With the increasing need to become more agile, responsive and competitive in the marketplace, professional services firms are looking to technology to provide business solutions.
Today, there are several solutions out there – such as professional services (PSA) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) – which can help you digitise. But which solution is the right one for your business? PSA, ERP, or both?
In this blog, we’ll cover the similarities and differences between PSA and ERP software, as well as analyse which solution will likely be the best fit for your business.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a solution that helps you link several parts of your business and effectively streamline and manage processes such as:
The benefits of an ERP solution include:
Professional services automation – or a PSA solution – is typically used within service-based organisations such as:
A PSA solution helps professional services firms tackle challenges inside their organisation such as:
Traditionally, one of the main differences between PSA and ERP is that ERP was built to manage tangible assets such as products, goods and stock. PSA on the other hand, is more focused on managing intangible assets and the service-based industry, such as consultants and accountants. This means PSA software had a greater emphasis on modules like project management and resource utilisation.
Today’s modern solutions however, have evolved to a point where both solutions can be complementary but also, interchangeable. In fact, there are now all-in-one solutions that allow you to combine your project and resource management (PSA) with financial management (ERP).
This has helped professional services firms unlock new opportunities for growth and improved profitability that previously weren’t possible with traditional ERP or PSA solutions. For example, with a single source of data from a fully integrated system, you’ll have total control over your projects and overall business, allowing you to view areas such as:
In essence, we believe a truly integrated ERP with PSA functionality will provide the highest level of productivity, efficiency and financial visibility for professional services firms. But the solution you choose should be dependant on your business requirements and the problem you’re trying to solve across your organisation.
Do you have any further questions about ERP or PSA? At Columbus, we have amassed over 30 years of experience helping businesses find and implement the right digital business solutions for their specific needs. And we can help yours too.
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We’ve spoken a lot about solutions and which one is best etc, but that shouldn’t be your sole focus. New technology will affect every area of your organisation, so you’ll need buy-in from all your stakeholders to achieve success. And that depends on value creation and management.
In our brochure, we explain the importance of adopting a ‘value first’ mentality during a transformation project.
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