Defining Leaders and Followers

To define leaders and follower I will be using the findings from the Aberdeen Group study into ERP in Professional Services. Leaders are defined as the top 35% of ERP performers in 5 different categories: days to close month, complete on time delivery, growth in operating margins, employee performance levels and days cycle from competition to invoicing. The remaining 65% are classed as followers . Since in professional services organisations people are the products, the ability of employees to exceed performance is highlighted as the only way to increase revenue and profits. Of course, in order for an organization to grow, it is important to keep costs low while increasing revenue. Leaders are able to perform better than followers as a result of, in part the fact that 73% of leaders have implemented ERP in comparison to 60% of followers.

Top Strategic Actions

The top strategic actions that are highlighted in the Aberdeen Group study for professional services organisations to aid growth are:

1. Standardise business processes

2. Streamline and accelerate processes to improve efficiency and productivity

3. Optimise the use of current capacity

4. Provide visibility to business processes across functions and departments

The first and foremost important strategic action within a professional services firm is to standardize all business processes. In the services industry the quality delivered to the customer can vary depending on the employee delivering the specific service. When striving for consistent services and profitable customer relationships it is extremely important to implement standards to ensure best practices are being followed.  The Aberdeen Group study shows that both leaders and followers understood the importance of standardizing their entire business processes. Customers in this day and age expect deadlines to be met and all services to be delivered in a timely manner. ERP solution will allow clear visibility of all resource and project time frames and budgets empowering managers and executives with timely data to help overcome issues that prohibit the delivery of their services.  JJ Brantingham IT Director at Sebesta Blomberg engineering and architects was quoted saying “ we can easily examine and analyse how our resources are allocated for each project, by individual, group, business unit or service offering, and reassign accordingly to maximize our productivity and reduce risks,”. To read JJ Brantingham IT Director at Sebesta Blomberg full case study please click here.

Both leaders and followers saw that providing visibility into business processes across functions and departments, was the best way to improve efficiency and productivity. This key benefit of ERP enables managers to see exactly what is going on in the business from top to bottom, and will enable all round better educated decisions.

Conclusion

This blog post and  ERP In Professional Services organisation (Part 1) summarises that leaders (35% of ERP users) understood the importance and difference an ERP solution can have on their organisation, whilst followers didn’t really gain insight into how an ERP can drive efficient business processes with their organisation. When underpinning the strategies of actions followers were equal to leaders. Overall, leaders are able to perform better than followers due to the fact that 73% of leaders have implemented ERP compare to 60% of followers. Are you a leader or a follower?

To read the Aberdeen Group Study or any of the full case studies mention in this blog and ERP In Professional Services organisation (Part 1) please find below direct links.

Aberdeen Group Study – “ERP In Professional Services –Leaders and Followers”

CDH Partners Valarie Conors ERP Case Study

IT Director JJ Brantingham of Sebastian Blomberg Case Study

Defining Leaders and Followers

To define leaders and follower I will be using the findings from the Aberdeen Group study into ERP in Professional Services. Leaders are defined as the top 35% of ERP performers in 5 different categories: days to close month, complete on time delivery, growth in operating margins, employee performance levels and days cycle from competition to invoicing. The remaining 65% are classed as followers . Since in professional services organisations people are the products, the ability of employees to exceed performance is highlighted as the only way to increase revenue and profits. Of course, in order for an organization to grow, it is important to keep costs low while increasing revenue. Leaders are able to perform better than followers as a result of, in part the fact that 73% of leaders have implemented ERP in comparison to 60% of followers.

Top Business Drivers Impacting ERP Strategies

To understand the drivers for impacting and implementing an ERP solution we must look at the environment that professional services organisations are facing. With the dark economical cloud hanging over our heads, clients have started to re-evaluate the way they search and acquire services provided by professional services firms. Clients nowadays are expecting more for less, the power has certainly shifted in the buyers hand and not the supplier’s hands. To counteract this shift in power professional services organisations need to look at their internal processes and identify areas for improvement that will enable the organisation to work smarter more streamlined and efficient n order to maintain profit margins in this competitive world.

The top business drivers impacting ERP strategies can be summarised by these 5 quotes: Must reduce wage and cost of sale burden, clients must find it easier to do business with us, it is a necessity to manage growth expectations, pressure to re-evaluate how we deliver better value to clients and visibility into markets to increase response time. The Aberdeen Group study found that over 50% of leaders recognised that they must reduce their cost burden, while only 27% of follower recognised the same issue. This cost burden will include cost of sale, cost of wage bill and cost of non-billable staff. ERP will eliminate redundant business processes and maximise staff utilisation levels to reduce cost burdens.

