Maximizing Efficiency and Growth: The Benefits and Features of Professional Services Automation PSA Software

Feb 22, 2023 | Consulting industry

Project management (PM) can be a complex procedure that involves juggling several factors: resource planning, project management, billing, invoicing, and more. Without Professional Services Automation (PSA) software to help consolidate everything, it’s easy to overlook some critical areas.

In particular, professional services organizations (PSOs), Services Departments from SaaS, or managed service providers (MSPs) benefit the most from PSA tools. These businesses often have an extensive client list that may have their specific project requirements. Because of the nature of their industry, they would need versatile software that allows them to offer consistent service quality.

According to the 2022 Professional Services Maturity™ Benchmark by consulting firm Service Performance Insight (SPI), businesses that used PSA software enjoyed a 36 percent increase in revenue. In addition, the project margin surged by 13 percent because of cost savings and enhanced efficiencies.

To give a clear overview of PSA tools, we’ll discuss:

What is PSA software?
What industries need PSA software?
What are their benefits for professional services organizations (PSOs)?
What are some key features to consider when selecting a PSA tool?

Professional services firms, such as consulting, engineering, and accounting, rely on billable hours and effective resource allocation to maximize revenue and profitability. However, managing multiple projects and teams, tracking time and expenses, and invoicing clients can be time-consuming and error-prone without the right tools and processes. This is where Professional Services Automation (PSA) software comes in – as a comprehensive solution that streamlines business processes, enhances project management, improves resource allocation, and increases billable hours and revenue. In this article, we’ll explore the benefits and features of PSA software and how it can help service-based businesses achieve greater efficiency and growth.

I. Introduction to the benefits and features of PSA Software.

Before we dive into the benefits and features of PSA software, let’s define what it is and why it matters. PSA software is a suite of tools designed to manage and automate key business processes of professional services firms. This includes project management, resource allocation, time and expense tracking, invoicing and billing, reporting and analytics, and integration with other business software.

The importance of PSA software for service-based businesses lies in its ability to help firms increase their efficiency and productivity, while also improving their quality of service and client satisfaction. By providing a centralized platform for managing all aspects of their operations, PSA software allows firms to streamline their workflows, eliminate redundancies and errors, and focus on delivering value to their clients.

II. Benefits of PSA Software

Let’s now explore some of the key benefits that PSA software can offer to service-based businesses.

Did you know that businesses that use a Professional Services Automation (PSA) software perform better than those who don’t? According to the 2022 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark report by Service Performance Insight, LLC, businesses that use PSA software have a significant impact on their performance. Here are some of the key findings:

Operational KPIs:

Unbillable resources cost businesses a lot of money – on average, companies lose 0.3 unbillable resources per $1 million in revenue, which equates to a 20% loss. However, businesses with a higher number of billable resources have a 23% gain and make up for the loss.
Utilizing resources effectively is key – companies with a lower billable utilization (68.1%) experience an 11% decrease in project margins (33.1%).
Annual revenue per employee is also affected by the use of PSA software. Companies without PSA software have a 10% lower annual revenue per employee ($152,000) than those that use it.

Sales KPIs:

The PSA software also helps with the sales process. The win-to-bid ratio is 36% lower for companies that do not use PSA software.
Additionally, the deal pipeline and quarterly booking forecast are 15% lower for businesses that do not use PSA software.

Business KPIs:

Without PSA software, businesses experience a 36% lower YoY PS revenue growth.
However, companies that use PSA software have a 22% increase in profit (EBITDA %).

Solutions:

Companies that use PSA software experience an 11.8% YoY change in PS revenue (+36%), deal pipeline and quarterly booking forecast increase by 192% (+15%), employee billable utilization increases by 11% (75.3%), annual revenue per billable consultant increases by 6% ($208,000), annual revenue per employee increases by 13% ($168,000), and project margin increases by 13% (37.6%).
Using a PSA integrated system instead of a standalone PSA software also shows improvements in the win-to-bid ratio, revenue growth, headcount growth, new client acquisition, billable utilization, and project margin.

Good Performing Firm KPIs:

On average, businesses that use PSA software and have an 85% referenceable client base experience a 36% increase in their deal pipeline and quarterly booking forecast, and a 32% increase in their win-to-bid ratio.
Additionally, they have a 72% increase in average revenue per project, a 46% increase in project margin for time and materials projects, and a 50% increase in project margin for fixed-price projects.
They also have a 32% increase in annual revenue per billable consultant ($246,000), and an impressive 101.8% achievement rate of their annual revenue target.

By utilizing a PSA software, businesses can streamline their processes, optimize resource allocation, and improve their profitability. It’s no wonder that companies who use PSA software outperform those that don’t!

I. Streamlining business processes

One of the primary benefits of PSA software is its ability to streamline and automate key business processes, such as project management, resource allocation, time and expense tracking, and invoicing and billing. This not only saves time and effort for employees, but also reduces the risk of errors and delays, and improves the overall quality of service.

For example, with PSA software, project managers can easily create and assign tasks, track progress, and collaborate with team members in real-time. They can also monitor resource availability and allocate them to projects based on skills, availability, and workload. This ensures that projects are staffed appropriately, and that resources are utilized efficiently.

II. Enhancing project management

PSA software also provides advanced project management tools, such as Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and resource calendars, to help project managers plan, monitor, and control their projects more effectively. They can easily track project timelines, milestones, dependencies, and risks, and adjust them as needed to ensure that projects are delivered on time and within budget.

Moreover, PSA software enables project managers to set up automated alerts and notifications for key events, such as deadlines, budget overruns, and resource conflicts. This ensures that they are promptly informed of any issues or risks, and can take proactive measures to mitigate them.

III. Improving resource allocation

Another key benefit of PSA software is its ability to optimize resource allocation across projects and teams. With real-time visibility into resource availability, skills, and utilization, managers can make informed decisions on how to allocate resources for maximum efficiency and profitability.

For instance, they can identify underutilized resources and assign them to new projects, or reassign them to other projects that require additional support. They can also balance workloads and avoid overloading team members with too much work, which can lead to burnout and decreased productivity.

IV. Increasing billable hours and revenue

By automating time and expense tracking, PSA software also helps service-based businesses increase their billable hours and revenue. With accurate and timely recording of billable and non-billable hours, managers can easily calculate the total billable hours for each project, and generate invoices for clients based on the actual time spent on each task. This ensures that clients are charged fairly and accurately for the services provided, and that the business is compensated for all billable hours.

Additionally, PSA software allows businesses to track and bill for all reimbursable expenses, such as travel, materials, and equipment. By automating the expense tracking process, businesses can reduce the risk of errors and ensure that all expenses are properly documented and reimbursed.

V. Enhancing client satisfaction and retention

Finally, PSA software can also improve client satisfaction and retention by providing a better experience and delivering high-quality services. With advanced reporting and analytics capabilities, businesses can monitor client satisfaction levels, track project performance, and identify areas for improvement.

Moreover, PSA software enables businesses to provide clients with real-time updates on project progress, budgets, and timelines, and to collaborate with them on project deliverables and milestones. This fosters a closer relationship between businesses and clients, and ensures that projects are delivered to the satisfaction of all parties.

