At Full Sail Partners, we firmly believe in the transformative power of the business benchmarking process. It serves as a vital tool that empowers professional services firms like yours to make well-informed decisions, streamline operations, and gain a competitive edge in the marketplace. To achieve optimal results, we advocate adopting an approach that encompasses four essential steps. These steps lay the foundation for a comprehensive and effective benchmarking strategy, allowing you to unlock the full potential of your business. 

#1 Look for Benchmarking Resources

If you're just getting started in the world of benchmarking, it's always beneficial to get a glimpse of how other professional services firms handle this process and measure up against your own company. There's an abundance of industry experts and organizations out there who generously share valuable insights into their benchmarking practices.

By taking advantage of these resources, you'll gain valuable knowledge and a broader perspective on benchmarking strategies. You'll be able to see firsthand how successful companies approach this process and uncover valuable tips and tricks to apply within your own professional services firm. So, don't hesitate to tap into this wealth of information and discover the key to benchmarking excellence.

Here are a few of our personal favorite resources that you'll want to check out:

• Deltek 
• Forrester 
• Gartner
• Hinge Marketing 
• IDC 
• Society for Marketing Professional Services 
• Vision Edge Marketing 

There are countless other companies and organizations out there who are also avid benchmarkers, so don't hesitate to explore further and discover even more insightful resources.

#2 Choose Your KPIs to Measure Success 

This is where we get to choose the meaningful measurements that will serve as your benchmarks or standards. Don't worry, we've got an array of exciting key performance indicators (KPIs) to explore—financial and project-related statistics that provide valuable insights into your professional services firm's performance. It’s like finding the perfect recipe for success! 

In the world of professional services firms, there's a whole bunch of KPIs that can help you gauge your organization's financial and operational health. Here are some of the widely used favorites: 

• Accounts Receivable
• Average Collection Period
• Chargeable Ratio
• Chargeable Ratio times Net Multiplier
• Current Ratio
• Debt to Equity Ratio
• Employee Realization
• Employee Utilization
• Estimate at Completion (EAC)
• Estimated to Complete (ETC)
• Net Multiplier
• Net Revenue per Technical Staff
• Net Revenue per Total Staff
• Overhead before Discretionary Distributions
• Profit on Net Revenues before Taxes and Distributions
• Return on Owners’ Equity
  
  

Now, it's time to do some soul-searching and consider which of these metrics truly encapsulates success for your unique organization. Establish corresponding benchmarks that align with your firm's historical performance, industry surveys, specialized standards, your company's philosophy, or even a delightful combination of factors. The goal is to create a tailored measuring tape that fits your organization like a glove.

When selecting professional services firms to benchmark against, think about factors like industry, geography, and size. The more similarities they share with your firm, the more relevant and valid their metrics will be. It's all about finding those perfect benchmarking buddies who can inspire and guide you toward greatness.

#3 Diligently Track Your Data

With the metrics identified and the benchmarks set to evaluate your professional services firm's performance, it's time to engage in diligent data tracking. Fortunately, there are various options available to streamline this process. 

While traditional methods like one-off spreadsheets and makeshift workarounds may seem tempting, we highly recommend exploring sophisticated software packages tailored to your specific needs. These solutions range from advanced accounting software that effectively monitors financial statistics to specialized project management tools designed to meticulously track individual projects. 

However, allow me to introduce an even more compelling alternative: a purpose-built Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system such as Deltek Vantagepoint. This comprehensive solution seamlessly integrates data from both the front office (project-related activities) and the back office (accounting operations). Imagine having a reliable sidekick that offers real-time, comprehensive visibility into all the aforementioned metrics. But it doesn't stop there—Deltek Vantagepoint also optimizes project and staff oversight, automates manual processes (including Customer Relationship Management and business development), and significantly enhances operational efficiency. 

Whether you opt for a combination of software programs or embrace the unified power of Deltek Vantagepoint, it is essential to utilize consistent and continuous data collection. This is an ongoing endeavor that ensures you stay well-informed and propels your professional services firm towards remarkable achievements. So, let's implement robust systems, leverage cutting-edge technology, and diligently track that data to stay ahead of the curve as accomplished benchmarkers. 

#4 Use Your Benchmarks to Make Data-Driven Decisions 

This is where we close the loop and ensure that the right data reaches the right people in a timely manner. It's all about fostering a management commitment to utilizing data for decision making and trust me, it's a game-changer. 