Valarie Conors, CDH Partners an ERP user was quoted saying “Our new processes, are simple and straightforward. Generating invoices is no longer a convoluted and time consuming process, We gained so much efficiency, we were able to cut our stress level in half.” CDH Partners also was able to reduce accounting staff and allocate key personnel to more value-added activities. To read CDH Partners Valarie Conors ERP case study please click here.

The study also showed that 43% of leaders understand that they need to make it easier for clients to do business with them, whilst only 36% of followers recognise the same issue. A professional services organisations ability to survive and make profit depends on the relationships it has with its customer. This relationship is enhanced by the visibility into customer data and enhance collaborative capabilities that an ERP solution provides in one central database. Information Systems Manager Greame Ross at OPUS International Consultants was quoted saying “Knowledge sharing is power, and Deltek Vision [an ERP solution] has made us a very powerful organisation”. The study also stated that 13% of leaders found that they need more ability to react to market changes, compared to only 9% of followers seeing this as an issue. Understanding profitable markets and changes within the market place must be an issue addressed by professional services firms, standing still will not increase those profit margins. With visibility of profit and cost centres an ERP solution provides a platform to identify profitable market places and trends to target.

This blog post summarises that leaders (35% of ERP users) understood the importance and difference an ERP solution can have on their organisation, whilst followers didn’t really gain insight into how an ERP can drive efficient business processes with their organisation.

To read the Aberdeen Group Study or any of the full case studies mention in this blog please find below direct links.

Aberdeen Group Study – “ERP In Professional Services –Leaders and Followers”

CDH Partners Valarie Conors ERP Case Study

OPUS International

Specific –

Making sure your kpis are defined and specific will provide clarity and transparity throughout your organisation. Writing down the definition of certain statements will only help your employees to grasp the connotation behind them. For example, “Satisfaction” – Client satisfaction with services provided/ Employee satisfaction and overall attitude/ Executive satisfaction with overall performance. As you can see one word but 3 different meanings.

Measurable  –

How do you track and measure key performance indicators (kpis)? Do you have the right system/solution to accurately track and report on the kpis set out. Understandably it is a waste of time setting out kpis, if you don’t have the ability to track the results. For example, “Satisfaction” as a measurable kpi  – measuring client satisfaction can be achieved via retention rates of business, customer feedback, regular questionnaires etc. Satisfaction for employees can be measured by staff turnover, development and training qualifications achieved etc.

Achievable –

When setting out your kpis you must be a realist. We would all love to see a 40% increase in annual turnover year on year, but is this achievable? Kpis are set to encourage and motivate employees, by setting out unobtainable kpis you will only deflate and discourage moral.

Realistic –

Following on from achievable, being reasonable when setting out your kpis is a must. Look at sectors of your organisation that you feel can grow and use research and data to apply reasonable kpis for growth. If your growth kpis are based on “guestimates” and are unreasonable please scrap them now. Example of a bad kpi “we would like a 100% of our customers to be extremely satisfied with all our services provide” – this is not realistic. Good example “ From research into our retention rates last year and applying a 5% increase, we would like to see a further 200 very/highly satisfied customers this year”.

Time Bound –

Set a reasonable time frame for you to achieve these kpis. Don’t make the time frame too short – people will rush and job/projects may not get done to the normal standard; but also don’t leave too much time which can also affect the performance of your jobs/projects and utilisation levels of your staff.

Below is a list of key performance indicators to help you choose from the hundreds available –

-          Number of new clients

-          Number of retained clients (repeat business)

-          Customer satisfaction

-          Employee satisfaction

-          Utilisation levels

-          % Increased turnover

-          % Increased profit margin

-          % Decreased Cost of Sale

-          Work Force Plan

-          Employee development/training

-          % of consultants generating revenue above £…K

-           # of consulting hours to achieve revenue

-           % of billable hours vs non-billable hours

-           % change in monthly support calls

-           Avg nr of days needed for each job or project

-          Percentage of employees receiving regular performance and career development reviews.

-          Average time employees are in the same job or function.

-          Percentage of new hire retention after a given period

-          Ratio of internal versus external training (hours or cost)

-          Employee satisfaction with training.