III. Features of PSA Software

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of PSA software, let’s take a closer look at the key features and functionalities that make it a powerful tool for professional services firms.

A. Features of PSA Software : Project management

PSA software provides a range of project management tools, including Gantt charts, Kanban boards, task lists, and calendars, to help managers plan, track, and control their projects. These tools allow managers to assign tasks to team members, set deadlines and milestones, monitor progress and risks, and collaborate with stakeholders in real-time.

Here are some common functionalities for project management tools within a PSA software:

Task management: PSA software provides tools to help managers create and assign tasks to team members, set deadlines and milestones, and track progress in real-time. This helps ensure that everyone is working on the right tasks and that the project is on track.
Project planning: PSA software provides tools to help managers plan and schedule project activities, allocate resources, and set budgets and timelines. This allows managers to create a comprehensive project plan and estimate the effort and cost required to complete the project.
Collaboration: PSA software provides tools to help team members collaborate and communicate on project tasks and deliverables. This can include features like file sharing, instant messaging, and commenting, which help ensure that everyone is on the same page and can work together effectively.
Resource management: PSA software provides tools to help managers manage project resources, including personnel, equipment, and materials. This can include features like resource calendars, utilization reports, and conflict resolution, which help ensure that resources are utilized effectively and efficiently.
Budget management: PSA software provides tools to help managers track project budgets and expenses, and ensure that the project is delivered within budget. This can include features like budget tracking, expense tracking, and cost analysis, which help ensure that the project is profitable and sustainable.
Risk management: PSA software provides tools to help managers identify and mitigate project risks, and respond to issues and changes as they arise. This can include features like risk assessment, risk mitigation planning, and change management, which help ensure that the project stays on track and is delivered successfully.
Reporting and analytics: PSA software provides tools to help managers track and analyze project performance, and identify areas for improvement. This can include features like project status reports, profitability analysis, and client satisfaction surveys, which help ensure that the project meets or exceeds client expectations.
Integration: PSA software provides integration with other business software, such as accounting, CRM, and project management software. This allows businesses to easily access and analyze their data from one centralized platform, and ensure that all data is synced and updated in real-time.

B. Features of PSA Software : Resource management

PSA software also provides resource management tools, such as resource calendars, availability charts, and utilization reports, to help managers optimize their resources across projects and teams. With these tools, managers can easily see which resources are available, who is working on what, and how much workload each team member has.

Here are some common functionalities for resource management tools within a PSA software:

Resource allocation: PSA software provides tools to help managers allocate resources to projects based on their skills, availability, and workload. This helps ensure that resources are utilized efficiently and that projects are staffed appropriately.
Resource tracking: PSA software provides tools to help managers track resource availability and utilization across projects and teams. This can include features like resource calendars, utilization reports, and time tracking, which help ensure that resources are being used effectively and not overburdened.
Resource planning: PSA software provides tools to help managers plan and forecast resource needs based on project requirements and timelines. This can include features like resource forecasting, scenario planning, and capacity planning, which help ensure that the business has the right resources available at the right time.
Resource scheduling: PSA software provides tools to help managers schedule resources for specific project tasks and activities. This can include features like Gantt charts, resource calendars, and task assignments, which help ensure that resources are available when needed and that projects are delivered on time.
Resource conflict resolution: PSA software provides tools to help managers resolve conflicts and issues related to resource allocation and utilization. This can include features like resource overbooking alerts, capacity planning, and reassignment options, which help ensure that projects are staffed appropriately and that resources are not overburdened.
Resource performance analysis: PSA software provides tools to help managers analyze resource performance across projects and teams. This can include features like utilization reports, profitability analysis, and time tracking, which help ensure that resources are being used effectively and that the business is maximizing its billable hours.

Overall, resource management tools within a PSA software help businesses to optimize their resource utilization, maximize their billable hours, and ensure that projects are staffed appropriately and delivered on time. By providing a centralized platform for managing all aspects of resource allocation and utilization, PSA software helps businesses to improve their efficiency, profitability, and client satisfaction.

C. Features of PSA Software : Time and expense tracking

One of the core features of PSA software is time and expense tracking, which allows businesses to record and bill for all billable and non-billable hours and expenses. PSA software automates the time and expense tracking process, and generates invoices based on the actual time and expenses recorded.

Time tracking: PSA software provides tools for team members to track their billable and non-billable hours for specific projects and tasks. This can include features like time entry forms, timers, and mobile apps, which make it easy for team members to record their time accurately and promptly.
Expense tracking: PSA software provides tools for team members to track their expenses for specific projects and tasks. This can include features like expense entry forms, receipt scanning, and expense categories, which make it easy for team members to document their expenses and ensure that they are reimbursed appropriately.
Approval process: PSA software provides tools for managers to review and approve time and expense entries before they are billed to clients or reimbursed to team members. This can include features like approval workflows, alerts and notifications, and delegation options, which help ensure that time and expenses are reviewed and approved promptly and accurately.
Billing rates: PSA software provides tools for businesses to set and manage multiple billing rates for different types of work and team members. This can include features like hourly rates, fixed fees, and contingency fees, which allow businesses to bill clients accurately and fairly.
Invoicing: PSA software provides tools for businesses to generate invoices based on the time and expenses recorded by team members. This can include features like customizable templates, batch invoicing, and automatic reminders, which help ensure that clients are billed promptly and accurately.
Reporting: PSA software provides tools for businesses to track and analyze time and expense data across projects and teams. This can include features like utilization reports, profitability analysis, and budget vs. actual reports, which help businesses to optimize their resource allocation and maximize their billable hours.

Overall, time and expense tracking within a PSA software helps businesses to accurately and efficiently track their billable and non-billable hours and expenses, ensure that team members are reimbursed appropriately, and bill clients promptly and accurately. By providing a centralized platform for managing all aspects of time and expense tracking, PSA software helps businesses to improve their efficiency, profitability, and client satisfaction.

D. Features of PSA Software : Invoicing and billing

PSA software also provides advanced invoicing and billing capabilities, such as customizable templates, multiple billing rates, and batch invoicing, to help businesses streamline their billing processes. This ensures that clients are billed accurately and promptly, and that businesses are compensated for all billable hours and expenses.

Customizable invoices: PSA software provides tools for businesses to customize their invoices based on their branding and style preferences. This can include features like templates, colors, and logos, which help businesses to present a professional and consistent image to their clients.
Multiple billing methods: PSA software provides tools for businesses to set and manage multiple billing methods, such as hourly rates, fixed fees, and contingency fees. This allows businesses to bill clients accurately and fairly, and to offer flexible billing options based on the nature of the work and the client’s preferences.
Billing schedules: PSA software provides tools for businesses to set and manage billing schedules for their clients, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually. This helps ensure that clients are billed promptly and consistently, and that businesses have a predictable revenue stream.
Payment processing: PSA software provides tools for businesses to process payments from clients, such as credit cards, bank transfers, and PayPal. This can include features like payment gateways, payment reminders, and automatic payment processing, which help businesses to streamline their payment collection process.
Document management: PSA software provides tools for businesses to manage and store their billing documents, such as invoices, receipts, and payment confirmations. This can include features like document storage, versioning, and access controls, which help businesses to maintain a complete and organized record of their billing and invoicing activities.
Late payment management: PSA software provides tools for businesses to manage late payments from clients, such as payment reminders, interest calculations, and escalation procedures. This helps businesses to minimize the risk of payment delays and to ensure that they are compensated for their services in a timely manner.
Reporting: PSA software provides tools for businesses to track and analyze their billing and invoicing data across projects and clients. This can include features like revenue reports, billing cycle analysis, and payment performance reports, which help businesses to optimize their billing and invoicing processes and maximize their revenue.

