Many professional services firms face challenges in delivering projects within the stipulated time and budget. Navigating intricate project structures often lead to issues in deriving precise estimates, budgets, and schedules. Missed communication can further escalate costs or introduce delays. To appease clients, some businesses might even offer discounts when projects face hitches. Ultimately, these hurdles…
In the world of professional services, resource planning is crucial for the success of any project. Without proper planning, projects can quickly become disorganized, inefficient, and unprofitable. Yet, many firms still rely on outdated methods like spreadsheets for resource planning, which can lead to costly mistakes and inefficiencies. Moving on from spreadsheets and adopting modern…
Project-driven organizations face a different set of challenges than other business models. Each project is unique and customized, and importantly, temporary. Elements of business that may be standardized and automated in other sectors are less predictable in project-driven businesses. Project-driven businesses likely use many more applications and third-party tools to estimate, define scope, and manage…
Today’s business landscape is treacherous. In order for professional services firms to thrive, they need information—up-to-the-minute, accurate data about what is happening and how it’s affecting the bottom line. One of the most crucial, but underutilized, tools among professional services is real-time data reporting. To say that the business world is volatile is nearly an…
On the surface, many of the best professional services growth strategies seem more protective than proactive. That assessment isn’t entirely off-base. Becoming adaptive, agile, and adept at infusing data into every process, phase, product, and touchpoint allows firms to brace for impact and emerge from the next round of disruptions, disasters, and black swan events…
In today’s data-driven world, every business needs a smart strategy. But for professional services firms, intelligence is a critical success factor (CSF). Their “product” is a unique blend of insights and expertise, and their bottom line depends on delivering results that other firms can’t match. While human experts have always been the foundation of success,…
Forward-looking professional services firms are capitalizing on new opportunities to leverage technology to align around new needs and shift to outcome-based operating models, and deepen client connections. They understand that responding to new challenges isn’t really about data or algorithms, it’s about maximizing the resources they have to provide more value to the people they…
Cloud-based ERPs like Dynamics 365 serve as the digital foundation for any modern business. Capture, organize, and unify all of your firm’s data in a single location — providing full visibility into core operations and accessible insights to all users. These benefits, while essential, are a far cry from anything considered “transformative.” See, any competitor…
Professional services firms are vulnerable targets for cyber criminals for a few key reasons. For starters, this is an industry that deals in valuable information. Knowledge workers typically rely on some combination of client data, original research, and proprietary IP to deliver insights and solutions that drive specific outcomes. In other words, firms are sitting…
The professional services industry will embrace digital-first revenue business models and business practices. AI and automation will take on a greater role. Data continues its reign as “king.” Remote work is here to stay. We’re watching these predictions take shape in real-time. At the same time, the future of the professional services industry has never…
