Professional services firms make money based on the number of hours they service clients. These companies need to have many consultants with desirable skills as billable as possible. They also have to have enough resources available to start new projects as soon as the contracts are signed. In short, professional services firms need to make the best use of the people they have, understand the needs they will have in the future and then appropriately plan for changes in a dynamic market with a history of being a “lumpy” business.
This can present a big challenge. In fact, according to Workday, “Only 29% of professional services leaders say they are confident in their organization’s current financial and business plans.”
This is where enterprise planning can help. With enterprise planning, professional services firms can easily perform demand planning, which can then integrate with project revenue planning, financial forecasting and reporting. These models use the same data and provide the firm with consistent and accurate information.
Enterprise planning is a key resource for these firms. Professional services companies can perform ad-hoc analysis, asking questions of the data, such as:
- How many consultants are available/currently “sitting on the bench,” not earning revenue?
- What skill sets do our current consultants have and what skills are missing?
- Which new projects are best served by onshore staffing and which new projects are best served by offshore staffing?
- Do we have enough staff to take on this new project?
- If a project ends unexpectedly, what existing projects can use those resources?
- Are we optimizing our people in the most profitable way?
Learn why more and more professional services firms are embracing enterprise planning. Watch our latest webinar on Streamlining Professional Business Services with Workday Adaptive Planning here.