Overall, billing and invoicing within a PSA software helps businesses to streamline their billing and payment collection process, maintain a complete and organized record of their billing and invoicing activities, and maximize their revenue. By providing a centralized platform for managing all aspects of billing and invoicing, PSA software helps businesses to improve their efficiency, profitability, and client satisfaction.

Control your invoices

E. Features of PSA Software : Reporting and analytics

PSA software provides advanced reporting and analytics capabilities, such as project profitability reports, resource utilization reports, and client satisfaction surveys, to help businesses monitor and improve their performance. With these tools, businesses can identify areas for improvement, track key performance indicators, and make data-driven decisions.

Here are some common reports, metrics, and dashboard that you can have in a PSA software:

Project profitability report: This report shows the profitability of each project, including the revenue, costs, and profit margin. This report helps businesses to identify which projects are most profitable and to make data-driven decisions about their project portfolio.
Resource utilization report: This report shows how resources are being utilized across projects and teams, including the percentage of time spent on billable vs. non-billable work. This report helps businesses to optimize their resource allocation and maximize their billable hours.
Project status dashboard: This dashboard provides an overview of the status of each project, including the progress, budget, timeline, and risks. This dashboard helps managers to stay informed about project performance and to identify areas for improvement.
Timesheet report: This report shows the hours worked by each team member on specific projects and tasks. This report helps managers to monitor team performance and to ensure that all billable hours are recorded accurately.
Invoice aging report: This report shows the status of all outstanding invoices, including the amount, due date, and payment status. This report helps businesses to monitor their cash flow and to follow up on overdue payments.
Client satisfaction survey: This survey measures client satisfaction levels and feedback on project deliverables and services. This report helps businesses to identify areas for improvement and to ensure that clients are satisfied with the services provided.
Project budget vs. actual report: This report compares the actual project costs and revenue to the original budget, and identifies any variances or discrepancies. This report helps businesses to monitor project profitability and to make adjustments to the project plan as needed.
Resource availability dashboard: This dashboard shows the availability of each resource, including their workload and scheduled time off. This dashboard helps managers to optimize resource allocation and ensure that all resources are utilized effectively.
Business performance metrics: These metrics track the overall performance of the business, such as revenue, profit margin, and client retention rate. These metrics help businesses to monitor their progress and to identify areas for improvement.
Customizable dashboards and reports: PSA software allows businesses to customize their dashboards and reports based on their specific needs and preferences. This allows businesses to focus on the key metrics and data that are most relevant to their business and to create a personalized view of their data.

Overall, PSA software provides a comprehensive suite of reports, metrics, and dashboards to help businesses monitor and analyze their performance, optimize their resources, and make data-driven decisions. By providing real-time access to key data and insights, PSA software helps businesses to improve their efficiency, profitability, and client satisfaction.

F. Integration with other business software

Finally, PSA software can integrate with other business software, such as accounting, CRM, and project management software, to provide a seamless and integrated experience for businesses. This ensures that all data is synced and updated in real-time, and that businesses can easily access and analyze their data from one centralized platform.

IV. Choosing the Right PSA Software

Choosing the right PSA software for your business can be a daunting task, given the wide range of options available on the market. Here are some key factors to consider when selecting a PSA software solution:

Understand your business needs and goals. Determine the key functionalities and features that your business requires, and prioritize them based on your business goals and objectives.
Evaluate key features and functionality. Compare different PSA software solutions based on their features and functionality, such as project management, resource management , time and expense tracking, invoicing and billing, reporting and analytics, and integrations with other software.
Consider ease of use and adoption. Look for a PSA software solution that is user-friendly and easy to adopt, with clear instructions and training resources. This will ensure that your team can quickly learn and use the software, and that you can start reaping the benefits of PSA software as soon as possible.
Assess vendor reputation and support. Research the reputation of the PSA software vendor, and check their track record in delivering high-quality software and support. Look for reviews and testimonials from other businesses that have used the software, and consider the level of customer support and technical assistance that the vendor offers.

V. Conclusion

In conclusion, Professional Services Automation (PSA) software can help service-based businesses achieve greater efficiency and growth by streamlining business processes, enhancing project management, improving resource allocation, increasing billable hours and revenue, and enhancing client satisfaction and retention.

By providing a comprehensive suite of tools for managing and automating key business processes, PSA software enables businesses to focus on delivering high-quality services and value to their clients.

When choosing a PSA software solution, it’s important to consider your business needs and goals, evaluate key features and functionality, assess ease of use and adoption, and review the reputation and support of the vendor.

With the right PSA software solution, your business can achieve greater efficiency, profitability, and client satisfaction.

Top 42 KPIs Examples for Professional Services Firms.

Sep 23, 2022 | Consulting industry

I’ve worked for 4 years in professional services within the management committee and many more in the software industry. I wrote a list of all my favorite KPIs I would use as Professional Services Firms management committee. In Gino Wickman’s book, Traction®, there is a theory that each manager should have a number. So, this is a great list to find the KPI that you want to grow in your professional services firm and split it into 4 categories:

Acquire
Delivery
Adore
Scale

Klient PSA - KPI

The KPIs are coming from various sources, my own experience and the 2022 Professional Services Maturity™ Benchmark by Service Performance Insight.

And I’ll be using a few example from our software, Klient PSA to illustrate. Enjoy 🙂

Acquire: The top 9 KPIs for sales and marketing management as a professional services firm

Customer acquisition can be a tricky business. You want to attract new customers, but you don’t want to give away too much in terms of marketing and sales incentives. After all, you want them to buy from you because they see the value in what you’re offering, not because you’re offering a deep discount. Lead generation is often the first step in the customer acquisition process. By generating leads – potential customers who have expressed an interest in your service – you can start to build a relationship with them and eventually persuade them to buy from you.

Sales Growth Rate:

Formula: ((Current Period Sales — Prior Period Sales) / Prior Period Sales) x 100
Department: Sales
Frequency: Annually/Monthly/Quarterly
Goal: Am I growing?
Rating: ⭐⭐

Keep track of your sales. To get a percentage, divide (current earnings – previous earnings) by previous earnings, then multiply by 100. Sales growth is measured annually, but you can measure it monthly or quarterly. Relevant revenue growth is unaffected by monthly seasonal swings. Organizations with seasonal revenue should measure sales increase in the same month (or season) as the previous year.

Salesforce - CRM Dashboard

Lead to Opportunity Ratio

Formula: (Number of leads converted into opportunities / total number of leads) x 100
Department: Sales/Marketing
Frequency: Monthly
Limitation: Sales Cycle Length
Goal: Do I get the right leads? Do I qualify correctly?
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

You can see how well your sales staff is doing by looking at the Lead Conversion Rate. Its formula is the number of leads converted into sales divided by the total number of leads multiplied by 100. It is required to submit a report every month.

