Professional services organizations have distinct requirements. There are usually myriad clients with multiple simultaneous projects. While this can exciting, it can also sometimes become overwhelming, which is why we have put together this article, running through the top Professional Services Automation Benefits.
This is why professional services automation software can play such a crucial role for these organizations. Not convinced yet? Here are six advantages of implementing PSA solutions for your business.
Lets take a look at the top 6 Professional Services Automation Benefits;
1. Optimize resource utilization
The first of the Professional Services Automation Benefits and the first to consider is organising and managing your team or resources. You may have multiple resources at your disposal but are you making the most of them? One of the biggest advantages of PSA software is that it can help you optimize and maximize use of all your resources—tools as well as people.
Good PSA management tools include resource planning and management capabilities that will give your organization an overview of resource usage across various project functions. This will then help you plan and create the most efficient scenario for resource allocation and utilization.
The best part? An effective PSA solution can help you spot when you’re not making the most of your resources. Once you spot these lower resource utilization rates, you can address them, make the necessary adjustments and get back on track with your project.
2. Reduce costs and overheads
Making use of professional services automation software can prove advantageous for your organization to reduce overall project costs and overhead expenses.
This starts with effective resource utilization (as mentioned above). PSA solutions also reduce your overheads by automating tasks that may previously have been done manually such as billing and invoicing.
An increase in automation not only removes the need for allocating human resources to these manual tasks, but also takes away the need for expensive data servers, and other tech resources. Both of these combined can lead to tremendous overhead cost savings for businesses.
3. Improve project profitability
Once of the most important, and most talked about professional services automation benefits, is profitability. When you reduce costs on a project, it naturally leads to better project profitability as well. But reduced costs alone don’t improve profitability—data visibility does.
By providing organizations with better visibility of a project’s status, a PSA tool plays a key role in ensuring the project stays profitable. You now have a clear picture of your budget and are less likely to run the risk of an overrun as market conditions evolve.
You can also get an accurate picture of resource distribution on projects and see revenue, cost, and profit per project.
Data from your PSA tool helps you see what works (and what doesn’t) and manage your projects accordingly. The insights can be used to better plan and reallocate resources for higher profit margins.
4. Predict project performance
In the absence of a crystal ball, your PSA software can become your best future predicting friend.
When you feed all your project information into a centralized PSA dashboard, it helps you build a system for a predictable service-based business. Improved predictability leads to better decision making on future projects.
This means, you can better predict project delivery dates, understand when to hire new people if required, and plan your resource allocation more effectively.
5. Identify business opportunities
As your service business grows, so does the complexity of its operation. Make sure you don’t miss an opportunity simply by failing to spot it.
Your PSA solution provides you with information that can very useful for growing and scaling your business further. By monitoring your project information closely, you not only get better at resource forecasting but it also opens your eyes up to potential opportunities on the horizon.
6. Enhance customer satisfaction
Last but not the last, professional services automation tools help you maintain and improve your customer satisfaction rights. When your projects stay on track, deliver as expected and don’t have budget blowouts—that is automatically a recipe for success.
PSAs further add to this recipe by becoming a centralized dashboard for all stakeholder communications, ensuring your customers are kept up-to-date at key milestones.
Now we have looked at the Professional Services Automation Benefits, Are there Any PSA Disadvantages to Keep in Mind?
While for most organizations there are many Professional Services Automation Benefits, it’s also important to be mindful of certain drawbacks.
Professional services automation is an investment. It is an investment of money but also of time and people. Needless to say, these are precious resources for every business.
Implementing any new tool in business requires training your people to use it. While good PSA software is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, it’s important to be aware that there will be a brief period of learning for all those involved in using the software to become familiar with it.
While there may be certain disadvantages to implementing professional services automation for your organization, it’s important to note that the advantages far outweigh the minor disadvantages.
Overall, a PSA platform like Mission Control can revolutionize project management for your professional services organization and turn your operations into a well-oiled machine. Tool costs and other resources are important factors to consider but ultimately, the benefits of this tool usually make it a no-brainer investment for most businesses.