Imagine this scenario: You have schedule-based metrics at your disposal. Not only do they help you determine if a project is currently on budget, but they also shed light on whether it will ultimately stay within the overall budget. If the Estimate at Completion (EAC) surpasses the overall budget, management faces a pivotal choice. They might decide to reduce future expenditures or accept that the project will go over budget, while also identifying where the slippage occurred (perhaps those additional services contracts slipped through the cracks). Mind you, this is just one example. Depending on the specific underperforming metric and the degree of deviation from the desired benchmark, management will have an array of options and decisions to make. 

Now, let's uncover the secret to success in this phase of the benchmarking process: granting management access to all the vital metrics at any given moment. While manual methods can be employed to gather and present this information, there's a far more efficient way to do it—automated KPI dashboards. These customizable features, available in Deltek Vantagepoint, serve as your trusty sidekick, delivering essential data to management in a snap. 

By embracing this data-driven decision-making approach, you unlock the power to steer your professional services firm with precision and confidence. So, let's ensure the flow of valuable insights reaches decision-makers in a timely manner, empowering them to make informed choices that propel your company to new heights of success. 

Don’t Wait, Start Now! 

Regardless of the approach you choose to identify and track your professional services firm's benchmarking information, rest assured that the process yields substantial dividends. It grants your firm a more relevant and up-to-date understanding of its performance, positioning you for success. Equally important, it enables proactive measures to address underlying issues before they escalate into significant challenges, thereby increasing the likelihood of achieving both project and financial success.   

The future of a professional services firm's success begins with benchmarking. Embrace it, harness it, and let it guide us towards a prosperous tomorrow.  

Firms in the professional services industry must adapt to compete in today’s world. Through acquisitions and other partnerships, many professional services firms have been entering into new markets. These firms now have the need to offer a wider range of services to a larger client base. Additionally, many firms have increased their global presence which affects the way client needs have been handled in the past. Let’s check out the top trends for professional services firms as they deal with evolving client expectations and staying competitive.

On-demand Workforce

As new demands arise with the increasing service offerings by professional services firms to more clients, an on-demand workforce is necessary. This workforce can include contractors, part time staff and temporary workers in addition to full timers to meet staffing needs. Firm leaders will need to learn how to manage this future workforce and cultivate a culture that will be attractive to top talent with the key skill sets to render firm services.

More Flexible Service Rendering

Competition for the professional services industry has increased with rapid globalization. Clients expect professional services firms to support them and deliver high quality services from anywhere in the world. With location not being the priority, client demands can be met with operational and staffing flexibility. It is very important to stay abreast of who would be competent and available for doing the needed work.

Perception as Advisors

Professional services firms are changing the way they price services. There has been a shift from the traditional per-hour revenue model to a more value-oriented model. With value-based pricing, professional services firms are setting their prices primarily on perceived or estimated value of the service to the customer rather than historical prices. This value-based pricing encourages the relationship of a professional services firm being an advisor rather than just a service provider.

Leveraging Automation

With technology changing at such a fast pace, professional services firms are increasing their offerings with the use of automation. Using automation allows firms to simplify complicated and/or difficult processes saving a lot of time while delivering quality services. Automation also makes it easier to find the source of problems and provides the ability to remedy them quickly. Additionally, automation can help reduce errors and eliminate repetitive tasks.

Staying Competitive in Today’s World

Professional services firms must stay competitive in the global world of today. In order to do so, they must keep a pulse on their evolving client needs. Even more, they must be ready to provide a flexible workforce rendering quality services as fast as possible to wherever needed. The use of automation is a necessity for success. Furthermore, professional services firms must focus on satisfying their client expectations to ensure their services continue to be utilized.

Usually when you think of a New Year’s resolution, you think about a habit or trait that you find undesirable and want to improve upon to achieve a personal goal. However, a New Year’s resolution can apply to more than an individual. For business leaders, the start of a new year is the perfect time to make changes within their organization that they believe will increase the overall performance and success of the company. These changes are typically new initiatives for certain roles and departments.

So, what are the best initiatives for your firm to tackle for the new year? Fortunately, the team of Full Sail Partners’ consultants works with a wide variety of professional services clients and have been able to glean unique insight about the common challenges’ firms have experienced over the previous year. Based on these challenges, here is a list of New Year’s resolutions your professional firm may consider adopting.

