Managing projects based on a consolidated view of performance has always been an attractive idea in the professional services sector, but one that has been traditionally difficult to follow up on. Accounting for revenues, costs, profits, and performance to both budget and schedule for in-flight projects requires a complex data gathering and analysis processes. Bringing together information from disparate systems … Read More
Contingency Planning for Professional Services Projects
One of the greatest risks to a professional services project is starting it without dedicating any time to contingency planning. Sure you’ve delivered this type of project a thousand times. Of course, you have an excellent relationship with the client. Without a doubt, your team has the right skills to deliver under budget and on time. But things change, and … Read More
Lessons Learned in the Professional Services Industry – A Decade of Insights
This year marks the tenth publication of Service Performance Insight’s annual Professional Services Maturity Benchmark survey. This phenomenal body of work not only provides insight into the micro trends affecting the professional services market over the past 12 months, it examines broader macro trends tracing back a decade or more. This broader history is especially interesting as it examines the … Read More
6 Revenue Forecasting Mistakes Professional Services Firms Make – Part 2
At the center of every professional services firm, there is a revenue forecast. Regardless of the platform used to develop a revenue forecast—spreadsheets, whiteboards, or Professional Services Automation software—every services manager is trying to predict what the future may hold. And revenue forecasts are just that, a prediction. In my last post (link below) about revenue forecasting mistakes, I took … Read More
6 Revenue Forecasting Mistakes Professional Services Firms Make – Part 1
Professional services firms live and die by their ability to forecast revenue. Although there are many types of forecasts that service firms perform—utilization, profitability, or backlog—they all tie into an underlying revenue forecast. Get your revenue forecasting right, and you have an appropriately sized firm that has a healthy service mix. Get your predictions wrong, and you will be under … Read More
Revenue Forecasting Models for Professional Services Firms
Revenue forecasting is more of an art than a science—for professional services firms at least. Although the inputs used are quantitative in nature, successful service executives will often layer in their perspectives on the business, the market, or key accounts. Perfecting the qualitative aspect of forecasting revenue comes with years of experience working in PS firms. The underlying forecast model, … Read More
Choosing a Professional Services Automation Solution
I’ve been doing some work writing an eBook that’s a primer on professional services automation software, and I got to the section on some of the choices you as a buyer would need to make in order to select the right vendor. I actually dislike the term “vendor” in general, because what I think you’re really doing here is less … Read More
The Two Faces of the Professional Services Automation Market
During our discussion, I mentioned the names of some of the other well-known vendors that we compete against, that we appear in studies and benchmarks alongside, and that heavily use the term “Professional Services Automation.” The response? (Long pause.) “Hmmm…never really heard of them.” Similarly, when talking with people intimately familiar with the professional services market, I mentioned a few … Read More
Resource Management: What Facebook and Professional Service Firms have in Common
Facebook has recently conquered another huge milestone. The social network corporation just achieved the title of fourth most valuable company in the world, dethroning Exxon Mobil. It is nothing new that people simply loves Facebook. But why would an executive at a professional services firm care about the success of this giant? The answer is simple. Think about Facebook’s biggest … Read More
The Secret to Smart Professional Services Resource Management
I just published an article in the July issue of Professional Services Journal that discusses combining art and science in the pursuit of resource management in a professional services firm. It talks about how necessary it is to combine two different perspectives when managing resources: the mathematical, algorithmic, metric-oriented, rational world with the intuitive, empathetic, human one. Systems like Professional … Read More