Lead to Customer Ratio

Formula: (Number of leads converted into customers / total number of leads) x 100
Department: Sales/Marketing
Frequency: Monthly
Limitation: Sales Cycle Length
Goal: Am I good at winning new customers?
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The conversion ratio measures how many qualified leads become actual sales in a specific period, divided by the total number of qualified leads generated within that same time frame. Conversion is a term that must be defined for each firm uniquely. External parties (e.g., investors) will be able to understand the calculations, ensuring that a corporation follows desirable events while external parties are aware of the meaning of the calculations.

Salesforce - Forecast - Sales Funnel Lead to Customer

Forecasted revenue recognition

Formula: (Total Billable Hours Sold for a Period / Avg. Billable Hours Consumption per period)
Department: Sales/Operations
Frequency: Monthly
Limitation: Formula/Unprecise
Goal: How much revenue I’ll generate from my new sales for the following period?
Rating: ⭐⭐

Revenue recognition is the process of accounting for revenue. Revenue is recognized when it is earned, and it is measured by the fair value of the consideration received or to be received. There are five primary methods of revenue recognition: the cash basis, accrual basis, completion of the contract, percentage of completion, and time-based. Most consulting firms will use the percentage of completion method as it’s the most relevant for their business.
Personally, I like to use that principle to recognize forecasted revenue. You can use those principles to evaluate your sales pipeline and your requirements for new sales. To be able to “calculate” a forecast on the percentage of completion, I like to calculate my billable hours’ consumption rate. But it’s not perfect. Most consulting services firms have different rhythms for project completion based on each phase. I generally like to set up a formula that fits our reality with our occupation rate and our starting lag.
Here is an example. I like to set my year in 28 days period (4 weeks). Each billable resource is generally consuming 160 hours per period. As a team of 10, we consume 1600 hours per period. We normally have 5 projects in parallel. So, we can estimate an avg. 320 hours billable hours consumption for one project. (Again, it’s not perfect).
If I sell 2000 hours this month, it will take 6.25 months to complete. This way, you can start setting objectives and goals for my team that consider our billable hours’ needs.

Sales Capacity by Employee/Skills/Roles Utilization

Formula: Team’s Total Capacity – Number of Planned Hours
Variance: Project Manager’s Total Capacity – Number of Planned Hours for Project Manager

Department: Sales/Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly
Limitation: Formula
Goal: How much can my sales team sell for the following period?
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

There is two different way to calculate sales capacity. One is to define a Sales Capacity for a rep. How much are my sales reps able to generate? As a consulting/professional services firm, you want to be able to calculate your team capacity in terms of new sales.
In terms of forecasting, you want to be able to have your team capacity for the following weeks/months based on your planning. As the Sales cycle can be long, we want to be able to plan the capacity for the following months to define our sales objectives.

Number of canceled sales/projects/requests

Formulas
- Ratio: # of Sales Lost/Disqualified due to Capacity / Total # of Leads
- Amount: # of Sales Lost/Disqualified due to Capacity x Values
- Perfect Salesmen Formula: # of Leads x Our Best Lead to Won Opportunities Ratio x Avg. Won Opportunities Values

Department: Sales
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly
Goal: Is my sales team affected by our capacity?
Rating: ⭐

To compute a cancellation rate, It’s important to keep that information in your CRM. I like to have visibility on timing/capacity reasons why a lead or customer decided to cancel their request. It gives us visibility on how many billable hours we could reach if we had more resources.
The challenge is when a sales team has a service team at low capacity, they will unconsciously reduce the pressure to close sales. I had a presale, in 3 years, then went from 25% to an 80% disqualification rate. He would over-disqualify for random reasons because he knew we didn’t have the capacity. Unfortunately, our opportunity won rate stayed the same. Our Lead to Customer ratio went from 35% to 12% in 3 years.
I would try to monitor Opportunity Won Rate and Disqualification Rate to verify that phenomenon. This is why I like to calculate a “perfect salesmen” formula as well comparing our year to our best historical ratios. It would give me how much money we left on the table.

Cost per Lead/Opportunity/Customers (per channel)

Bad Formulas (If your marketer calculates that way, fire him. No, don’t do it. it’s a “joke”.)
- Marketing Budget / # of LeadsMarketing Budget # of Leads

Good Formulas
Paid Channel: Direct Marketing Fees (CPC/CPL) + Indirect Marketing Fees / # of Leads
Organic Search: Net New Content Indirect Marketing Fees / Net New Organic Leads

Department: Marketing
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly
Goal: Manage your investment in marketing by Channel
Rating: ⭐⭐

You only need to know your total number of leads and your entire marketing budget to calculate your cost per lead. The price per lead formula is straightforward. It’s as simple as dividing your marketing budget by the number of new leads. You may calculate your cost per lead (CPL) using this information. To get an accurate outcome, you must consider the number of leads and the amount of money spent on marketing.
Again, it’s not perfect. As a Marketing department is often a jack of all trades. It makes more sense when it’s performance marketing (Growth Marketing Department). This is why I like to split Indirect marketing fees and direct marketing fees per paid channel.

Direct Marketing Fees are the CPC bid that you might pay to a platform like Google.
Indirect Marketing Fees are the time and assets required to create and maintain that campaign.

For Organic Channel, like youtube and google (organic), the calculation model is different. 99% of the cost is the cost to create new content and maintain the assets. I always say that a content/SEO marketing team has no impact on day-to-day leads. They create for the future.

New Net Content Indirect Marketing Fees: Cost per New Blog + Time for Integration + Cost if I need new Assets for Conversions.

This is why a lot of CEOs invest in Organic/SEO lead generation. Everything that you create will continue to generate leads even if you fire your whole marketing team. It will only slowly decrease due to the lack of maintenance.

Customer Acquisition Cost

Formulas: Sales/Marketing Indirect/Direct Costs x Number of new customers
Department: Sales/Marketing/Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly
Goal: Self-explanatory
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

To calculate Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), sales and marketing costs are multiplied by the number of new customers acquired in a given period. One of the essential KPIs for investors is represented by this indicator. Understanding a company’s ability to grow and its profitability are two of the primary purposes of this tool. Consider the lifetime worth of a customer when calculating CAC (LTV). Return on investment (ROI) can be gauged using these criteria.
This is an important KPI for the business. It gives you the project size that you need to sell to break even. (It doesn’t mean that you should accept projects under that size.) It means that your team needs to be conscientious of customer value.

Website visits

Formulas: Google Analytics = Total Number of Users
Department: Marketing
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly
Goal: Is my Website content growing?
Rating: ⭐⭐

There are several ways to measure the performance of your website (or business, for that matter) using KPIs. Still, the most common method is to look at the number of unique visitors that come to the site each month and the number of unique visitors that return to the site each month
This KPI is good to follow organic growth/lead generation and brand notoriety. You can use that as a starting point to measure your conversion rate.

