**More consultancies have been developing new customer-focused business models which deliver subscription billing and personalized, multichannel offerings.**
More consultancies have been developing new customer-focused business models which deliver subscription billing and personalized, multichannel offerings. We have also witnessed the remodeling of admin-heavy business processes which manage workforces, projects and finances to reduce costs, generate growth and improve People Experience.
To support these new business models, firms have been accelerating digital transformation by investing in ERP for professional services. These systems streamline and connect processes to improve flexibility, collaboration and visibility, while helping firms enhance efficiencies, win more bids and transform work for people.
Service organizations are under increasing pressure to attract, engage, optimize and retain good people3. The market leaders know the importance of transforming work for their people, by freeing them from manual tasks, allowing them to align more regularly with the company and upgrading learning and performance management.
More and more organizations are doing this by integrating a talent enablement platform and a human capital management (HCM) application with PSA software and a modern ERP for professional services. These tools help firms compete for talent, improve employee engagement, optimize high-performing teams and transform work for their people.
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Transform Finance Through Talent
For many years, professional services has been a dynamic business landscape characterized by the Everything-as-a-Service economy which had accelerated disruption and the appearance of new rivals with new business models. In the wake of 2020, with tightened budgets and fewer sales opportunities, competition has become higher than ever.
To win more business and deliver more profitable projects, many firms are deploying professional services automation (PSA) software alongside standardized methodologies and repeatable operating processes.
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Managing customer relationships to win more business
While lower-achieving organizations risk going under in this intensely competitive climate, market leaders are capitalizing on the opportunities as they hire talent and buy up or merge with other firms2. Consultancy.eu says this trend for more acquisitions, partnerships and alliances in the industry stems from the need for “specialist expertise and more rapid avenues for innovation”. The Gateley Tweed acquisition is a recent example, when listed UK legal and professional services company, Gately, acquired the high-profile media law specialist firm set up by Paul Tweed for £2m.
In recent years, customers have grown to expect better, faster service, with more personalization, visibility and engagement. This means there is a relentless need to develop a more sustained, informative and transparent connection with the client to improve customer satisfaction.
The foundation for this approach is enabling people through technology: by implementing modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms and building high-performing teams. One of the results of improved customer satisfaction is increased revenue from additional deals with existing clients.
PSOs are striving to improve productivity with an ERP for professional services which automates low-value tasks to streamline processes so people can spend more time on high-value work. A Constellation Research report says that more than 70 percent of today‘s back-office processes can be automated, and this push for automating manual processes is driving sustainable efficiency4. This trend is partly in response to the recent global stagnation of workforce productivity growth; DJS Research warned that lost productivity due to manual admin work costs $5trillion annually5.
5 pillars of profitability
Digital transformation is enabling a finance-first culture, in which operational and sales teams, for example, can understand the impact of their activity on the business’ bottom line. This trend is critical to success as companies try to improve cost and operational efficiencies while aligning financial and operational reporting.
Making such a vast cultural transformation is not easy, but leaders in this area are achieving it through the use of a flexible ERP for professional services. A modern, flexible ERP integrates multiple solutions, consolidates data from all sources, and centralizes processes within a single environment to provide complete visibility across the whole company, allowing previously siloed teams to collaborate6.
Read our eBook:
Finance First: Unlocking Innovation
1 2020 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark, SPI Research 2 Delivering Superior Professional Services Performance in Uncertain Times, SPI Research 3 Solving the Talent Puzzle, Unit4 4 Innovations Abound in Global Cloud ERP Suites, Constellation Research 5 Breaking New Ground: Professional Services Organizations Industry Focus, Unit4 6 Finance First: Unlocking Innovation, Unit4
