Our world is often full of paradox and potential conflict of interest. The most visible example in the last couple of years has been the Arthur Andersen scandal. You see it in the big accounting companies, with a double standard lurking between audit and consulting revenue, or on Wall Street, where a firm’s brokers recommended a strong buy on the same stock that their investment bankers have underwritten as an IPO.

In the staffing industry there is the same potential conflict of interest in the field often call VMS, or Vendor Management Systems. These are software systems that automate the procurement of contingent labor in the form of temps and contractors. The value of gaining control of this process is great for companies that often have hundreds of suppliers and cant cope with the complexity and price control. But the issue is that most vendor management systems are provided by the suppliers of labor themselves. They use those same systems to protect their business and gain market share with companies. Some even give the system away for free! This was well depicted in a recent article To Whose Advantage?. Our questions now… is it just a matter of time?when will the public exposure occur? And whose business will suffer the consequences?