YouTube subscribers

Formulas: Youtube Monthly Net New Subscribers
Department: Marketing
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly
Goal: Is my Youtube Channel growing?
Rating: ⭐

A YouTube KPI or metric assesses the success of a video’s social media distribution on YouTube. An effective social media video strategy is built on recognizing the correct variables for generating successful content.
It’s a great KPI to measure your Youtube Channel Growth.

Delivery : 14 KPIs For Project and Resources Management as a Professional Services Firms.

Keeping an eye on your team’s productivity is easy when you use project management metrics. Utilizing resource management KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators is a great way to achieve this goal quickly. It is identifying and allocating the resources needed to finish a project. Effective communication is a critical part of project management, even if not given top emphasis by tiny start-ups. It’s a good idea to improve your resource management to increase productivity because resource management uses KPIs as concrete benchmarks to help you track your efficiency.

Scheduled/Planned Billable Hours

Formula: Billable Hours assigned to all your resources for the following period
Department: Operations
Frequency: Weekly/Bi-Weekly/Monthly (Fit with your Resource Planning Meeting)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Billable hours are the amount of time spent working on business projects that can be charged to a client according to an agreed-upon hourly rate. They are a key metric for many businesses, as they directly impact profitability. Billable hours can be used to track employee productivity, project progress, and more.
Scheduled billable hours are to have on how many hours are planned for the following week. It gives you visibility on your billability and revenues for the following period.

Scheduled v. Total Billable Hours - Klient PSA

Project profitability

Formula: Profitability Index = (Net Project value + (CAC + Administrative Cost split by projects)) / (CAC + Administrative Cost split by Project).
- Net Project Value = Project Revenues – Cost
Department: Operations
Frequency: Annually
Goal: Find your sweet spot in terms of effectiveness and profitability.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Project profitability is a funny thing. Some firms think that the only way to make money is to take on high-dollar initiatives, but that’s not necessarily true. In fact, some firms may find themselves in hot water if they take on too many of these types of projects without careful consideration. Why? Because while a high-dollar initiative might sound like it’s going to be profitable, it might not actually be once all is said and done. Project profitability is essential for the overall financial health of a business, so it’s important to be mindful of this when taking on new projects. To ensure profitability, do your research and ensure that the project you’re undertaking has the potential to be lucrative. By doing so, you can help set your firm up for success.
This Index will give you a reality on each project’s profitability. You will be able to define the right project profitability index for your growth and use this KPI as a qualification index for your sales team.
Mainly, you want to find if any project criteria have a higher chance to generate unbillable hours and decrease your net project value. As an example, in a previous role, our fixed-fee project profitability index was 3 times higher than time-based projects. Our project over 600 hours had our worst profitability index.

Employee/skills/roles utilization

Formula: # of billable hours / total schedulable hours (by employee/skills/roles)
Department: Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly/Annually
Goal: Try to find if any employee, skills, or roles is underutilized or overutilized.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

What’s the best method for determining utilization? The basic calculation is straightforward: the number of billable hours divided by the total number of available hours is the formula (x 100).
As a result, a person billing for 32 hours of a 40-hour week would have an 80 percent utilization rate. It is possible to compute utilization rates in various methods, depending on whether you are interested in pricing, employment, or the health of your organization. Divide the total of all employee utilization rates by the total number of employees to arrive at your firm’s utilization rate. Employee and company-level data can be gleaned from the most reliable time monitoring systems.
You can consider administrative hours. It’s a better KPI if you take them out as your employee are not responsible for an internal meeting.
Most professional services firms have roles/skills that create roadblocks. As an example, in software implementation, architects can be in high demand and rare to find. You’ll think that the integrator is not doing a good ratio. But he’s always waiting for the analysis to start the customization. By recruiting a new architect, you’ll increase your integrators’ utilization.

Klient PSA Report - Roles Utilization

Total utilization.

Formula: Total Billable Hours / total schedulable hours (by employee/skills/roles)
Department: Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly/Annually
Goal: Analyze the overall business health.
Rating: ⭐⭐

As before, it’s a similar KPI with a different goal. Total utilization is a term that indicates the relative volume of hours an employee delivers, regardless of the type of work being done. Total utilization includes all hours worked with the same denominator of available hours. Total utilization is a good way to measure employees’ workloads and how effectively they are using their time. However, it is important to note that total utilization does not take into account the quality of the work being done or the results of the work. Therefore, total utilization should not be used as the sole criterion for assessing employee performance.

Cycle Time

Formula: Time to execute a specific task
Department: Operations
Frequency: Annually
Goal: Answer the ultimate question about life the universe and everything.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

My brother is a mechanic. If you ever go to a mechanic shop, everything is precalculated and each mechanic is evaluated from those cycle times. Mechanics will get assigned specific tasks based on their previous performance vs. the cycle time. (Sorry, I ❤️ Cycle Time.)
It’s one of the most important KPIs here. In professional services, I heard a lot about “it depends”. Defining cycle time by the task will help you create recipes to compare, benchmark, improve and grow your business. We started using cycle time in the marketing department. We’ve seen a huge improvement in our content production capacities.
You can compare employee performance, increase profitability, set a consistent production, increase customer satisfaction, improve project scoping and so much more.
The cycle time formula is the key to revealing the speed of delivery. It’s a crucial metric that allows you to measure how long it takes to deliver a service. It can also be considered part of continuous improvement efforts since it can expose areas of inefficiencies that you and your team could address. It’s also a valuable metric when it comes to measuring productivity and efficiency within a business. However, cycle time can be a bit of a mystery for some businesses.
The challenge is the cycle time can only be managed at the task level or a fix-fee project.

Here is a video that explain how we use project and task template in Klient PSA.

On-Time Project Completion Rate

Formula: # of Project completed before time / # of Project Completed
- # of projects completed under budget / # of Project Completed
Department: Operations/Sales
Frequency: Annually/Quarterly
Goal: Review your ability to scope, quote, and execute projects in time and on budget.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

On-Time Task Completion Rate is a measure of how often projects are completed on time. The goal is to get a completion rate of as near as possible to 100%. Knowing the On-Time Completion Rate acts as a starting point for improving project efficiency and can be tracked over time.

On-Time Task Completion Rate

Formula: # of projects completed before time / # of Project Completed
- # of projects completed under budget / # of Project Completed
- Can be done by employee/role.
Department: Operations/Sales
Frequency: Annually/Quarterly
Goal: Review your cycle time and employees for each task.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

On-Time Task Completion Rate is a valuable metric for any organization, especially those who want to improve their project management skills.

Number of adjustments to the project

Formula: Sum of adjustments done to a proj
Department: Operations/Sales
Frequency: Annually/Quarterly
Goal: Review your ability to scope, quote, and execute projects in time and on budget.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Again, there is always a challenge in scoping and executing projects. You want to identify the variance of the project scope vs. actual. It can be useful in fix fee project to know if there is a change to be done in the initial scope.

Resource Capacity

Formula: # of scheduled hours / total billable hours
Department: Operations
Frequency: Weekly/Monthly
Goal: Overview your needs in terms of new contracts or resources.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

For managers to better grasp their team’s capabilities, they need to calculate the capacity of their resources. To calculate the total number of hours worked throughout the measurement period, multiply the number of working days by eight. Net work hours are calculated by deducting the time set for team meetings. Individual capacity for each resource is determined by subtracting time off for each team member from the total work hours and multiplying the result by availability. Calculate the total number of hours your team can work by adding the individual capacity of each resource.
This is why PSA software can give you that information in real-time.

