Key Findings & Highlights:

NelsonHall’s market analysis of the CWS & MSP services market consists of 154 pages. The report focuses on developments made over 2020 and strategies for 2021 and beyond.

The global CWS & MSP market will be ~$3.8bn in 2021, with a predicted CAAGR of 10.0% through 2025. Global CWS & MSP SUM will be $163bn in 2021, with an anticipated CAAGR of 5.6%.

Economic instability will likely prevail until 2025 with individual regions/countries subject to ongoing COVID-related incidents such as lockdowns and variant outbreaks, requiring organizations to adapt and pivot their businesses at short notice. Environmental issues such as the impact of global warming are also important in influencing business location and workforce/hiring strategies. These factors are driving on-demand CWS & MSP needs.

Organizations’ need to take a holistic, multi-channel approach to hiring as the war on talent intensifies with a merging of CWS/MSP, RPO, and learning services as organizations look to secure in-demand skillsets by whatever means: borrowing, buying, or building talent. Hence, organizations will need to become more proactive and embrace strategic workforce planning (SWP).

The critical social issues such as the health, safety, and wellbeing of people at work and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) highlighted since the beginning of 2020 will grow in importance, with DEIB being embedded into working culture across both contingent and permanent hiring. These issues will continue to underpin hiring practices.

The broader skills crisis across digital, niche, professional, and some blue-collar skills will be the biggest challenge in the immediate future (2021-2023). With CWS & MSP vendors already under pressure to deliver talent for their highly expectant customer base, this will intensify while the mobility of talent remains restricted. Organizations will require imaginative solutions for multi-channel sourcing, attracting, securing, and retaining of candidates.

The demand for technology deployment within MSP & CWS services has increased considerably. In 2021, CWS & MSP vendors have seen a ~33% expansion in the breadth/range of talent technology categories they are regularly deploying, and new categories will continue to be added. A significant proportion of this demand is focused on intelligence platforms (for hiring insights), generic learning platforms and modalities, developer skills platforms, and assessments. Use of human cloud platforms, intelligent sourcing/matching platforms, direct sourcing, CRM/talent pooling platforms will expand as means to source (and nurture) talent.

Next-generation service delivery, with an uptick in the rise of virtual SSCs, is emerging, underpinned by the latest platforms and the building of more expert customer service teams.