No more business as usual – How Professional Services organizations can improve

In business for people.

Many Professional Services Organizations have been using legacy tools for so long that their limitations have been accepted as inevitable.

Without challenging these limitations, Professional Services Organizations miss opportunities to improve the way they run their businesses.

Taking a fresh perspective reveals reasons to challenge the status quo.

2 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations

IntroductionThis is the era of the Digital Revolution.

Business models are transforming,

customer expectations are surging,

and organizations are evolving faster

than ever. Professional Services

Organizations must navigate a

changing landscape.

Often the tools they use are relics

of the past: legacy ERP systems,

spreadsheets for planning, email

for collaboration, and slides for

stakeholder reporting. None of these

properly support the dynamic nature

of Professional Services. In many

ways, both subtle and pronounced,

outdated tools contribute to the status

quo, resulting in missed opportunities

and limited organizational

responsiveness.

It’s time to change the way you look at

‘business as usual’.

New innovations and developments

in enterprise software directly

challenge that status quo, and call

on organizations to change their

perspective on what is possible.

Professional Services Organizations

face new challenges on a regular

basis because change is ever-

present in this sector. Projects must

be managed for customer satisfaction

and profitability, while also advancing

internal strategic goals. Organizations

must attract and retain the best

talent and make the most of their

skill sets. While shaping the future,

it is still essential to deliver yearly,

quarterly, and daily results. Obstacles

to achieving both near- and long-

term goals arise in the form of time-

consuming manual processes, lack

of reliable and accurate information,

difficult collaboration, and rigid

structures in the face of a changing

business environment.

It’s time to take a fresh look at the

way your business works, and the

tools that support it. Eliminating these

limitations will allow you to transcend

the status quo, and take control.

In modern business, change is

swift and inevitable. Organizations

have to evolve constantly.

Innovation is essential to remain

competitive and to sustain

growth. In an increasingly

dynamic economy, any successful

business of today may be under

pressure tomorrow.

Challenge 1 - Mastering growth

Growing organizations need to be able to smoothly

integrate new entities into the business model

without disruption.

For any company operating with evolving

organizational structures, the ability to keep projects,

orders and resources in sync is a key requirement.

How well are your business systems supporting your growth strategy without major disruptions?

Likewise, if you are on a business transformation

track, you should be able to restructure in lock-step

with the internal business model as you evolve.

When you expand sales, add service lines, change

the way in which you deliver services, enter

into new markets, follow your clients into new

geographies, or partner with other organizations,

your business system should scale. It should support

you in keeping your processes running smoothly

and providing relevant and complete information

dissemination.

Does your current business software enable or hinder transformation?

“Business as usual is the top priority for any company operating with multiple moving parts and a changing organizational structure...The {Siemens} merger was done surprisingly fast and smoothly...For us it’s not a surprise that Unit4 can do this - we’ve successfully handled more than 20 other merged companies.”

Download customer success story

Bravida1

4 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations

1 http://bit.ly/1LHDHE2

Challenge the status quo

Challenge 2 - Achieving operational efficiency

With increased global competition, Professional

Services Organizations are constantly looking for

ways to improve productivity and efficiency.

Introducing standardized and structured procedures

across your firm will enable your team to spend less

time on routine, administrative work and more time

on managing exceptions.

Your team needs full transparency on KPIs such

as margin per project, resource utilization rates,

and days sales outstanding (DSO). Receiving this

information with a few clicks instead of having to

spend time collecting information from multiple

sources represents

Are your consultants spending too much time on administration and too little time on high-value activities?

Where do you stand in the maturity model?The core idea of the maturity model is that Professional Services Organizations can achieve progressive

improvements in their level of empowerment as they advance from one maturity level to the next.

1. Standardize for Ease of Operations.

2. Optimize to Reduce Risk and Costs while Sharing Services.

3. Predict Future Financial and Market Conditions for Better Long-term Positioning.

4. Drive Profit Growth, Capitalize on Opportunities, and Raise the Bar.

Download the whitepaper: The Business Empowerment Maturity Model Explained: Learn what it

takes to become a truly strategic player in your organization.1

1 http://bit.ly/1Kvv2Ub

Business software needs across maturity levels

6 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations

Challenge 3 - Delivering superior customer experiences

Delivering superior customer services depends

on having a well-trained and motivated team of

consultants. A team with the right skill-set gives

your organization the edge to outperform the

competition.

At the same time, the professional services market is

in the midst of a talent cliff, which may soon result in

a critical void of knowledge and expertise.

Your business needs to plan strategically to attract

the best talent with the right skill-set. Doing that

requires that your HR team can predict future

resource shortages for competencies and skill levels

based on reliable data about your current and future

pipeline.

Employing and retaining motivated employees has

a direct impact on operating margins, growth and

consistent quality of service to clients.

How are your business systems supporting your efforts to hire and retain the right team to deliver superior services and exceed client expectations?

Successful strategy starts with getting the fundamentals rightThe ever-changing dynamics of projects,

consultants, and financial KPIs demand constant

attention.

