Invest in flexible technology to sustain your professional service firm’s growth
The demand for professional services is expected to grow as clients continue to use consulting services, but with shifting requirements. The rise of AI is leading many organizations to turn to consulting firms to help them understand how to use AI safely and to the best effect while remaining compliant.
At the same time, client expectations are changing.
Many still see the value in using external support, but they are looking for greater returns on investment and/or to move towards performance—or outcomes-based projects rather than those based on the tradition of time and materials.
Professional Services need to be ready to adapt to changing requirements and identify new opportunities that arise, and that means having access to data and being able to spot trends and build out strategies quickly. However, legacy technology can hamper growth, create employee frustration, and result in an abundance of manual work.
Learn how utilizing modern technology can help drive and sustain growth so you can embrace opportunities and not get left behind.
3 focus areas to leverage tech for growth
Mid-sized professional services firms are looking to grow but are hampered by a range of key factors. In a report by RSM, they highlight three of the factors that dictate success in the modern era: talent, finance, and technology
Click to read Leaving legacy behind to build business resilience (gated)
Talent
Modern talent has different cultural requirements of a firm, and today’s organizations will need digital tools to create the necessary environment and culture for talent to thrive. As highlighted in the Unit4 report, conducted by analyst firm PAC, poor culture and resource management can lead to staff turnover. Your people should not be ignored, as even the best-laid strategy can fail without a culture to match.
Randy Shattuck, Forbes Council Member, outlines 7 best practices to improve the culture within the workforce:
- Employee Benefits
- Defined and defended values
- Hiring the right people
- Realistic and flexible workloads
- Dynamic and fluid teams
- Transparent and consistent two-way conversations
- Training & Mentoring
Yet, the success of these best practices often relies on the tools at hand. Notably, modern talent wants hybrid working conditions, and those with legacy systems cannot support this.
A Cloud ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system can enable those in hybrid working conditions to collaborate seamlessly without the practical issues of legacy systems. Remote and in-office staff can simultaneously access documents and data digitally, avoiding issues with version history and gaining near real-time visibility across all data.
A Cloud-based HCM (Human Capital Management) system can help establish clear guidance and processes to foster a data-driven culture. For instance, firms can gather data on employee performance as well as create a continuous feedback loop through regular surveys and conversations, allowing managers to create actions based on feedback.
With digitally-enabled HR processes, a firm can reinforce a modern culture that will retain, nurture, and attract the modern talent that will be key to driving growth and profitability.
Finance
Cashflow is the lifeblood of any firm, and those looking to grow need to monitor, manage, predict, and spend cash wisely.
For example, any professional service firm looking to expand into new geographies must grapple with multiple currencies, tax regimes, and compliance regulations. Legacy systems like Excel will particularly struggle to deal fluently with the complexity that international dealings will bring. It can also result in more manual work as staff spend time checking and correcting reports.
These growing firms will also need to ensure that they have full visibility of project financials, and that resource management is streamlined and automated, removing some of the frustrations that occur with administrative tasks.
Having financial systems that are connected, pulling data from one source of truth, and the ability to present financial data in formats that are simple to understand can help firms monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as EBIDTA and DSO. Removing manual calculations and reports can reduce errors and speed up time from project completion to understanding the financial impact. By improving the visibility of these KPIs, firms can understand the key drivers of profitability, how to optimize them, and, importantly, can take proactive action. With an integrated FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis) solution, firms can build out future predictions and what-if scenarios to help plan and monitor growth plans.
Technology
Technology and business often work hand in hand, but what may suit your processes now can become defunct in today’s rapidly changing environment. Moreover, firms themselves can outgrow their current tech stack and should pay close attention to what their technology enables and what it constrains.
Equally, buying something that is over-engineered, complicated to install and maintain, and would better suit a larger enterprise may be excessive, costly in the long run, and likely to disappoint as users do not need all the features available, so they become disillusioned with the solution.
A scalable solution that grows with your organization, allowing you to develop and extend processes as you see fit while being able to dial back on processes that are no longer necessary, enables greater adaptability and resilience.
Leveraging tools like Cloud-based ERP solutions, AI, automation, and data analytics improves agility, streamlines processes, and helps identify new opportunities. It can also assist in retaining existing clients - almost two-thirds (65%) of PAC respondents plan to invest more in tools that increase their understanding of clients to drive loyalty.
Ensure technology investment is future-proof
As firms grow organically or through acquisition, their systems must scale accordingly. A scalable ERP system can support this growth by accommodating increased workloads, new services, and a larger client base without significant reconfiguration. It will also centralize resource management, helping streamline operations, cutting costs, and improving efficiency, making organizations more agile and adaptable.
Often, growing firms will start to invest in technology, but in a siloed way, picking and choosing aspects of a system that suit their current needs. However, there are many benefits to a suite approach, investing confidently in one provider.
A single Cloud or ERP provider can continuously maintain all your solutions easily, from security to patches, rather than burdening your IT team with trying to maintain multiple independent systems.
Investing in an ERP suite that brings together your people, projects, and finances ensures clarity of your data across the firm with a single source of data truth, something that is not possible with siloed systems.
How can Unit4 support your firm to embrace growth confidently?
In the PAC report, 44% of those surveyed plan to invest in their digital transformation strategy. But as all business leaders know, transformational change doesn’t just happen; it must be organized, planned, and implemented.
Bringing your teams together within one ERP system can support growth as you continually innovate, streamline your workflows, improve service delivery, and optimize project costs.
Unit4’s software is designed for mid-market firms like yours. Our comprehensive suite of ERP solutions gives you the tools you need to support your growth plans by combining ERP, Finance, and HR for triple value.
Havas, a large global communications group, found that with Unit4 ERP, they could integrate 32 acquisitions, with some of these completed in only three months, noting that “Havas now understands the precise financial performance of its people and projects. We can examine how much income is directly generated by our people producing billable hours.”
While IO Interactive, a video game developer, notes that Unit4 ERPx will give them the flexibility and adaptability they need as they grow: “We knew IO was going to be a fast-growing company. So, we looked at Unit4 and knew they would be able to provide for our ever-changing, ever-growing organization.”
To learn more about Unit4’s industry-specific capabilities for professional service firms like yours, consult our webpage or talk to sales today.
