As a management consulting firm, you’ll want to achieve visibility on the finer details of your projects, including your finances, people, and time management. This is where PSA software can assist you. Let’s take a look at the benefits it has to offer:
- Effective time and expense management
- Resource planning capabilities
- Easily integrated within your current software
- Streamlines your key information
- Offers deep financial insights with your projects
1. Effective time and expense management
A PSA tool helps you access time and expense data on any device, at any time, meaning whether your teams are out in the field or the office, you’re easily able to gain accurate and timely cost information.
Additionally, your workforce can easily upload their timesheets when they’ve finished a job. Using traditional pen and paper methods makes time entry a laborious task for your teams, increasing the chances of them leaving it until the last day to sort and by then, they’ve forgotten the hours they’ve worked. Physical timesheets are also easy to lose, which’ll result in unnecessary time wastage if they have to fill it out again. You can read more about improving your time and expense management here.
2. Resource planning capabilities
As a management consulting firm, you’re likely to have several ongoing projects at once, meaning you’ll need to know:
- Where your resources are currently being utilised on a task-by-task basis
- Whether you have enough consultants available to start another project and if you have the right expertise available
PSA software can simplify this for you. For example, you’ll be able to automatically identify where your consultants are based on their availability, location, and their skill level within your company. By taking the leg work out of identifying the best consultants for the job, you’ll save valuable time that’d be better allocated elsewhere.
3. Easily integrated within your current software
With any new software you’re introducing, you need to ensure that your consultants know how to use it. Even though an effective change management plan should still be a critical part of introducing PSA software, it alleviates any confusion they’ll face by integrating with apps they’re already used to.
For example, with a familiar user interface and a range of capabilities that add to internal productivity apps such as Microsoft Office 365, your consultants will experience the benefits of working more productively and efficiently from the get-go.
4. Streamlines your key information
It’s reported that one Global Fortune 100 firm recognised that as much as 10% of their customer data was held locally by employees on spreadsheets. What are the implications? If you hold key information on individual systems across your firm, this could lead to:
- Outdated information as your employees will have to chase one another for the relevant data they require
- Delays in your tasks, as seeking the right information can be time-consuming for your project teams, impacting your bottom line
- Increased amount of data you’ll have to input, resulting in a higher chance of human error
- Siloed data, making it more difficult for your teams to pinpoint potential risks
PSA software resolves this by streamlining all of your information onto the cloud, putting your accessibility at the forefront. This prevents delays in obtaining information as you can easily access the documents you need, helping you make better informed business decisions. File permissions can also be set up for enhanced security, so although the data is streamlined, you can still set up controls over who views and edits them.
5. Offers deep financial insights with your project
PSA software gives you full visibility of your finances so you can ensure you have the funds needed to achieve success on each project you’re working on, while improving cash flow. Additionally, you’ll be able to forecast if your projects are operating as expected.
Through this, you can easily identify where your costs are rising and falling, allowing you to make informed decisions to improve your profit margins. Other advanced features of leading PSA software include:
Real-time insights
- Make swift and informative business decisions with up-to-date data and insights
Sophisticated budget tools
- Track your budget effectively from creation through to completion with clear visibility
- Easily track unlimited budget revisions and automatically update project statistics such as net profit and margin percentage
- Plus, use budget matrices to create budgets based on quantity and to see available capacity while creating a budget
Cost allocation capabilities
- Track, view and analyse your costs and revenues for individual projects that are still in progress
- Monitor your project status with predefined and customisable stop light charts
- Also, improve project productivity with flexible project structures, billing rates, and more
Explore why management consulting firms are looking towards implementing new technology
Now that you have a better understanding of how PSA software can benefit your firm, let’s explore what the current challenges are in the industry that’s driving the shift towards implementing new technologies.
With the professional services industry undergoing drastic change the past couple of years, including new working models and an increased number of firms embracing digitisation, how can you better adapt towards these trends? Our infographic offers more insight on the benefits of PSA software and addresses:
- The major challenges facing services firms today
- Why digital transformation is key to preventing strategic and operational challenges from escalating further
- Four key steps your management consultancy can take to achieve digital transformation
