Poor vendor selection is leaving money on the table for professional service firms
The professional services market is growing rapidly. The management consulting market is expected to reach $1328.7 billion by 2029 at a 5.6% growth rate. Similarly, the IT consulting market is projected to expand even faster, reaching $186.43 billion by 2029 at a 13.3% growth rate.
Research shows that inefficient systems and processes lead to significant revenue leakage in professional services firms. For a 300-person consulting firm, this can represent millions in lost revenue opportunity annually.
In this expanding market, professional services firms need to match growth with productivity-focused ERP systems. For struggling firms, it’s not just a case of going digital, but selecting a digital solution that focuses on user-experience, productivity, and the reduction of administrative tasks.
Professional service firm’s productivity conundrum
When consultants, architects, engineers, and other professionals spend their time on administrative tasks, rather than billable work, this directly leads to revenue loss.
Firms must focus on freeing their staff to do more meaningful, and profitable work, rather than being bogged down in manual or administrative tasks.
This isn’t just a case of moving to a digital platform but ensuring that the platform you move to is one that focuses on creating greater efficiency within your operations, through automation, an improved user-experience, and greater visibility of resource allocation and client data.
Yet many firms continue operating with disconnected or legacy systems, such as:
- Timesheet applications with poor user adoption
- Project management tools isolated from financial systems
- Manual billing processes that delay revenue recognition
- Reporting that requires extensive manual input
- Legacy ERP trapping you with expensive products that fail to deliver on innovations or meaningful ROI
Professional services leaders can assess their operational efficiency by answering three key questions:
- How many different systems do professionals log into daily?
- How quickly can managers determine the profitability of any active project?
- Can leadership access real-time financial performance without custom report requests?
More client focus, less admin? Find out how!
Get a customized demo tailored to the unique needs of professional services firms.
3 steps to maximize revenue with digital investment
Professional services are leaving revenue on the table when they choose systems that aren’t maximizing the value of their staff’s time. With the right focus, firms can gain substantial reduction in time spent on admin, notable improvement in utilization, faster billing cycles, and a greater understanding of how optimal operations lead to profit.
Step 1: Assess Current Costs
Quantify the full financial impact of:
- Manual processes
- Unbilled time
- Poor time-management
- Missed business opportunities
- Technology maintenance
Step 2: Establish Selection Criteria
Prioritize factors including:
- User experience and adoption potential
- Mobile accessibility
- Integration capabilities
- Implementation methodology
- Industry-specific capabilities
Step 3: Plan Change Management
Successful implementations depend on:
- Leadership buy-in
- Structured change management
- User-led implementation plan
- Comprehensive training approach
- Continued support post-adoption
Selection considerations for the C-suite
The C-suite’s need to collaborate is increasing and the individual roles that make up a firm’s leadership must evolve with the needs of the firm, and the technology it adopts, to match today’s competitive demands.
- For CFOs: Comprehensive financial visibility and control, with real-time insights that support strategic planning, risk management, and performance optimization, particularly valuable in times of heightened uncertainty.
- For CIOs: A modern, flexible ERP platform that provides industry-specific solutions with flexible technology, reliable reporting, and advanced data management capabilities can enable a shift from support to strategy.
- For COOs: End-to-end operational visibility enabling improved international project planning, resourcing, and delivery with simplified processes and enhanced user experiences.
How Unit4 can reimagine professional service profitability
Professional services firms require purpose-built solutions addressing their unique needs. Unit4’s suite of solutions has capabilities designed specifically for people-centric organizations, particularly professional service firms.
As a highly secure, microservices Cloud platform, Unit4 ERP provides the flexibility, scalability and continuous innovation organizations need to enable smooth operations and support growth.
Unit4 ERP seamlessly integrates HR, financial, and project data, providing real-time insights into all facets of the organization. It can also integrate with third-party applications via its integration service, consolidating diverse data points into a single source of truth.
The solution emphasizes ease of use through self-driving processes and an intuitive interface, helping organizations improve productivity, decision making and cost efficiency.
This includes automation capabilities including natural language processing, AI, optical character recognition, machine learning for data checks and forecasting, predictive modeling, and embedded analytics.
Firms can benefit from specialized capabilities for professional services firms such as time tracking, project management, and resource optimization, while meeting country and industry-specific compliance.
To learn more visit our website, talk to sales, or get a tailored demo of our solution – today!
Further reading & resources
