The Professional Services Technology Stack. Automation Is Critical to Boosting Productivity, Revenue, and Margins

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2 TECHNOLOGY INSIGHT 1 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TSIA March 26, 2015 The Professional Services Technology Stack Automation Is Critical to Boosting Productivity, Revenue, and Margins A Joint White Paper from TSIA and Workfront EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Technology is incredibly important to the success of professional services. Various platforms and applications are required to identify projects to be delivered, track consulting engagements in progress, and to correctly bill for services when projects are complete. TSIA has identified 10 separate applications categories recommended for highly productive, scalable PS teams, including core infrastructure technology, productivity tools, and tools to understand and track customer behavior and sentiment. In this report, TSIA Research defines the recommended technology stack for professional services. Professional services executives should understand which enabling technology components are already well adopted, as well as emerging tools that may provide a boost to operational and financial metrics. EXTREME AUTOMATION FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES The cloud economy is forcing technology firms to rethink their approach to professional services. As product revenues fall, there is more pressure than ever to improve project margins. Formerly onpremise technology companies are making dramatic overhauls to service offers to meet the needs of on-demand customer engagements. We are seeing increasing pressure on core professional services metrics. According to the latest data from the TSIA Professional Services Benchmark Study, average PS revenue growth, market rates, and consultant utilization are all down year over year by 5%, 12%, and 8%, respectively. Clearly, PSOs are being challenged in fundamental ways. To buck the industry trends in these critical metrics, TSIA members need to identify Pacesetter practices across all phases of people, processes, and technology. Our benchmarking program and other survey projects provide the data necessary to identify employee performance goals and establish best-in-class practices. This report focuses on the technology component. In order to take the next step in boosting project margins and productivity, technology can be a great enabler. Not only can basic processes like project staffing and utilization tracking be automated, but

3 2 analytics can give you new insight into your business, including real-time project dashboards and resource forecasting tools. This report will define the various technology components that TSIA recommends that companies evaluate. Some are standard infrastructure products practically everyone has, others are newer, more innovative solutions that may help provide you with a competitive edge. TECHNOLOGY CATEGORIES RELEVANT TO PROFESSIONAL SERVICES TSIA tracks adoption, satisfaction, and planned spending for technology specific to service operations. In the 2014 Global Technology Survey, the following technology categories were identified as relevant to professional services. Consumption Monitoring/Analytics. Consumption monitoring/analytics are tools used to measure and monitor customer consumption of technology, gauging how quickly customers are adopting new tools, common process flows, top-used features, number of users, length of session time, etc. Consumption monitoring is a key piece of shifting toward outcome-based services. Customer and Employee Communities. Online customer and employee communities designed to enable peer-to-peer support and share information internally and externally; includes discussion forums, expertise tracking, reputation models, moderation, etc. Enterprise CRM/Incident Management. Enterprise CRM is an enterprise deployment of CRM (customer relationship management) across sales, marketing, and service. This platform tracks leads, opportunities, campaigns, accounts, and contact history. Incident management is used to track an occurrence of a customer question or problem through to resolution; also known as case management, service requests (SRs), or trouble tickets. Intelligent/Enterprise Search. Linguistic-based search platform, including analytics for sophisticated reporting; allows content in any format or location to be indexed and searched. Knowledge/Content Management. Knowledge management or content management technology is used to capture, maintain, and reuse knowledge. Mobility/Video. Mobility and video in service are tools for improving productivity and accuracy by leveraging mobile and video technology; includes tools to mobilize field service technicians, professional services consultants, and other service employees, giving them access to corporate content, collaboration, and workflow from anywhere, including video knowledge or training content. Professional Services Automation/PSA. Professional services automation, or PSA, is a platform to automate professional services engagements; includes resource management, scheduling, project management, and accounting modules. Reporting/Analytic Platforms. Reporting/analytic platforms are analytic-based reporting platforms used to do sophisticated trend reports and create reporting portals, such as a services dashboard.