To ensure success your teams must balance

budgets, resource constraints, scope changes

and other project-related risks, without being

slowed down by inefficient business software.

With the integrated tools in place to support

end-to-end project delivery, you are enabled

to win business, successfully deliver on the

expectations of your clients, and bill with

precision.

Challenge 4 - Winning more business

In today’s business, it is all about customer centricity.

Without efficient management from the outset,

the end-to-end project lifecycle can be difficult to

plan, manage and track. The goal is to ensure that

deliverables and customer expectations stay in-

sync.

A lack of insight into past project profitability, and

an inability to quickly source the right skills when

building plans, can stand in the way of improving the

quality of future bids.

Both of these issues can be addressed with

information about previous client records combined

with an HR database that matches skills, expertise

and availability to a client’s requirements. Access

to your firm’s historical and resource data not only

helps win new business, it is also essential for

seamless delivery when projects are won.

How do you enable your sales team to win more bids?

Challenge 5 - Executing every project profitably

As indicated by SPI in their recent PS Maturity

Benchmark report, when done right, gross project

margins in excess of 50% are within reach. Done

wrong, project yields can drop to single digits, or

even go negative.

When project managers are able to produce precise

forecasts with correct completion percentages and

the necessary costs to deliver each milestone, the

predictability of each project will increase – to the

benefit of both you and your client.

A lack of transparency around project scope and

poorly managed change requests negatively

affect profitability. Transparency on what has been

contractually agreed combined with visibility into

the project status will enable you to have informed

conversations with your customers about change

requests and the additional investment needed.

How are your business systems enabling you to mitigate risk, and handle change requests?

In an increasingly competitive consulting marketplace, success relies on operational excellence – with visibility and management controls in place to ensure effective resource and project management. Source: Service Performance Insight, February 2015

Download the report

2015 PS Maturity Benchmark report by SPI.1

1 http://bit.ly/1fMfjYF

8 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations

Challenge 6 - Optimizing resource utilization

Organizational flexibility is critical for companies

working on complex or international projects. You

need to match internal resources – availability,

location and skills – with client requirements.

Many companies have to deal with resource silos

that hamper efficient collaboration. If all billable

staff are managed by an integrated scheduling and

HR system, then you can knock down those silos.

You empower your project teams to search for

and allocate qualified resources to projects more

effectively. The result is lower cost and increased

utilization rates, while preventing key resources to

be over-worked.

How can you increase billable utilization with your current business systems?

Challenge 7 - Attracting and retaining the best talent The success of Professional Services Organizations

depends on hiring candidates that complement,

improve and expand your existing skill sets. Once

hired, you need to identify individuals who have

specific talents and aspirations, and manage them

and their career accordingly.

An HR system that is integrated with your project

and payroll solution gives you a true picture

of people cost. You can predict and report on

these costs, utilization rates, and staffing across

departments in real-time.

When planning an organizational restructure,

your team can move a position or cost center and

immediately see the consequences. If you decide

to execute the restructure, all workflows, reporting

structures and access rights are automatically

applied.

How are your business systems enabling you to grow faster by elevating employee engagement?

Download the white paper

HCM Systems and Employee Engagement.

The Steak vs. The Sizzle.1

1 http://bit.ly/1Vor06g

Challenge 8 - Delivering accurate actuals

Once the project is underway, Professional Services

Organizations often struggle to accurately record

time and expenses incurred. Expanding budgets

and inaccurate charging upset client-supplier

relations – and can hit the bottom line when they

lead to write-offs. But there is a solution to help

maintain client satisfaction.

If you help your fee-earning consultants capture

activities and transactions directly on the project, this

data will be available in real-time to your Finance

department. Integration should be absolute and

complete to the extent that transactions from any

department can post to a project.

When controlled as a single record entity, day-to-day

analysis can contain the same data as monthly and

even annual reports. This enables you to support

the business with faster, richer, and more accurate

insight into the actual situation and to plan for future

scenarios.

Do you lack confidence in your financial data?

Challenge 9 - Billing with precision

How often have you missed opportunities to bill?

That’s practically impossible to answer if your

consultants are not recording hours and expenses

directly on their individual project records – or even

worse, recording them off-system.

A lack of best-practice billing, inaccurate information,

or missing data contributes to lost revenue and

longer-than-necessary cash cycles. But when you

get full visibility into who and when to bill, improved

cash flow and profitability will automatically follow.

When your tools capture billable actions as they

happen, your records and forecasts reflect the

current situation – not a snapshot from the past.

Integrating your billing and project solutions gives

you the structure, data discipline and workflows you

need to bill accurately.

How do you achieve higher realization, more accurate planning, streamlined invoicing, and higher overall profitability with your current systems?

10 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations

Challenge 10 - Getting accurate and reliable data and insight

In the Digital Age, Professional Services

Organizations need to get beyond unreliable

spreadsheet-based, make-do workarounds and find

ways to simplify planning, budgeting, forecasting,

and reporting processes.