-          ROI of training

-          Percentage of Human Resources budget spent on training.

-          Percentage of employees gone through training in a given period

-          Average number of training hours per employee

-          Average training costs per employee

Accounting costs

-          Accounts Payable

-          Accounts Payable Turnover

-          Accounts Receivable Collection Period

-          Accounts Receivable Turnover

-          Average value of overdue invoices

-          Cash Flow Return on Investments (CFROI)

-          Common Stock Equity

-          Corporate credit rating

-          Cost Income Ratio

-          Creditor days

The list could go on and on. But the most important kpis are the ones that your executive team and stakeholders want to see. I would strongly suggest that departments in your organisations take the time to list key areas that they want to see improvement within their discipline; this should hopefully give you an overall view of the organisation and a better understanding of what kpis that need to be set out. Kpis need to be treated as the catalyst for growth as they should be part of the overall strategy and vision of the organisation moving forward.

I hope this article has been of value and has given you some food for thought about the kpis for your own organisation.

Success Factors for Consulting Firms

• Short-Term, Operational Success Factors

• Long-Term, Strategic Success Factors

• Current Externalities in Consulting Firms

Download Now

Marketing and Sales –

Marketing and sales should be the hub of your business, it’s where leads and opportunities are generated via various inbound and out bound activities and then followed up by the sales team acquiring the business. So why is it important for marketing and sales to have real time reporting at their fingertips? Your marketing manager and team will start by needing insight into market trends, profitable markets and profitable services your organisation provide. Once your team has leveraged this information they can tailor marketing campaigns to suit different sectors of the market that your company should be targeting. With a more targeted approach to marketing campaigns focussing on thought leadership, you will significantly increase relevancy and the ROI of your marketing budget. Marketing managers will also need clear visibility of all on-going marketing campaigns with tracking reports in real time. Understanding and utilising the tracking data of marketing campaigns that you collect can be the difference between success and failure of future campaigns. This statement reiterates the importance of real time data and reporting, accessing critical data in real time will decrease time spent compiling reports and more time taking action.

Marketing and Sales Reports –

-          Forecasting

-          Response Rate

-          Market Sectors

-          Opportunity Tracking

-          Cost of Marketing

-          Cost of Sale

-          Win Rate

-          ROI

Accounting and Finance –

If there was one business sector within your organisation that will truly profit from real time reporting it would be accounting and finance. Without a fully integrated and automated system your finance team will spend a large percentage of their working week compiling data into reports for month ends and project financial reports for managers in multi discipline areas of your organisation. In my eyes this isn’t the correct remit of the financial team. Accounting and finance should be responsible for improving cash flow by assuring project invoices are accurate to shorten up the billing cycle, accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, payroll and purchasing whilst analysing balance reports and time analyses. But every finance employee will tell you this is a hard task to achieve with project and executive managers running to them every time they need a report. Real time reporting has a “kill two birds with one stone” affect as, by having the ability to produce reports in real time for their own day to day responsibilities that would usually take hours maybe days previously can now be done in minutes.  They then effectively have more time to focus on mission critical tasks that will impact on your organisations bottom line. With managers having the ability to run reports in real time without compiling data via manual processes, this will in effect also take the strain away from the finance team.

Accounting and Finance Reports  -  

-          VAT

-          Time Analyses

-          Balance Reports

-          General ledger

-          Multi-Currency

-          Multi-Company

-          Financial Period

-          Cash Flow

-          Cash Reserve

-          Capital Balance

-          Income Statement

-          Taxation

-          Revenue Recognition

-          Overhead allocation

Executives –

Executives and senior decision makers need visibility of the entire organisation from top to bottom, so real time reporting of all aspects of the business is a clear necessity. Executives will spend a large percentage of their working day sifting through company reports including staff utilisation levels, staff performance levels, overall organisation performance and finance, profit centres and trend analyses to mention a few. Producing and compiling all this data and reports is a time consuming process for managers of all disciplines of the organisation. Having the ability to report in real time will effectively free up time for the executive management team to concentrate on critical factors that impact on profit and not time spent putting together reports from non-integrated and non-automated systems. Real time reporting will enable executives to search and prevent pitfalls within the organisation, this reporting will improve response rate and fuel better decision making with up to date information.