Resources Capacity - Klient PSA

Cost Variance

Formula: Budgeted Cost/Actual Cost
Department: Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly
Goal: Cost and schedule variance can affect customer satisfaction. It can be an indicator of customer churn if the communication is not done correctly. It can also be a good KPI to manage your fixed fee offers.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The amount by which your project’s budget exceeds or falls short of your predetermined maximum is known as a cost variance. It would be best if you kept an eye on cost and schedule variation, i.e., how early or late you meet project deadlines during your project.

Percentage of tasks completed

Formula: # of tasks completed / # of tasks in the project
Department: Operations
Frequency: Weekly/Monthly
Goal: It can be a good KPI to send in your weekly report. It’s not the best KPI as each task has a different duration.
Rating: ⭐

A simple but intriguing KPI to keep track of. Over time, it keeps tabs on how many jobs each employee has performed. Despite its usefulness to all departments, developers frequently use it to measure productivity. In comparison to other departments, they may have a higher number of unfinished jobs. After all, they’re constantly juggling a slew of more minor – but no less critical – positions.
This is an excellent indicator for a manager since it demonstrates how well each department has performed over the past few months. It is possible to temporarily provide more resources to one department or delegate some work to the employees who are not under as much stress.

Planned vs. actual hours

Formula: # of scheduled hours / total billable hours
Department: Operations
Frequency: Weekly/Monthly
Goal: Have good visibility of your ability to execute the planned schedule. It can be a good KPI to evaluate team members and find tangents that can be affecting your team’s performance.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The most frequent KPI for assessing a planner’s efficiency is the plan vs. actual (also known as planner accuracy) ratio. It compares the estimated hours of work by the planner and the exact number of hours billed to a job.

Scheduled Variance

Formula: Scheduled value / Expected value
Department: Operations
Frequency: Weekly/Monthly
Goal: The Schedule Variance percent tells you how much the project is behind or ahead of schedule in percentage terms.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

The Schedule Variance percent tells you how much the project is behind or ahead of schedule in percentage terms. When calculating schedule variance, use this formula: A schedule variance percentage (SV%) is calculated by taking the scheduled value and dividing it by the expected value (PV)

Project Velocity

Formula: # of story points/number of sprints
Department: Operations
Frequency: Weekly/Monthly
Goal: A better fit for the development team. The goal is your team’s capacity to complete stories per sprint and forecast your whole project.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

This metric is calculated by averaging the story points delivered across the previous sprints. The velocity should be determined across five sprints to obtain a reliable average.

Adore: 8 KPIs to Get the most from your customer service department as a professional services firm.

An organization’s overall key performance indicator (KPI) for measuring how satisfied and engaged employees are at any one time is known as employee satisfaction. The metric combines several minor indications to get an overall picture of how happy and pleased your employees are at work.

NPS Score

Formula: How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?
- Promoters: 9 or 10
- Passives: 7 or 8
- Detractors : 0 to 6.
- NPS = % of Promoters ( — ) % of Detractors
Department: Operations
Frequency: Quarterly/Yearly
Goal: NPS score is a great KPI. The challenge is most of the time it’s used on a really small sample. NPS scores are recommended on large samples (over 1 000).
Rating: ⭐

If you want to know how your consumers feel about your firm, you can use a net promoter score (NPS). The percentage of clients likely to promote your company’s products or services is considered.
Above 0 is good, Above 20 is favorable, Above 50 is excellent, and. Above 80 is world-class.

Customer Churn

Formula: # of customers that stop using a service / total number of customers
Department: Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly
Goal: The goal is to compare your acquisition rate to your customer churn rate. It will give your net customer growth.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

An important KPI for tracking customer retention is the Customer Churn Rate. It can be determined by dividing the number of consumers that stop using a service by the average number of users for a specific period.

Customer upsells/cross-sell rate.

Formula: Total quantity of upsell/cross-sells / Total number of customers
Department: Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly
Goal: Having continuous relationships with your customers is essential to your success. Behind able to measure and compare customers on a ratio of “avg upsell/cross-sell rate” helps you identify/compare your customer base.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Cross-selling and up-selling programs can be measured in a variety of ways, including the following:
One approach to tell if upselling has occurred is to look at the average sales volume for each customer.
The number of items and services available to each customer increases as the company’s sales breadth increases.
You get a better cross-selling ratio when you divide the total number of products or services sold by the total number of customers. Cross-selling and up-selling efforts may have been unsuccessful if customer retention rates are higher than typical. Customer attrition can be caused by various circumstances, including poor customer service.

Customer Complaints

Formula: # of customers complaints / total number of customers
Department: Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly
Goal: Identify if a customer has a higher complaints rate and identify the cause. Like in support, you want to identify which customers are consuming your services the most.
Rating: ⭐⭐

A positive experience for the client Companies uses KPIs to measure and track consumer satisfaction with their products, services, and experiences. The ultimate goal is to discover factors influencing customer satisfaction and identify potential growth and enhancement areas.
A few years back, one of my teachers at HEC, Yany Gregoire, was talking about the double fault. Customers that complain are normally customers who want to keep working with your business. They only want a solution. By doing a service recovery, they will most likely become your most loyal customer.

Employee Churn

Formula: # of employees that left for a period of time / # of employees
Department: Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly
Goal: Same as customer churn, it gives you visibility on how many employees you’ll need to hire to grow your business. Also, it can help you identify customers at risk.
Rating: ⭐⭐

It’s computed by taking the number of people forced to leave and dividing it by the average number of employed people during that time. Assume that six of the ten outgoing employees left of their own volition, based on the data above.
Employees’ churn in professional services has a huge impact on customer retention. The knowledge transfer is frequently bad and if a customer lives multiples churn in a short period of time, they are most likely to leave the company as well.

Team Satisfaction

Formula: There is great software like Office Vibes that can get a multi-factorial vibe for your team.
Department: Operations
Frequency: Monthly/Quarterly
Goal: Increase employee satisfaction and retention.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

To know how happy and engaged your employees are at any given time; you need to assess employee satisfaction. The metric combines several minor indications to get an overall picture of how happy and pleased your employees are at work.

Number of change requests

Formula: # of change requests
Department: Operations
Frequency: Weekly/Monthly/Quarterly
Goal: Identify either a customer/consultant/project going off-track.
Rating: ⭐⭐

Using this KPI, you may better understand the approval process and see whether you need to make any adjustments. This aspect can help improve the communication between the service provider and the client.
Change request affects the scope, cost, and timeline of a project. A large variation from the initial scope can slightly move the project of its initial objectives. In the 80/20 rules, they will end up investing a lot in a request that is not essential to the organization.
By monitoring this KPI, you can identify a project/consultant/customer going off-track and verify if those changes are within the project objectives.

Avg. backlogs/requests per customer

KPI for customer service teams is the total number of customers who have submitted a support request. Keeping tabs on the top line is just the beginning; you’ll also need to look at how the volume changes with the year’s hours, days, and seasons.