4 3 Voice of the Customer. Voice of the customer technology includes survey and reporting tools used to track transactional, periodic, and project customer satisfaction. In addition to customer survey tools, voice of the customer technology includes quality monitoring for agent performance, as well as voice and text analysis of assisted, unassisted, and social interactions. Web Collaboration/Desktop Sharing. Web collaboration/desktop sharing is a collection of web-based tools used to enable collaboration between employees and customers; includes web chat, proactive chat, screen sharing, online meetings and training, and webcasts. Remote control/desktop sharing is also included in this category. Figure 1 shows each of these technology categories as part of the professional services technology stack, categorized by customer-facing tools, productivity tools, and infrastructure. Figure 1: Professional Services Technology Stack Source: TSIA 2014 Global Technology Survey.

5 4 In Figure 2, the percent of professional services members using each component of the PS technology stack is shown. Figure 2: Professional Services Technology Adoption Professional Services: 2014 Adoption 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 13% 77% 93% 51% 89% 56% 58% 69% 59% 81% Source: 2014 Member Technology Survey. While some technology categories, such as CRM and knowledge management, show very high levels of adoption by TSIA members, other categories remain untried by many companies and represent a great opportunity for automating consulting projects and boosting productivity. In particular: Professional Services Automation. Currently used by 58% of PS members, PSA software automates the resource management, project management, and project accounting for any consulting engagement. With increasingly sophisticated analytics and dashboards, these systems can help managers and executives oversee engagements with an eye toward key metrics such as utilization rates and rate realization. Many companies even some large technology firms continue to run their PS operation primarily using spreadsheets. If your firm has yet to invest in a PSA tool, talk to some of the leading providers about the business impact their customers see after implementation. Consumption Monitoring. A core part of any customer success initiative, consumption monitoring tools help you understand exactly how customers use the technology, such as common process flows, top-used features, time to complete tasks, etc. This fairly new

6 5 application category is currently used by only 13% of PS members, but TSIA expects adoption of consumption monitoring technology to rise as more companies focus on outcome-based services and create customer success practices. Intelligent Search. PS consultants have oceans of information to help them plan and execute projects, including product documentation, implementation guides, project history, and support knowledgebases. Offering a federated or unified search tool will help consultants easily find the information they need, without having to learn where to look for each type of content. Currently only 51% of PS members have an intelligent search tool in place. TSIA RECOMMENDS With the increased complexity of today s products and the ever-growing number of customer interactions, clearly, investments in service and support technology are a primary avenue to meet and exceed customer expectations for service levels. But knowing where to start is difficult, with many different products offering a similar ROI story. When deciding where to make incremental investments, TSIA Research recommends: Benchmark your technology footprint against other members. How does your company compare to the adoption numbers shown in Figure 2? If you are missing technology that more than half of companies are currently using, maybe it is time to revisit how that technology can assist you in meeting your quality, optimization, and revenue-generation goals. Also, be sure to evaluate what best-of-breed technology offers today compared to homegrown systems, particularly for PSA and knowledge management. Include integrations in Phase 1 of the project. Automating quote-to-cash should be a goal for any technology firm, and for professional services, this means integrating CRM, PSA, and ERP to allow an end-to-end flow for data, projects, and billing. When implementing new technology, identify key integration points and push to include these integrations in the initial phase of the project. Too often, critical integrations are pushed to Phase 2, which never happens. When in doubt, ask. TSIA Research is here to help. Members can submit an inquiry on any topic, and we will do our best to answer within 48 hours. To submit an inquiry, send an to your membership development director, or send an to support@tsia.com and one of our service representatives will respond to your inquiry as quickly as possible. MEET WORKFRONT Workfront is a cloud-based Enterprise Work Management solution that helps services teams, project leaders, and other enterprise groups conquer the problems associated with typical project management tools and processes. Using a combination of technology and expertise, Workfront provides a single system of truth that eliminates work chaos, provides global visibility, and increases

7 6 productivity. It offers a complete, adoptable solution powerful enough for technical users, intuitive enough for business stakeholders, and flexible enough to support Agile, Waterfall, or a mix of the two. It works in the same ways you do. To learn more about Workfront Enterprise Work Management for professional services projects, and how it can help you control the chaos of work, please contact them at the following: , or +4(0)