Executive Reports –

-          Company Performance

-          Cost Centres

-          Profit Centres

-          Utilisation Levels

-          Exporting

-          Cost of Sales

-          Wage Bill

-          Turnover

-          Profit Margins

-          Tangible Assets

-          Intangible Assets

-          Net worth

-          Net Assets

-          Taxation

Hopefully this blog has given you an insight into the necessity of real time reporting with fully integrated and automated solutions. Real time report will play a big part in the success of your professional services firm, for a good guideline of success factors that will drive your organisation to success please read Success Factors for Consulting Firms.

Welcome back to part 3 (of 3) of this series of posts where we will be looking at how automating business processes can improve project profitability in professional services organisations. In part two we covered the areas of eliminating manual processes, information flow, time management and invoicing, to read part 2 (of3) click here. Part 3 will concentrate on Time and Expense Capture, Resource Management, Document Management and Reporting. Remember that in today’s challenging business environment it’s highlighted that there is an absolute necessity for accurate and up to date critical project and business data. Firms that automate and streamline their organisations business processes are the ones with a significant competitive advantage.

Time and Expense Capture –

By automating your organisations time and expense capture you are empowering your managers with a true picture of project labour hours, whilst enabling your financial team to get accurate invoices out the door quicker to improve cash flow. This automation process will speed up and increase the accuracy of your time collection process through an interface that should always be accessible to employees on and off line via mobile, pda and laptop. When integrated with billing, resource and project management and your CRM you will provide your project managers and your team with real time visibility of billable hours and project progress that impact your company’s bottom line.

Resource Management –   

Resource planning, project planning, resource scheduling and resource utilisation are all important components of resource management, and when fully integrated and automated can create one central source of data that can be utilised to maximise your organisation’s project profitability. Making sure the right people are on the right projects at the right time should be first on the list of the resource manager’s job description, but not easy to achieve without real time visibility of all resource management components. By automating project planning, scheduling, resource allocation, budgeting and forecasting you will empower project managers and resource planners with real time visibility of staff that are available and their skill sets so they can be allocated to projects effectively.

Document Management –

Without automation of document and information capture you are affectively hindering your team from becoming part of a one vision culture, sharing their knowledge form past and future projects and clients. Document management will create one central source of information available to employees in real time anywhere in the world via a pc, ipad, laptop, mobile or any pda. Documents and drawings can be uploaded, shared, reviewed and edited from anywhere using a Web browser. In addition these documents can be attached to customers, projects, employees and opportunities, providing a total knowledge management solution.

Reporting -  

Reporting can be one of the biggest uses of labour resource. Compiling individual project data from non-integrated and automated systems can take up to weeks on end. If your organisation has to bring together information from billable hours, expenses, business development, and resources used from non-integrated systems you are in danger of over utilising financial staff and not having the ability to utilise information in real time. This significantly impacts your ability to make critical business decisions, manage risks, drive greater performance and overcome barriers to success. With a fully integrated and automated solution that seamlessly brings together time and expense capture and resources you will empower your organisation with real time visibility of data. This process will speed up the publishing of reports and will allow your financial team to spend more time on solving issues that impact your organisations bottom line, but will also enable executives and managers to control budgets and deadlines with mission critical information.

“In today’s dark economic climate” if we had a pound for every time we heard this phrase in a broad sheet or red top, you certainly wouldn’t be reading this blog. Yes I can categorically say that this is one of the most challenging economic time that we all find ourselves in. Things have been challenging fiscally, and indeed remain so, not least for professional service organisations (PSOs). PSOs sell knowledge, experience and more specifically skills which I hope you all will agree is a much tougher sell compared to manufactures who sell products and commodities. So how do professional service organisations counteract the lack of business opportunities, when all we hear in the media is doom and gloom? We must first look at what defines business success for professional service organisations, which is their ability to optimize their own commodities (staff). The math is easy: optimizing people skills = increased profitability. But of course the realization of this potential is somewhat more challenging. This blog post will firstly look at what resource management is and then, broken down into 8 stages, will detail Key Best Practices professional service organisation should mirror to optimize their own resources.

Resource Management  

In essence Resource Management is a CRM solution for planning, managing and deploying the right people skills within your organisation at the right time on the right projects. Resource Management software is a tool that should be proactively used within any professional service organisation to help support efficient and effective decision making to maximise profitability.