Scale: 11 KPIs To Ensure that your Professional Services Firms has the best margin.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and Return on Investment (ROI) are acronyms used in Digital Marketing. Digital marketing uses the phrase “Key Performance Indicators” to describe the marketing measures used to evaluate a digital marketing campaign’s performance.

Annual/Monthly Revenue per Billable Employee/Roles

The ratio of revenue generated per employee is crucial since it approximates the amount of money each employee brings into the business. To get a company’s revenue per employee, divide the company’s total income by the number of employees it currently has on staff.

Annual /Monthly utilization per billable employee/roles

In project-based services, billable utilization refers to the percentage of available hours personnel spend earning money. The formula for the usage rate is as follows:
To calculate a company’s billable utilization percentage, multiply the total billing hours by the total available working hours by 100 percent.
For most professional services organizations, the billable utilization rate is a key performance indicator (KPI).

Annual/Monthly Overhead by Billable Employee/Roles

Divide the monthly sales by the entire monthly overhead costs to arrive at the overhead rate. To determine your overhead rate, multiply this value by 100.

Percentage of non-billable

Productivity can be measured by the percentage of billable hours your technicians spend on directly chargeable tasks to a customer. Field service firms frequently monitor this KPI since it is more financially oriented. The most significant component of most KPIs or metrics is what you do with them — in other words, how the KPI drives decision-making. The percentage of billable hours makes this crystal evident. These technicians are more productive if they have a large portion of their work time being billable hours, while the less effective technicians spend most of their time on non-billable jobs.

Time to invoice

Hourly work is invoiced by calculating the hourly rate for each activity and providing a detailed explanation of each performed task. The hourly invoice keeps track of the time spent on a project and clarifies when it’s time to get paid.

Invoice Processing/Creation Time

Regarding overall departmental efficiency, measuring costs per invoice handled provides the organization’s first insight. The infrastructure and follow-up, personnel pay, management overhead, and IT support are only some of the costs associated with processing an invoice.

Average approval time

Using this KPI, you can see how long it takes for customers to complete a purchase order in a shopping cart. It’s based on a year’s worth of data, returning to the prior year. A total of four measurements can be shown on the app: For each day of the week, there are four price ranges: low, medium, high, and very high (Main Measure). It shows the average approval time for low, medium, high, and high-cost items. In advance, a set of acceptable values has been established.

Invoice cycle time

Using this KPI, you can see how long it takes on average to invoice a given percentage of your line volume. The invoice fill rate option allows you to set this proportion.

Average invoice value

For the average transaction value, multiply the total amount by the number of transactions, equal to how many sales there were during the time in question. This can be computed on a daily, monthly, or yearly basis.

Net profit margin

After subtracting all of your operational expenses, taxes, interest, and depreciation, your net profit is the genuine profit that remains. The net profit margin is calculated by dividing the total revenue by the entire profit margin.

Selling, General, and Administrative (SG&A) Ratio

Formula: Total SG&A / Total sales revenue

Total SG&A = Direct selling expenses (Commissions/Selling Fees) + Indirect selling expenses (Marketing/Sales wages + Marketing Budget) + Administrative Expenses (Rent, Utilities, Supplies, Administrative staff wages)

Department: Administration
Frequency: Annually

SG&A affects a company’s profitability and break-even point. The point of equilibrium is when revenue and expenses are equal. It’s one of the most accessible places to find methods to boost profits. Non-sales staff salaries may usually be cut without hurting production or sales. After a merger or acquisition, SG&A is a top cost-cutting target. It’s an easy target for management teams looking to boost profitability.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Key performance indicators are used to measure the success of a company’s strategic, financial, and operational goals compared to those of other businesses in the same industry. Among the monetary metrics that can be used are net profit (also known as the bottom line or gross profit margin), revenues less specific costs, and the current ratio (liquidity and cash availability). Most customer-focused key performance indicators (KPIs) are geared toward improving efficiency, delighting customers, and ensuring they return.

Congratulations SQALE! Our first Klient-University graduates!

Jan 26, 2022 | Achievements, Consulting Businesses, Klient University

SQALE, It’s with great honor that we welcome you into Klient’s ecosystem. A special kudos for overperforming during your Klient-University class, you were great!

You’ve mastered Klient’s Performance Path in no time and with ease. The 5 days we’ve spent with you Erica, Michiel and Hans were just delightful!

We have no doubts that you will succeed in streamlining, growing and evolving your business!

Please, let’s all welcome SQALE to the Klient ecosystem!

Evolve Your Salesforce Consulting Business With Klient PSA

Oct 22, 2021 | Consulting Businesses, Klient PSA Webinar, Salesforce Consulting Partners, Salesforce PSA

Are you responsible for igniting growth in your business? The pressure to keep a Consulting business thriving can be a challenge. It’s definitely not easy.

At Klient, we see Consulting businesses all the time who say they feel stagnant – or they’re backsliding. If you’re on a plateau, it’s time to break out of that rut and unlock these 4 key drivers of growth:

Proposal & Forecasting
Project & Resourcing
Revenue & Invoicing
The Customer Experience

These are areas we see the biggest challenges with our customers and in the market today. Tackling these Consultant Challenges is our favourite way to ignite growth in a Salesforce Consulting business.

Watch our latest Success Series (Episode 2, Season 2) to learn about how we can tackle common Consulting Challenges with Klient.

The 4 Consulting Challenges

Proposal & Forecasting

1. The Missing Link Between Opportunity & Project

Watch the webinar from 3:05 to 10:51

For most Consultancies, success is signing a Statement of Work.

But that’s only half the story. For a Statement of Work to be a winner, your business has been feeding it info for days, if not weeks prior. From details on the sales Opportunity, to the billing requirements on the Project itself, your different teams need to share a lot of information to make good estimates.

Making one good estimate is one thing, but at Klient we’ve identified that a key driver of growth is consistent and accurate estimates. Along with good info sharing, that means starting estimates early so your Sales and Delivery team are aligned from the beginning – which is the first Consulting Challenge we want to address.

An evolved Consulting Business starts estimates early, ideally as soon as you start talking about a deal. That’s where Klient Proposal comes in.

Download the PDF of the Success Series S2.E2 webinar.

While you’re working on an a sales Opportunity in Klient, you can connect it to a Proposal. In that Proposal, you can import a successful Project Template from a past project that will set the framework for what you can deliver. This is the missing link between Opportunity and Project.

Using a Proposal, you can ensure that your Sales team is selling something that your Delivery team can deliver from the very, very beginning of a sale. This sort of alignment between Sales and Delivery ensures you’re starting on-time and ending on-budget.

The brilliance of the Klient platform is that all the information you need to make & update your Statement of Work, including Proposal, Project and your customer Account, is all in one place. No more delays when a prospect requests a revision to a Statement of Work. With Klient Proposal, accurate and consistent estimates won’t be a Consulting Challenge anymore.

Project & Resourcing

2. Improving Profit Margins

Watch the webinar from 10:51 to 24:13

The second Consulting Challenge we want to look into is recruiting Resources and onboarding them efficiently.

An evolved business gets their new hires billing as quickly as possible. That’s where Resource Planner, Klient Job Portal and structured onboarding come in.

