, onboarding, payment, and management of their contingent workforce including complex worker classification issues;
2. 2. a partner who truly understood independent workers and how to engage them successfully within an elastic tech-enabled platform, and to help manage the entire process.

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