Top 8 Best Practices -    

1. Being “busy” doesn’t necessarily mean billable

You may look at your staff and see that they are busy, yet their utilisation rate and billable hours are at an unsatisfactory level. You may also see that there is a complete disparity across your organisations resource pool, with many staff overloaded, while others remain under-utilised. When your organisation relies not on products but people skills it is imperative that you make it easy for your employees to register time and other relative data into your business management solution. Managers must be able to see clear visibility of the planned hours and how many hours were actually billable, so that when people say they are busy, it really does mean they are busy. PSOs need to become more efficient when it comes down to Billable Vs Non-Billable hours, as the bottom line is the life jacket that keeps their organisations afloat, As an example: By not capturing just 2% of all billable project work, PSOs organisations would be losing approximately £1,310,000 in revenue per year or £109,000 per month (this example is an estimate based on a company of 500 employees)

2. Don’t base projects on guesstimates  

Many professional service organisations do not align project estimation, execution and existing capacity, Making guesstimates is the key driver in resource utilisation issues. If you under estimate a project you’re likely to be struggling to find additional resources which may lead to recruiting external subcontractors. If you over utilise you’re assets (staff) you will incur on going non billable hours and leakage. All  these issue will dramatically affect the bottom line (your profitability).The best way to counteract these issues is by integrating your sales pipeline with Resource Management so you can achieve a better understanding of the resource impacts, both short and long term.

3. Don’t overload clients

One of the biggest challenges for professional service organisations is giving away your time for free, working on non-billable tasks and over servicing clients. This often happens due to the lack of visibility of planned resources and billable hours against what your staff actually deliver, The gap between the two can determine if a project is profitable or at a loss. By integrating your Resource Management and Project Management systems you are effectively empowering your managers to spot pitfalls in the critical path.

Today we have looked at 3 of the “Top 8 Best Practices” covering Being “busy” doesn’t necessarily mean billable, don’t base projects on guesstimates and don’t overload clients. Hopefully this has given you an insight into how you can improve resource utilisation within your own organisation. To gain more of an understanding into successful consulting organisations please click here to read “Success Factors for Consulting Firms”.

“Within Professional Service Organisations up to 14% of employee time is spent looking for information”

Welcome back to part 2 (of 3) “Improve Project Success and Profitability by Automating Your Business Processes” where we will be looking at how by automating business processes can improve project profitability in professional service organisations. In part one we covered the areas of timeframe of project, client information updates, highlight pitfalls and invoicing and billing, to read part 1 (of3) click here. Part 2 will concentrate on eliminating manual processes, information flow, time management and invoicing. Remember in today’s challenging business environment it’s highlighted that there is an absolute necessity for accurate and up to date critical project and business data. Firms that automate and streamline their organisations business process are the ones with a significant competitive advantage.

Eliminating Manual Processes –

By eliminating manual and redundant process you are effectively improving employee response time, increasing efficiency, improving internal controls, reducing costs and creating more man hours.  To understand how eliminating manual processes can have a massive impact on your organisations bottom line please see the example below:

Reducing Administrative Overheads –

By reducing the amount of time non-billable staff spend on manual data entry and processing of time cards, invoices and reports this firm could save approximately £155,000 per year or £12,900 per month. Employees’ hours can now shift focus to actual billable work or other strategic initiatives.

Information Flow –

In this dark economic climate we are made to work harder and smarter to win and retain business. In order to do this we must treat information as the Holy Grail. Organisations need to look at the obstacles that stand in the way of information flowing throughout their firm and the accuracy of that information. By automating business processes you are effectively improving the flow of information throughout the organisation. This critical flow of information begins with the first contact with a prospective customer and continues through to delivery of the finished solution. When automating business processes organisations are improving the accuracy of their client data because it has come from one central source of collaborative knowledge, and not a manual driven process that may occur human error when manually imputing data into non automated and integrated systems.

Time Management –

In essence Time management is quite self-explanatory, it is the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, when striving to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals complying with deadlines. By automating business processes management teams are empowered with a central pool of employee information and a real time overview of staff activities and utilisation levels. With an automated and integrated system that shows clear visibility of multi-disciplined organisation working on a variety of projects, you are effectively reducing the risk of over and underutilisation of staff.

Invoicing –

 It is imperative in today’s economy that organisations show value to clients with accurate billing and invoicing. Why? Because clients today expect to pay less money for the same services and solutions, but also scrutinise every penny that is charged for those services and solutions. The automation of business processes will automatically track all billable hours and expense transactions. This process then allows full transparity throughout the audit trail of billable hours and charges that comply with contractual agreements.

