Control Risks is a consulting services firm that relied on several disparate systems and manual processes. Keep reading to learn how they improved margins and resource utilization and more effectively managed costs with the help of Dynamics AX and Velosio.
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Download “Consulting Services Firm Improves Margins with Dynamics AX”Control Risks is an independent, global risk consultancy specializing in political, integrity and security risk. Control Risks helps some of the most influential organizations in the world understand and manage the risks and opportunities of operating in complex or hostile environments. Control Risks supports clients by providing strategic consultancy, expert analysis and in-depth investigations, handling sensitive political issues and providing practical on the ground protection and support.
Control Risks was relying upon several disparate systems and manual processes to manage their global risk management consultancy across five continents. This approach yielded no comprehensive handle on customers, project costing, resource utilization – and most critically, no metrics on overall corporate performance.
The management team at Control Risks knew that in order to grow the business according to plan and drive increased margin across the business, they needed to implement a single solution across the organization to improve margins, plan and execute projects in a more standardized way and more effectively manage costs.
After evaluating several PSA and ERP applications, Control Risks ultimately selected to implement Microsoft Dynamics AX across the enterprise.
“We needed a robust, scalable and global application in which we would not have to build out several point-to-point integrations between separate best of breed applications,” said Elliot Daly, Head of Business Systems of Control Risks. “We required a system in which our project engine was fully integrated with our financial processes and keep it in a shared single instance. Dynamics AX easily met those requirements.”
Further, they also built integration between AX and their existing Microsoft CRM system which added value and helped streamline processes.
“It’s a truly global application which is important given some of the countries that we needed support for. In the long term it has worked out commercially, and provides the flexibility to integrate with our other application investments,” said Daly.
Control Risks is now running a fully integrated global application that has helped improve margins and manage operational costs by providing a single repository for project documentation and operational and contract information. In addition, management has enhanced insight into the broad view of the business overall through executive dashboards that provide real-time snapshots of current market conditions and business performance, enabling more agile and informed critical decision making.
One of the critical success factors for any new technology solution is a successful roll out, training and, ultimately, user adoption. Control Risks is enjoying a greater than 95% adoption rate for the new system. The high adoption rate has multiplied the return on investment from integrating the systems across the globe.
“We had worked with other organizations in the past that claimed to be familiar with the nuances of a professional services organization such as ours, but in reality, clearly did not. Velosio’s team expertise in working with Professional Services organizations was evident. They clearly understood the industry and its complexity.
In working with the Velosio team, we didn’t need to follow up or probe to make sure they understood our challenges and requirements.Having a partner that understood and specialized in PSA made all the difference and was the key to our recent successful improvements to the system. We were most impressed with their agility of response. The word ‘partner’ means that you are entering an agreement to work together and we were able to do just that, successfully.”
Elliot Daly
Head of Business Systems of Control Risks