If you’re using a tool like the Resource Planner, you should have good visibility over your staff hours. If you see that you don’t have enough Resources, you can go about hiring more.

Of course, once you figure out that you need Resources, don’t forget to check out the Klient Candidate Job Portal. It’ll help you post job openings, take Applications, sift through Candidates and their skills, and plug a successful Candidate straight into your current Proposals and Projects.

But a lot of Consulting Businesses run into a real problem at the onboarding stage. It can take weeks, if not months to onboard if you don’t make your process consistent and structured. And if your new hire isn’t ready to bill against the Project you hired them for, then your Consulting Business’s profit margins and timelines will suffer.

To solve for this, you can create an Onboarding Project in Klient. Build out all the key tasks and milestones and simply use this as a Project Template for onboarding every new hire. You can shave weeks off your onboarding, and the joy of a structured process is it can be improved with every pass. The faster you can onboard that new staff and get them billing – well your bottom line will thank you.

Revenue and Invoicing

3. Maximizing Your Cash Flow

Watch the webinar from 24:13 to 34:12

Revenue leakage. You do not want to see those words next to each other.

All Consulting businesses face challenges when it comes to managing their Revenue. The sheer amount of Invoices and Timesheets needed to manage your business can be staggering. Inevitably things fall between the cracks, and that’s called Revenue leakage.

An evolved Consulting business takes their cash flow seriously. That’s the third big Consulting Challenge that every successful business needs to tackle. How many days does it take you to close your end of month? If it’s more than a couple days, you’re losing big on your cash flow.

We help so many of our customers tackle revenue leakage with a combination of Klient Revenue, Invoicing and Timesheets.

We really can’t overstate the benefit of working on one platform, from Opportunity at the start to Analytics and Reporting at the end.

Because your Projects and your Invoices are all managed in Klient’s PSA, there’s no more lost Invoices. Helpful team collaboration tools like Chatter mean that your Finance team and your Delivery team are closer than ever. Plus all the accounting Integrations mean your Finance team don’t need to give up the tools they know and love.

The Customer Experience

4. Providing a 5-Star Experience

Watch the webinar from 34:12 to 43:18

Word-of-mouth is a key sales tactic for nearly all Consulting businesses. You customers are your ambassadors, and you want them to be your number one sales team. But it’s not always easy to keep them happy. Even the best intentioned Project plan can start to creep in terms of scope, or get delayed and squish your timelines.

Life happens. There’s only so much you can do in this fast-paced Consulting business space. So you need to be proactive. That’s the final Consulting Challenge we want to talk about today.

Starting Projects at the Proposal stage and being proactive with Klient Surveys are key ingredients in providing that 5-star experience.

With Survey Scheduler in Klient, you can survey at any step in your Project plan. Surveys aren’t just for the end, you can:

Survey at the start to assess their unique customer needs
Survey in the middle to check for any issues your customers may be too shy to bring up on a call

It’s this attention to detail that will make you shine in front of your customers. Project Details are also a great way to be transparent with customers. If you start your Project plan early enough that it’s linked to in your Proposal, it’s easy to update customers on the changes they’re requesting in the estimate. Make sure you’re both happy with any changes to a Project, particularly to Resources and costs, with Klient Project Details and Proposals.

Evolving Past Consulting Challenges

We’ve shown some of our favourite ways to tackle these common Consulting Challenges. They’re not always easy, but overcoming them is an important step in becoming a top Consulting business. From customer experience to streamlining your processes, the Klient PSA platform can be your partner on the way to top. If you want more details, you can always check out the Klient Success Series Webinar: Evolve Your Consulting Business.

To schedule a discovery call and a demo with our team, please don’t hesitate to connect on LinkedIn at yanick-abraham or contact us on the Request a Demo page.

Salesforce Economy Will Create 9.3 Million Jobs by 2026!

Sep 28, 2021 | Consulting industry, Professional Services Automation, Reports, Salesforce PSA

For those who have followed Salesforce through the years, they know the #1 CRM in the world always set ambitious goals in terms of growth.

Here’s some highlights:

Produce $1.6 trillion in new revenues for customers by 2026.
They Expect to grow partner revenues to 3.5 times what they were in 2020
IDC predicted the Salesforce Economy will generate 9.3 million new jobs by 2026

Salesforce realease their new research from IDC detailing how they will drive nearly 9.6 million new jobs (yes, you read that right) and more than $1.6 trillion in new revenues for customers by 2026. Following the pandemic, their focus is not only about the jobs and revenue growth, but also to provide support their partners.

The ecosystem of companies supporting Salesforce customersʼ implementations is five times as big as Salesforce itself today and will be more than six times as big
in 2026. With 2026 ecosystem revenue forecast to be 3.5 times that in 2020, the challenge will be finding talent.

The growth of cloud software2 suffered little from the pandemic, growing 22% worldwide
in 2020, while on-premises software growth fell to zero. This year, cloud-delivered
software will be 43% of the software market, and by 2026, it will be 61%.

Read the full article here.

Download a full copy of the IDC: Salesforce Economy 2021

How Much Time Is Your Service Business Losing Switching Between Applications?

Dec 5, 2019 | Consulting industry, Services Businesses

In today’s service landscape, it’s not uncommon for a business to regularly use multiple applications and software throughout the course of a single workday in order to reap the benefits provided by each.

However, this means that service team members may continually be switching back and forth between multiple solutions throughout their day and attempting to learn the ins and outs of a multitude of functionality and different processes, which can lead to significant time lost while navigating between applications and tools.

How much time are service team members really losing and what is the impact on the business?

Research into the state of the services economy has shown that 73% of service companies report stating they spend more than one hour per day on average navigating between different applications and software. In a 7-8 hour workday that’s roughly 12-14% of the day wasted maneuvering between solutions that are supposed to be increasing efficiency.

The impact this can have on the business may vary greatly, but always results in time taken away from other more effective work.

In addition, with more systems being used on average by companies than ever before, the result is even more time spent in navigation and employees becoming less acquainted with the systems they are using. Struggling with systems that they do not completely understand will only increase navigation time and the total time spent attempting to complete tasks.

All of this boils down to a loss in potential billing time for your services team, and for your company – the outcome is less productivity and less profit.

The Solution: With the right PSA, your service team will have everything they need in one application.

A Professional Services Automation (PSA) solution is a tool built to maximize efficiency for a services team and eliminate the need to switch back and forth between time and expense software, project management tools, team collaboration applications, invoicing and accounting software, CRM applications, and more.

Kliend PSA, built 100% native on Salesforce, offers a complete application for every step of the professional services lifecycle. From time of sale, right through to successful completion of service delivery, Klient PSA can manage every aspect of your project from start to finish.

Features and functionality built directly into the Klient PSA tool include, but are not limited to; project management; team collaboration; time and expense management; resource management; project accounting; services CPQ; survey and feedback functionality; customer and partner communities; and more.

What’s more, is that Klient PSA seamlessly integrates with the software and applications the rest of your business relies on so that all of that data is available for your service team as well. Here’s just a few of the applications that Klient PSA can integrate with:

By integrating applications with your PSA tool, your team will have everything they need in one place and there will be no need for time wasted learning multiple applications and navigating amongst them.

« Older Entries