Now Is The Time To Take It Back: Capitalize On The Economic Uncertainty With Veryable

This article is written for those in mind who are unfamiliar with our on-demand labor model. If you’re an existing Veryable user, check out our other article.

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It’s been a tough stretch over the past few years, as uncertain economic conditions, supply chain issues, and more plague US manufacturers and distributors.

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While things aren’t as grim right now as they were in late 2022, we’re not quite in the clear just yet.

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As a result of these conditions, you’ve been forced to rightsize and make tough decisions in order to control costs and safeguard profit margins. While this was certainly a necessary move, business leaders must also keep an eye on emerging revenue opportunities, which are actually in abundance right now. The problem is, trying to capitalize on these opportunities comes with significant risks and may not be worth the effort if relying solely on traditional approaches.

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That’s where Veryable can help.

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In this article, we’ll cover how leveraging Veryable’s on-demand labor solution helps businesses not only stay afloat during these uncertain times, but capture additional market share and revenue without taking on massive amounts of risk.

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Here's an Example

While this example isn’t 100% applicable to the current economic situation, it effectively highlights how building a labor pool has helped this business scale up and down drastically to match demand in the face of uncertainty.

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Staffed to minimum average demand, this business was in the middle of its holiday peak season and using Veryable to meet higher demands when they acquired a competitor. This required a significant boost in output, which they were able to effortlessly achieve by ramping up on-demand labor usage even further. Then when a winter storm came out of nowhere and shut things down for a week, they were able to scale down instantly and avoid thousands in labor costs. Afterwards, they were able to rapidly catch up on the backlog by posting more ops than normal.

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This also freed up capacity for them to go after new business while their competitors were still struggling to catch up on backlog and meet daily demands.

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The Time to Take It Back Is Now

In times like these, many business leaders are just sitting on their hands waiting for signs the economy is roaring back before taking any action. This is understandable, as the last thing you want to do is go through the process of hiring more full-time workers when you don’t know if demand is here to stay. The problem with this mindset though is that by the time that mainstream sources tell you that things are back to normal, it’s already too late and many of the biggest opportunities have vanished. Then you’re competing with everyone else for the same resources as you race to scale up and capture the scraps of what’s left.

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The opportunities are here now - numerous businesses have shut down and others are capacity constrained due to mass layoffs and are struggling just to maintain current operations.

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So how can businesses leverage this economic uncertainty to capture new revenue and market share without massive amounts of risk?

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Enter Veryable.

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Tackling Uncertainty With Operational Agility

Veryable’s on-demand labor marketplace labor connects businesses with skilled and vetted workers at the click of a button, enabling businesses to create a flexible extension of their full-time workforce called a labor pool.

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By connecting you with workers only when work is needed, a labor pool strategy allows you to maintain a leaner full-time workforce and still meet demand by tapping into your flexible capacity as needed.

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This approach gives you the best of both worlds: a leaner headcount helps you keep costs low and retain margins through reduced dependency on OT & overstaffing, and unlimited flexible capacity at your disposal allows you to be aggressive.

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Let’s say a competitor in your area went out of business - obviously this is going to open up the door for others to come in and snatch up market share.

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But in times like these, most businesses won’t have the capacity to take on any additional volume. Even those that stay slightly overstaffed in preparation for opportunities like this may not be able to. This is why building a labor pool gives you a competitive edge.

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With a labor pool, you can increase the size of your workforce in a day and capitalize on these opportunities without a dropoff in service or the risks of hiring more FTEs that won’t be needed everyday. You’ll also be able to handle increased demand without the need for excessive overtime. This not only benefits your bottom line, but it helps keep your valued FTEs satisfied. With the ability to bring in extra workers as needed, your FTEs will have more predictable schedules, and they'll be able to use their time off without feeling like they're putting the whole operation behind schedule. You can read more about why this is in our article about how the use of on-demand labor impacts full-time employees.

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Building a Layer of Resilience

As previously mentioned, an on-demand labor pool connects you to workers only when needed. This means when you don’t need the extra help, you aren’t stuck paying people to stand around. When things are slower, just post fewer work opportunities or none at all. This way, you’re right sized for current demand and are able to maintain an optimal cost per unit.

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Knowing that you can pull back resources at any moment allows you to be aggressive and take on everything you can without having to wonder whether the increased volume will be stable enough to warrant additional hires.

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To read more about this, check out our article on downcycle agility

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Leveraging Improved Service Levels

You need to be able to deliver on your promises at all times, but especially when trying to win new business. If you deliver late on your first order with a new customer, you’re significantly reducing the lifetime value of that customer who will be less likely to do business with you again. While building an on-demand labor pool will help you eliminate late deliveries and maintain your service levels regardless of demand,  it can also be leveraged to further drive down lead times and increase speed.

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With the help of their labor pools, numerous Veryable users have successfully been able to increase speed by:

• Adding a temporary 2nd/3rd/overnight shift - if your output is limited by capacity, keep machines running with operators during your normal off hours. With 26% of ops on the platform posted for night and weekend shifts, you can always find the right workers to keep your operations running.
• Adding assistants - Bolstering skilled labor with operators for material handling and setup tasks can greatly improve throughput of your trained, highly skilled workers.
• Eliminating lumping/loading delays - adding operators to support dock operations can help you ensure that trucks are loaded and unloaded as soon as they hit the dock. 3PL provider Customized Distribution Services achieved a 36% increase in inbound receiving speed in just 6 months by taking this approach.

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Conclusion

It’s easy to get spooked by all of the layoffs, plant shutdowns, and uncertainty in the air and think that the best course of action is to just lie low and wait for better times. The reality is though, now is when the most opportunities are out there.

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By building your labor pool, you can drastically ramp up capacity as needed and take advantage of every opportunity out there without the risk.

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The future belongs to those that want it the most. Get your piece of the pie with the help of Veryable.

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Getting Started With Veryable

To get started with on-demand labor, take 5 minutes to create your free business profile.

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Our team of operational experts will reach out to you shortly after to answer any questions you may have and ensure that your team is equipped for success.

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To learn more about the process of getting started, check out our guide.