For procurement teams, the idea of like-for-like supplier comparison suggests a clear, consistent way to assess providers, weigh up commercial models and choose the best partner with confidence. However, in workforce solutions, that neat comparison is frequently breaking down.
Based on responses from 153 senior procurement and workforce leaders, the report showed that 43% of respondents struggle to compare suppliers on equivalent terms and 38% find it difficult to differentiate between them.
Procurement teams need clear, evidence-led comparison when decisions affect cost, compliance, skills access, visibility and performance. Without it, buyers risk choosing suppliers badly, based on incomplete evidence, unclear costs or subjective scoring rather than true value and fit.
The scope is no longer simple
One of the main reasons comparison breaks down is that buyers are rarely procuring a single, neatly defined service. The research found that MSP remains the most widely procured workforce solution, followed by SOW management and RPO, with direct sourcing and consulting also featuring strongly. In practice, many organisations are asking suppliers to demonstrate capability across several service lines at once.
That creates an immediate challenge where a provider may be strong in one area, such as managed service provision, but offer better technology with a different operating model. Comparing these responses as if they are interchangeable can flatten important differences and hide the trade-offs procurement actually needs to understand.
This is where RFP best practices for procurement need to move beyond standard question sets. A multi-solution brief needs an evaluation model built for that complexity from day one. Without it, suppliers interpret the same brief in different ways, leaving buyers to compare responses that were never truly comparable.
Ambiguity makes comparison harder
Many organisations are still deciding what stays in-house, what a partner should own and how success should be measured. With around half operating hybrid or partially outsourced models, that ambiguity weakens RFP clarity. If buyers cannot define what good looks like, suppliers fill the gaps, making responses harder to compare.
The answer is not to simplify the requirement artificially. It is to define outcomes before the RFP is written.
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What workforce outcomes matter most?
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Which performance metrics will carry the most weight?
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What does success look like in year one, and what needs to change over the life of the partnership?
These questions give suppliers a clearer target and give procurement a stronger basis for improving workforce procurement outcomes.
Written responses are doing too much work
Written RFP responses take significant time for both buyers and suppliers, however the research put them at the bottom of the list of trusted sources of confidence.
Buyers placed more faith in data and performance validation, site visits, technology demonstrations, client references and meetings with the proposed delivery team. In addition, 37% of respondents highlighted generic answers or excessively lengthy responses as leading frustrations, giving buyers more to read but less to trust.
More precise questions, tighter word counts and a focus on mandatory evidence of pages of text can help suppliers show substance without burying procurement teams in volume. For complex contingent workforce solutions, the written stage should clarify capability, not become the whole assessment.
Differentiation needs evidence, not polish
Supplier differentiation in recruitment and wider workforce solutions is not about who writes the most compelling answer. It is about who can prove the right capability against the buyer’s specific goals. That distinction is important, especially as the market shifts.
As AI and automation, skills-based hiring, workforce planning and analytics become more important to procurement leaders, suppliers must prove strategic capability, not simply programme administration. That means building validation into the process, with clearly scored technology demonstrations, structured client references, consistent performance data and scenario-based testing of delivery teams.
Pricing must be made comparable
Pricing is another area where like-for-like comparison can quickly fall apart. The research found that 31% of respondents give lack of pricing transparency as a leading frustration. In a market with varied fee models, technology costs, supplier margins and outcome-based elements, headline rates rarely tell the full story.
Procurement teams need standardised commercial disclosure that makes the total cost of service visible. This should cover management fees, supplier margins where relevant, technology costs and any variable or performance-linked charges. Without this, suppliers can appear cheaper or more expensive for reasons that have little to do with true value.
A better route to confident decisions
Like-for-like comparison breaks down when workforce buying becomes more complex than the process built to evaluate it.
The opportunity is to make RFPs sharper, fairer and more evidence-led. Start by defining the outcomes that matter, agree scoring and weighting early, test technology properly, validate delivery capability, standardise pricing and bring HR and procurement into the process from day one.
These actions help suppliers show real value, not polished claims, and give buyers a clearer view of cost, capability and fit. Workforce solutions RFPs do not need more volume. They need more precision, confidence and commercial discipline.
