Contractor Compliance is a Toronto-based cloud-based software company that empowers organizations to easily collect, track, and manage third-party contractor and vendor compliance. The company has experienced a rapid increase in the usage of Contractor Management Software. According to some reports, this market was estimated to be $2 billion in 2021. Contractor Compliance has achieved tremendous growth, with a 214% increase over the last two years, as it continues to scale its product.
We sat down with Mark Bania, CEO, to discuss their growth and their latest product announcement: the Optical Character Recognition Module.
How does Contractor Compliance empower clients to manage vendor compliance better?
Contractor Compliance is a SaaS solution that enables organizations to deploy their own logic & workflows to their third party contractors/suppliers/vendors all while automating key administrative tasks around assignment, collection and requlaification of health and safety/compliance requirements.
Congrats on the launch of Optical Character Recognition module. How does this help enterprise clients with their workflow?
Our OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Module is a huge innovation in our segment that further demonstrates our commitment to providing best-in-class software that automates administratively cumbersome tasks.
As the only true SaaS enablement solution in our industry, this release enables us to now add value and service a portion of the market that has historically relied on outsourcing their third party compliance function to a tech-enabled service organization. Through our OCR Module, not only can we provide an automated approval workflow like a services based solution, we can also provide an offering that reduces the risk of human error during the review process and expedites the speed of review, which are huge wins for our current and future clients.
What advice do you have for companies when it comes to compliance and third-party vendor management?
Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress. The reality is that compliance really should be binary – you either are or you are not compliant. That said, progress towards risk mitigation can be done in stages. If your third-party contractor/supplier/vendor management qualification process is underdeveloped, start small. Check the key boxes, and build on it. You don’t have to go all in on day one. Dip your toes in the water, and build over time. A configurable software solution allows you to grow at your own pace.
What are some ways companies can improve their workflow to reduce admin reduction when it comes to compliance?
The first step is clearly defining your process. It can be super basic, or incredibly sophisticated. The value behind a clearly defined process is that you can leverage software to manage the workflow for you. But similarly to the last question, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It can evolve over time. The goal is for it to be clear so you can train software to replicate the decisions that you would be making yourself – that’s how you can use automation to your advantage.
You have seen incredible demand for Contractor Management Software. What’s the growth been like for Contractor Compliance?
We continue to see greater than 50% growth YOY in the key metrics we track in our business. As a bootstrapped organization, we have always been very fiscally responsible, which has proven to be incredibly beneficial in today’s economic environment. We’re not burning cash to “grow at all costs” or trying to scale so quickly that we skip over critical details that matter to our clients along the way. Instead, by focusing on our clients needs, we’re showing strong growth, and retaining 95% of our clients with a greater than 115% net retention rate. I was taught very early in my career that if you “don’t lose focus on the backyard, growth will come.” That’s at the core of our metrics.
Where do you see your industry in the next few years in terms of opportunities?
With dependency of specialized work on the rise, and contingent workforce trends dominating the news, third-party compliance has never been as important as it is today. Whether you use physical contractors on site, or suppliers/vendors (both physical and virtual), the need to qualify these third-parties based on your own risk tolerance is critical to the success of business both now and in the future.
What’s next for Contractor Compliance? Are there exciting partnerships, products or features we can look forward to?
We easily have one of the best product teams on the planet (I’m clearly biased, but I don’t care). They are incredibly passionate, talented and always looking for ways for us to add value to our current and future customers. That’s my way of saying, we have some very exciting enhancements to our current offerings, as well as future modules that we’re currently building that will make a lot of jaws drop in 2023 and beyond. We’re just getting started…
