Customer Stories
Philips Benefits from an Innovative Strategy for External Workforce Management
Explore Philips’ journey with SAP
To drive success across its business, Philips wanted to make better decisions about how to get work done. With SAP Fieldglass Contingent Workforce Management as it chosen solution, the company aligned its talent strategy to encompass its entire workforce – including employees, contingent labor and services providers.
External workforce visibility achieved
in yearly contingent worker spend now managed with SAP Fieldglass solutions
Expertise in healthcare technology is highly specialist, and relevant skills are often in short supply. To win a greater share of this market, we needed a flexible, cost-effective way to access the skills we require to get work done. Our external workforce is increasingly important in meeting these demands.
Martin Thomas
Head of Total Workforce Management, Koninklijke Philips N. V.
The Challenge
Healthcare technology requires specialist skills – and a total talent strategy
As a healthcare technology company, Philips relies on highly-specialized skills that are often in short supply. To find the right talent, Philips needed to look globally at options for hiring an employee or engaging a contingent worker or services provider. Its aim was to find the right talent, in the right location, at the right price.
To drive success throughout the company, Philips aimed to better align its talent strategy to encompass all workers – employees, contingent laborers, and services providers, gaining greater visibility across its entire global workforce. Ultimately, with a total workforce strategy in place, Philips wanted to make better decisions about how to get work done.
The Solution
Enabling better visibility and decision-making
First, Philips created a talent management team to manage its entire workforce holistically. Next, the company engaged managed services provider Randstad Sourceright to help develop and support its external workforce management program. At the heart of the program is SAP Fieldglass – a robust vendor management system (VMS) designed to help companies manage their external workforce efficiently and effectively.
With SAP Fieldglass, Philips has gained deep visibility into its contingent workers – seeing their responsibilities, locations, certifications, access rights, and more. This insight empowers Philips to draw detailed comparisons between its contingent and employee workforce and look at the cost of getting work done via each channel. As a result, the company can make better decisions across its total workforce, from making more informed choices about where to set up global operations centers to helping the business meet its rising demand for IT and digital skills by increasing recruitment of recent graduates.
Equipped with tangible insight from SAP Fieldglass, we can support better decision-making across the business. Ultimately, we help the business get the right skill in the right place through the right channel to get work done.
Martin Thomas
Head of Total Workforce Management, Koninklijke Philips N. V.
The Result
Gaining deep insight into the contingent workforce
Currently Philips runs SAP Fieldglass in 25 countries in multiple languages, effectively and efficiently managing its contingent workforce around the globe.
Philips started its program focusing on contingent labor and now manages €500 million spent on contingent workers each year via the SAP Fieldglass solution. Additionally, the program has unlocked significant cost savings year-on-year, freeing up funds for investment in other areas. Spurred on by these impressive results, Philips continues to roll out the program globally.
Future Plans
Bringing services providers into the picture
Building on its success, Philips is now piloting the use of SAP Fieldglass for services procurement – including managing services providers such as consultancies, design agencies, IT companies, and engineering firms. By managing SOW workers as part of its total workforce, Philips will be able to establish consistent processes for on-boarding and off-boarding, granting and switching off system and building access, ensuring compliance, giving training, and more.
Philips has already achieved enormous success by introducing an external workforce management program. The company is confident that the program will help it fuel business growth, support its transformation, and capture a larger share of the healthcare technology market.
SAP helps Philips run better
Key business outcomes and benefits
- Deep insight into the contingent workforce, with services providers following
- Contingent workforce cost savings year-on-year.
- Access to the right skill in the right place through the right channel at the right cost
- Provision of vital skills to fuel business growth
Featured solutions and services
- SAP Fieldglass Contingent Workforce Management helps initiate, engage, manage, and complete all projects with contingent workers with one cloud-based application.
- SAP Fieldglass Services Procurement (in pilot) simplifies how projects with external, people-based services providers are initiated, engaged, managed, and completed.
About Koninklijke Philips N. V.
Founded in 1891 and initially known for lighting, Royal Philips is now a leading healthcare technology company. It focuses on improving people’s health and enabling better patient outcomes, from diagnosis and treatment to monitoring and healthy living at home. Philips employs around 77,000 people worldwide and generates annual revenue of approximately €18.1 billion ($20.35 billion).