Professional services automation (PSA) offers an alternative to the array of stand-alone project management, timesheet, invoicing, resource planning, business intelligence, and collaboration tools used by many project teams today. It is a centralised workflow tool which combines the benefits of a variety of functions, on a shared and centralised portal.
PSA applications help professional services providers, such as Engineers, IT Consultants, Creative Agencies or Law Firms manage client engagements throughout their lifecycle. If human capital is your greatest cost of sales, you are considered a Professional Service firm and should be using PSA.
A project starts when a sales opportunity is created, the deal is closed, and resources are allocated to deliver the work. The cycle nears completion when services have been successfully delivered, invoices are issued and cash is collected. To record solid actionable data, typical PSA functions combine bid management, project management, resource management, timesheet management, finance and billing, team collaboration and reporting. The metrics might include, but are not limited to, billable and non-billable utilization, actual vs. planned revenue, cost and profit, project margins and completion timelines, which provide insights that can be used to optimize processes and forecast issues ahead of time.
Ultimately, keeping everything available and connected in one place, PSA software allows for more swift and intelligent operations. This means that all stakeholders are connected at the sub-project level, through HR and Finance and extending to include subconsultants and suppliers involved in the project’s journey.
PSA software not only gives you the necessary tools to track key performance indicators for your business, but it also accumulates insights in a way that can help you allocate resources intelligently to increase profitability and reduce costs. It allows businesses to learn from experience through data analytics and predictive analysis.
Keross’ extensive experience working across a variety of professional industries has clearly demonstrated significant improvements for firms that moved to its Ikon PSA software, with specific returns including lower project cancellation rates, improved on-time and on-budget project delivery, lower budget downturns, higher resource utilization, and increased project margins. And according to research by SPI Research on 258 PS firms, the average profit margin for a company with integrated workflow automation was almost double that of a firm with stand alone solutions.
While the advantages of a specific PSA solution depend on how it is designed and used, the central benefit of PSA software is enabling people who are responsible for business performance to manage and measure service delivery at scale. Reporting features enable account and resource managers to identify trends and allocate staff to match demand. Executives can see where the business is performing well and where there are opportunities to improve certain areas. Individuals can take ownership of their relevant inputs and outcomes.
PSA benefits:
“The information that is available to us with Keross is absolutely game-changing. You are never going to get that from stand-alone, off-the-shelf products. Absolutely no way. The data is our data, that information is our information, the presentation is about our business and our KPIs.”
Finance Director, Global AEC Client, 2020
PSA tools can also help organizations gain control over their project, financial, timeline, and resource data. Organizations often choose to adopt and/or unify their PSA tools when they need to increase headcount, when their demand increases, when their range of services needs to grow to meet client needs, when they expand their market geographically, or when projects, deadlines and timelines become more numerous and difficult to manage using manual processes. An integrated PSA tool keeps top thinkers out of spreadsheets and more engaged with the data at a high level, to make decisions that drive greater profitability.
PSA integrated within the existing information infrastructure (ERP, CRM, etc.) highlights the services that should be sold, the people required to staff them, and the revenue and profit they will generate. These critical components enable leaders to develop and refine strategies in order to grow both fast and profitably. Leveraging the power of PSA is a key ingredient in any success formula and Keross has the framework and native toolkit to unify your business.
Contact us for a demo of our PSA suite: www.keross.com/contact
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More than 20,000 large projects of Atkins, a well-known British AEC company, worked with separated management processes, resource planning and solution testing. Low compatible systems and manual reporting were used. Ikon allowed Atkins to integrate in real time data from finance, ERP, management, HRMS, CRM, and many sources, creating a “single source oif truth”, dashboards, resource management, trend and discount analysis, and more. Atkins is one of the a architecture and engineering consultancies responsible for designing some of the most iconic buildings in the world.
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The explanation how automation can benefit professional services businesses in six ways: increasing efficiency, reducing errors, improving customer satisfaction, enhancing collaboration, enabling scalability, and gaining competitive advantage. It also introduces Ikon, a platform by Keross that automates data orchestration and enables digital transformation for various industries. The automation is not a threat, but an opportunity for professional services businesses to grow and thrive.
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