Today’s challenging business environment highlights the absolute necessity of accurate and up to date critical project and business data. Firms that automate and streamline their organisation’s business process are the ones with a significant competitive advantage. Stay tuned for the next installment of “Improve project Success and Profitability by Automating your Business Processes” or if you can’t wait click here to see the full article!

I was recently involved in a debate on LinkedIn where the topic was “100% Successful Implementation of Project ERP/PSA Software” and I was taken back by the sheer volume of varied comments on this subject. Due to the fact that this subject held such gravitas within the ERP/PSA Community I felt it was only right to blog out to you some interesting finds. There were many theories bounded about this discussion by highly regarded professionals within the ERP/PSA Software industry but I’ve based this blog post around one comment that caught my eye. This comment started with the quote “happiness is a state of mind not a state of an ERP or any other software or its implementation”. This quote made me think that a successful implementation of ERP software is achievable based on the objectives and expectations set forth in the RFI stage when selecting the ERP software vendor. There are various factors that may affect the success of ERP implementation, but the biggest being unhappy users and user resistance to change within the organisation. People are happy because they choose to be, you cannot make someone happy but you can set the stage for someone to decide to be happy by setting proper expectations before and during the implementation process and by training so that on go live they are comfortable with the new process.  You can have a successful implementation by setting expectations, understanding objectives and goals, and following through on promises. This comment as an overview of the subject “Successful Project ERP/PSA Software Implementation” hits the nail on the head, we really can’t justify saying that there is a 100% successful implementation of ERP/PSA Software. This was the only statement that everyone within the discussion agreed upon. So I started to think if we can’t define 100% success then how do organisations evaluate what side of the success/unsuccessful implementation line they sit on. Below I have created a 6 question checklist to help organisations gain a better understand of whether their implementation of the ERP/PSA Software was successful or not.

1. Were your goals and expectations that you stated in the RFI stage met by the ERP/PSA Software vendor?
2. Tools are static, usage is dynamic. User adoption is key during and after go live, have your colleagues or team fully understood the training process? Learning how to use the tool is one of the important factors in understanding the capabilities of the ERP/PSA System.
3. Have you seen an ROI. Considering the metrics of success that you set out prior to implementation, for example: Improve staff utilisation; reduced time spent creating reports, a decrease in leakage when capturing billable hours, enhanced collaborative knowledge of clients?
4. Have your priorities been met by the vendor throughout implementation phases, for example: Was your designated trainer given the right support by the vendor when supplying in house end user training? Were time scales and deadlines met? After the “soft launch” stage, did the vendor take on board feedback when considering configurations needed in the system?
5. Can you observe an increase in your planning?
6. Do things which have been assumed as complex before implementation seem easier after implementation, example: reporting, capture of billable hours, collaborative data, visibility of resources, accurate insight into project P&Ls, Etc.?

To conclude once again I reiterate the statement that here is never a “100% Successful Implementation of Project ERP/PSA Software” but by using the checklist above you will be able to evaluate whether your expectations, goals, and ROI have been accomplished with the implementation of the ERP/PSA Software. If you’re reading this blog and currently looking to implement an ERP/PSA System there is a comprehensive checklist to help identify your needs. Click here to see ERP Solution Checklist.

Software Specific Acronyms -

ERP – ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software integrates internal and external collaborative information across an entire organisation, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP solutions automate this process with an integrated software application.

Project ERP – Project ERP systems are similar to ‘traditional’ ERP solutions but are designed solely for Professional Services Firms. They integrate and automate all aspects of a project driven organisation’s client and project lifecycle, including finance/accounting, time and expense, resource and project management, proposal automation, customer relationship management, invoice and billing. The purpose of a Project ERP solution is to facilitate the entire client and project life cycle.

PSA – Professional Services Automation (frequently abbreviated to PSA) is software designed to assist professionals, such as IT consultants, Engineering consultants, Architects and Market Researchers with project management and resource management for client projects.

CRM – Customer relationship management (CRM) is a widely implemented solution for managing a company’s communication with customers, clients and prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize the entire business processes life cycle—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing and business development, customer service, and technical support.

RM – Resource Management. In organisational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective deployment of an organization’s resources when they are needed. Such resources may include financial resources, consultants, creative professionals, architects, human skills, production resources, or IT staff.