Whether analyzing cash flow, consolidating accounts

from multiple companies, or consolidating several

tools, the key to better forward-looking reports is to

integrate data. Achieve this and it will be accurate,

fresh, and available to everyone who needs it.

With the right tools to gather and format your

project, resource, and financial data, you can spend

more time executing projects and planning for

success.

To what degree do your current systems support flexible real-time analysis and empower an automated self-service model?

Answers to the Challenges You understand best how your business works. You shouldn’t let

your enterprise software dictate what your organization can or can’t

achieve. Unit4’s approach is different. Our solution starts with you. It

is built for Professional Services Organizations and designed to bend

towards your people. Say goodbye to legacy enterprise software,

spreadsheets, emails, and PowerPoint reports. Expect solutions that

are tailored to your business and your needs.

The value offered by the right kind of business software:

• Organization-wide view of projects, resources and

finances.

• Multi-company, multi-currency and multi-lingual

project solution that supports multiple charts of

accounts.

• Opportunity to standardize and optimize

processes that predict and empower.

• Choice of deploying and consuming your solutions

– in the cloud or on-premise.

• Mobile technology for easy access everywhere.

• Cope with change without disruption to the

organization.

• Easy to use solution, essential for uptake by teams

across the organization.

12 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations

Unit4 can help People are at the heart of Professional Services Organizations. Unit4 solutions empower your people to

fulfill their purpose with passion, providing comprehensive tools specifically designed for their role:

CFOs• Maintain financial control – Manage

project and services execution for

increased margins and profitability.

• Streamline accounting processes

– Generate proactive, predictive

budgets based on what-if scenarios.

• Bill with precision – Streamline AP/

AR processes through integrated

workflows and process automation

for an optimized cash flow.

• Be a strategic business partner

– Use business-wide visibility to

advise colleagues how to stop

profits falling between operational

cracks.

CEOs and COOs• Drive business transformation –

Execute mergers and acquisitions

smoothly without the need for

system reprogramming.

• Enable operation efficiency –

Achieve more with the same

resources by optimizing and

automating processes and reducing

manual steps.

• Restructure rapidly – Instantly view,

create or modify organizational

structures faster than any other

system on the market.

• Improve user adoption – Provide

your people with an inherently

flexible architecture and user-

friendly interface.

Project Managers• Execute profitable projects – Use

real-time project visibility and

planning tools to deliver on time, in

scope, within budget.

• Forecast effectively – Proactively

plan using real-time data to identify

future capacity constraints.

• Optimize resource utilization – Set

the perfect project teams; assign the

right people with the right skills on

the right projects.

• Collaborate to motivate – Discuss

key challenges with your team

through online chat and task-sharing

capabilities.

HR Director• Attract and retain the best talent –

Plan and match skill levels to project

pipeline and requirements to recruit

and on-board the right people.

• Operate on a strategic level – Use

an integrated perspective from

HR, finance and projects to extend

influence beyond Human Resources

functions.

• Respond with agility – Make

changes to model and execute new

organizational structures, processes

and reporting without coding.

• Nurture and develop employees

– Ensure comprehensive support

for all aspects of your hire-to-retire

cycle and payroll processes.

Why Unit4 • Unit4 is a recognized leader of business software for the Professional Services sector.

• Our consultants understand the unique needs of a project-intensive and consulting-focused firm.

• Unit4 R&D has an ambitious roadmap with visionary capabilities for PSOs.

• We provide global support for your teams.

• Relevant and referenceable clients both locally and globally.

• User groups and conferences to inspire your teams to maximize your investment in Unit4 Business World.

14 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations

Checklist

Challenge the status quo of your Professional Services Organization

✓ How well are your business systems supporting our growth strategy without major disruptions?

✓ Does your current business software enable or hinder transformation?

✓ Are your consultants spending too much time on administration and too little time on high-value

activities?

✓ How are your business systems supporting your efforts to hire and retain the right team to deliver

superior services and exceed client expectations?

✓ How do you enable your sales team to win more bids?

✓ How are your business systems enabling you to mitigate risk, and handle change requests?

✓ How can you increase billable utilization with your current business systems?

✓ How are your business systems enabling you to grow faster by elevating employee engagement?

✓ Do you lack confidence in your financial data?

✓ How do you achieve higher realization, more accurate planning, streamlined invoicing, and higher

overall profitability with your current systems?

✓ To what degree do your current systems support flexible real-time analysis and empower an

automated self-service model?

In business for people.

About Unit4Unit4 is a leading provider of enterprise applications empowering people in service organizations. With annual revenue north of 500M Euro and more than 4000

employees world-wide, Unit4 delivers ERP, industry-focused and best-in-class applications. Thousands of organizations from sectors including professional services,

education, public services, not-for-profit, real estate, wholesale, and financial services benefit from Unit4 solutions. Unit4 is in business for people.

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Contact us For further information regarding Unit4 for Professional Services Organizations please contact: info@unit4.com or visit www.unit4.com