In an ever-changing world, how can businesses remain predictable?

In the modern world, services leaders have been presented with an unenviable task – deliver predictability at a time when the world is at its most unpredictable. With the professional services industry in a constant state of flux, which only appears to be speeding up, service leaders are under an immense amount of pressure to keep customers and ensure productivity levels remain high. It has never been more important to keep on top of margins and utilisation rates as it is in this period of continuous transformation.

In order for services organisations to stand out, they must offer predictability. Through the implementation of the correct insights, processes and technologies, services organisations will be in a strong position to run a connected, flexible, intelligent and, most importantly, predictable business. There are four tasks which they can undertake to help them achieve this.

Align sales and services

The first step in the path to adding predictability to an organisation is to ensure sales and services teams are not siloed when it comes to putting together the right deals, with the two working in tandem with one another. However, many businesses still rely upon legacy systems, with sales and services functions using different systems and operating independently..

This results in a number of challenges. For the service delivery team, they receive minimal information about upcoming projects, preventing them from developing a clear-cut plan for both the short- and long-term. When it comes to the sales team, they run the risk of either under- or over-promising if they do not have insight into the volume of work which can be delivered, and at what cost.

The opposite holds true in circumstances in which the sales and services team are aligned, sharing unified data between each other. Using a common platform across the business allows teams to work in unison when it comes to a number of tasks – whether it be predicting and optimising resource utilisation, or cooperatively delivering on promises made to customers.

Forecast services accurately

Services revenue predictability can be negatively affected by a number of different factors such as inefficient resource management, ineffective utilisation, and revenue leakage, all three of which impact a company’s bottom line. This explains why accurate services forecasting has become a key focus for service leaders in recent years.

The ideal situation would be for a single platform to include both sales and services. This would allow organisations to pull forecasting and capacity planning data from ongoing projects instantaneously, as well as having a weighted perspective on imminent sales deals to understand both revenue and costs. Having this overall view enables services firms to confidently plan ahead, something that would be unimaginable if sales and project data were held in separate silos.

Extensive utilisation reporting

In order to ensure a project is on track, margins are in line and customers are satisfied, it is vital to have the right team controlling all of this. Nevertheless, while service leaders know how important it is to oversee these activities, managing capacity, demand, and utilisation continues to be a problem for even the most experienced services businesses. And since the rise of remote delivery, the difficulty has only increased.

One common issue is the reliance on tactical bolt on systems. When it comes to tracking delivery models, resources, and clashing schedules, nothing is more ineffective than a spreadsheet. They are an antiquated tool, rife with a number of potential flaws while also being exceptionally time-consuming. In circumstances in which organisations rely on spreadsheets to calculate margin tracking and profitability, businesses will always have to worry about possible errors.

As an alternative, services firms should consider installing a resource planning software capable of delivering complete views across an organisation’s capacity and backlog. At the same time, the tool will provide accurate, effective, and punctual utilisation reporting. This level of visibility is necessary for services businesses as they aspire to grow and thrive.

Understand backlog

One of the keys to bringing predictability to organisations is to accurately track backlog data – yet this is far from an easy task. With services firms continually adding more managed and technical services, backlog leads to increasing friction in the “delivery machine”, a problem which is often exacerbated when resources both within and outside the business are used.

There are a wealth of benefits for those service leaders that are looking to improve their organisation’s predictability and business transparency. Seeing and tracking everything happening across the business, from sales and services to finances and projects, ensures companies employ the right people in the right positions. What’s more, it enables sales teams to sell the correct scope at a suitable rate, while all members of the organisation gain insight across billing, pipeline and revenue. This allows professional service businesses to make intelligent, swift decisions and achieve higher services margins, enhanced levels of resource utilisation and improved win rates.