KPI – Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI or Key Success Indicators (KSI), help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals. Once an organization has analysed its mission, identified all its stakeholders, and defined its goals, it needs a way to measure progress toward those goals. Key Performance Indicators are those measurements.

SRP – SRP (Service Resource Planning) is a process that streamlines operations by optimizing staffing resources, manage projects more efficiently and clearly account for project time and expenses.

Industry Specific Bite size Acronyms:

RFQ – Request for Quotation

RFI – Request for Information

PID – Project Initiation Document

SDD – System Design Document

RFP – Request for Proposal

ROI – Return On Investment

Heat Map – Data Visualisation Dashboard

API – Application Programme Interface

I hope this has been helpful, if personally you feel I have left out any acronyms that you feel need to be a part of this list comment below.

My next step was to get an overall understanding of the industry itself, my manager sent me a white paper called “Success Factors For Consulting Firms”. This white paper gave me a great insight into the world of professional services firms, I could then see how these acronyms fit within the industry. You can find a copy of this white paper here.

Image by digitalart 

What to ask before you buy Enterprise Resource Planning Software?

Before committing to an ERP system you should first look closely at what your organisation needs and wants to achieve with its ERP strategy. This fact find will help determine which application and what kind of functionality your organisation requires form its ERP system. After compiling this information you can then start to understand which vendors will provide and meet your needs. As we all know there isn’t a complete ERP solution that fits all so, PSA Software fits all PS firms, for example. You should be able to find an ERP solution that fits your business, different ERP products focus on different industries/company sizes. ERP solutions can no longer be chosen just on product merit, you have to look very closely at vendors that specialise in your specific industry. Being intelligent with your selection will go a long way towards easing the implementation process.

What are the specific business problems you’re solving with ERP?

-          Example – do you need to improve employee utilization and shorten project time frames? Is instant transparency and collaborative knowledge needed? Functionality?

Who will be the ERP project manager?

-          One person- an outside consultant or a current employee should be in charge of managing the process to choose an ERP solution, coordinating demos, consultations. You need someone with strong leadership skills that can bring together all other department heads (finance, sales, HR, services).

What are the goals and metrics that you will use to measure the success of your organisation’s new ERP system?

-          Your organisation should have certain KPI’s that are tracked on a regular basis, these would be a good starting point.

Do your organisation’s business leaders support this ERP implementation project?  

-          Everybody needs to be involved in deciding which business processes are included in your ERP system. Adoption is key to a successful implementation and by involving your employees at an early stage you’re half way there.

What features and functions do you need from your new ERP solution that will help increase user’s productivity and provide access to the business data users most need?

-          Customization

-          Functionality

-          Will staff need access at home via a desktop, laptop or  pda

-          Is your organisation departmental across different geographical areas

-          Is your organisation international? Does the system nee to support a variety of languages?

 If your organisation operates globally, are there foreign currencies and languages that your ERP solution must support?

-          Does your system need to transact business in any number of global currencies?

-          Will multi-currency integrate with accounting, project control, project planning, resource management and CRM

-          Is your organisation international? Does the system nee to support a variety of languages?

With which modules will you begin rolling out your ERP package?

-          First roll out the features that will meet your organisation’s most dire needs, taking implementation in stages will help your IT Manager and ERP users to adopt new processes.

What technology will we need to support the software?

-          Is the software browser based?

-          Do you have an in house application support team?

-          Will you need – Activex controls, plug ins, applets or proprietary controls?

-          Will software need to be installed on all users’ computers?

-          Will your hosting solution need reviewing?

Which user will need training on the new system?

-          Adoption is integral to a successful ERP system, what training will we need, and how will the vendor supply this?

Vendor Acceptance?

-          Look closely at your industry and the vendors with experience in your specific market

-          Check references and background – clients, white papers, blogs

-          How well do they know my industry? Training and Implementation? Updating? Support?

Want to read more about on-premise vs. cloud?

Read our article “Head in the Clouds or Feet on the Ground?”

At a time when expenditure on new software is uppermost in peoples’ minds, a number of questions present themselves. One of the first questions we ask ourselves is whether to take the traditional route of on-premise software with its flexibility and familiarity or do we embrace the more avant-garde cloud/SaaS offerings that are springing up all over the internet? This article discusses the differences between cloud-based and on-premise software. Download the article now