Finding Good People Is a Never-Ending Challenge
The WMS Center of Excellence Option
By Thomas Lee, President,
DMLogic, LLC
Businesses change. To keep pace
with the changes, processes, systems and equipment need to be
adapted. As a result, every WMS
system user will, at times, find
themselves in need of support or
in need of application experts.
Turning to the vendor is not always an option – costs are high
and the talent pool is stretched.
Users are then forced into the
costly and timely effort of reaching out to the market for help-often a fruitless exercise. Even
worse, users often forego the help
and continue to watch their operations limp along at less than optimal performance.
Where Is The Talent?
To find the people needed, companies have several options. For
shorter term contractors, there are
lots of large and small systems integration and consulting firms.
Placing ads with on line resources
like Monster and DICE is an option.
Or companies can look to headhunters to help, along with ads on
the company web site, Linked-In,
Facebook and Twitter. And
through all of this, the warehouse
manager or human resources representation will answer the phone,
meet with sales reps and answer a
ton of emails. If the process it
successful, perhaps there will be a
significant amount of resumes to
peruse. Some of them will look
good, many of them will not. Regardless, the next step is to pick
up every one of them and judge it.
Once the talent pool is narrowed
down, the due diligence begins —
phone screen the candidates,
check references and conduct
face-to-face interviews.
Sound familiar? That’s a lot of
work. That’s a lot of time. And
it's not just the manager's time.
Staff gets involved. HR certainly
gets involved. Upper management
gets involved. All of this is time
spent recruiting new hires instead
of addressing the tasks at hand.
Contracting with a systems inte-
gration firm, is another option.
That process will provide good resumes, of those who work for the
firm. The definition of best and
brightest will include only the people who work for the firm already
have.
A new and unique model is the
concept of a WMS Center of Excellence (COE). Some may call it a
one-stop resource shopping. A
smarter way to look at it— it's only
one call to make.
How the COE Works
When choosing to work with the
COE, the client will execute a master agreement that will specify the
specific terms and conditions and
rates. Senior staff will walk the
client through the process discussing the required skill sets and
experience necessary. The client
will fill in the details of expected
travel, time commitment and
other factors. Armed with that information, the COE senior management team will review a stable
of resources and provide the client
with a talent pool to select from
along with rates and availability.
In most cases the resource pool
will consist of full time employees,
or already contracted staffers.
Others may simply be subcontractors. The determination is based
on what need and the fit. From
there the client talks on the phone
or face-to-face interviews as
deemed appropriate. The goal is to
have each proposed resource completely vetted and screened, shortening the time required by the
warehouse management team.
The final interview process is simply to make the final commitment
but the legwork has been done.
The agreement puts the new hire
into a contract that can be negotiated later for full-time employment or terminated at the end of
the project.
Why the COE Model Works?
The COE model provides one stop
shopping with a dedicated staff
that has worked with, employed
and contracted multiple resources
over the course of years. There is a
significant talent pool in the supply chain and WMS space, however, finding the right fit is both
time consuming and often a fruitless effort when resources are contracted elsewhere. With the COE
model, clients are freed from having to negotiate rates, and terms,
and from handling the paperwork
that goes with it. Contracting with
a COE program also secures the resources with the coverage required
regarding liability and other insurance.
The COE will save time, money,
and obtain the resources needed
much faster. Just one call – no
searching, no headhunters, no due
diligence.
About the Author
Tom Lee is a 20-year WMS veteran and the president of DMLogic. DMLogic offers the first WMS Center of Excellence of its kind in the industry.
DMLogic LLC
1910 Cochran Rd. Suite 470
Manor Oak Two
Pittsburgh, PA 15220
412.440.4490
sales@dmlogicllc.com
www.dmlogicllc.com