Top New Year’s Resolutions for Professional Services Firms     

In no particular order, here are the New Year’s resolutions your professional services firm may consider enacting:

• Clean up your favorite personal and global reports and searches
• Find a business intelligence solution that can provide your firm with actionable insights
• Set up a reminder one month prior to year-end for project and department managers to validate unbilled services
• Ensure you are taking advantage of all the formatting options for Invoice Templates and review them to make sure that all are up to date with addresses, images, etc. 
• Consider using Resource Planning for more than project budgeting for things like revenue projections and calculating earned value management
• Embrace client feedback to improve relationships and create more repeat business
• Make sure that Opportunities are only associated with one Regular Project Record and one Promo Project Record
• Review your database for duplicate records and records that require updating
• Have billable employees update their timesheets on a more frequent and consistent basis
• Begin preparing to upgrade from Deltek Vision to Vantagepoint using this webinar series

Start the New Year off Right!

With the start of a new year, it’s common to reflect on the previous year to identify areas and things that went well and to evaluate what could have been done better. Looking forward, firm leaders need to pinpoint ways to improve future performance by establishing specific initiatives which are best for the firm’s needs. Therefore, start this year off right and implement change that will guarantee your and your firm’s future success!

A CRM system, or Customer Relationship Management system, is a technology tool that allows you to track important details about your customers. Firms need to know which product or service the customer currently has and want the ability to monitor the customer’s buying journey and needs. A CRM system also helps support the firm’s overall goals and strategies within each department. Let’s take a better look at what a CRM system can do for your firm.

Create More Revenue with a CRM

Sales teams use a CRM to conduct research as well as find new leads for future opportunities. A CRM system offers an abundance of information that can increase productivity when it comes to generating new sales. The CRM system can be used to track client communications which enables sales representatives to build stronger relationships with their customers and create new streams of revenue that grow firm profits. Furthermore, a CRM system can provide interactive analytical tools that give the sales force an accurate insight into a customer’s interests and needs. Sales representatives can then have more productive conversations with their leads and continue to develop personal relationships.

Along with building stronger relationships, a CRM solution can help a firm figure out the most effective sales practices and use that information to better their sales team. Staying abreast of proven processes will keep your sales team up to date on the fastest and most effective way to move a lead to a sale. 

Work More Efficiently

Similar to sales, marketing can benefit tremendously from the use of a CRM system. First off, the relationship between the marketing team and sales team is crucial to ensure customer needs are being met. With everyone actively using a CRM system for customer information, sales and marketing results can be seen across the board. Communication between sales and marketing will improve since both teams will have access to the most relevant data.

A CRM system can also be used to track marketing campaign success. The marketing team can evaluate how effective different marketing campaigns were including the costs which can help determine the best use of marketing department funds. With this available data, the marketing team can additionally change certain parts of the campaigns and maybe personalize some better for certain customers.

Improve the Customer Experience

Making sure customers are satisfied with their experience with your firm is very important. The customer service team relies on being able to measure things such as customer retention, satisfaction, and what is and is not working. This data can be tracked using a CRM system. If a customer did not have a good experience, the cause of the problem can be determined, and customer service can figure out what needs to be done in the future to prevent that situation from happening again. This information can then be relayed back to the sales and marketing teams so they can fix the issue on their side.

Why a CRM System is Right for Your Firm!

To be successful in any business, working smarter and most efficiently is very important. A CRM system can provide your firm with the metrics and relevant data to see how well your firm is meeting customer needs. Additionally, a CRM system offers the most accurate and up to date information allowing all department teams to work together seamlessly and effectively. Are you ready to take advantage of a CRM system? 

Business development can be a challenge especially when firms are already busy with day to day activities. Leaders must figure out what is worth putting effort and money into to get the pay-off they want. Fortunately, Deltek and Full Sail Partners offer many different solutions that are technology forward and can help make business development easier for you. Let’s take a look at some of these and see how they support business development.

Deltek Vantagepoint

Deltek has recently revamped Vision, creating a more powerful and user focused system that is designed for professional services firms. Deltek Vantagepoint can be used to improve productivity, increase profitability and make smarter business decisions. It also allows business development teams to quickly put together proposals that will give them an edge over the competition. So, by using Deltek Vantagepoint, you will have a platform that promotes business development with easy to use tools.

Blackbox Connector

Blackbox Connector provides the opportunity to connect Deltek Vision and Vantagepoint to 3^rd party software. For business development purposes, Constant Contact and Mailchimp Blackbox Connectors will help make it easier to nurture relationships with potential new business. What is sent out via Constant Contact or Mailchimp is brought back into Vision or Vantagepoint with the Blackbox Connector making it convenient for you to track your marketing efforts which leads to new business.

Deltek PIM

Efficiency is one of the leading attributes to great business development. Deltek PIM offers your employees one place to access all your files across all aspects of your business. With all emails and documents in one place, it is simple to research and determine where new business might be found saving you a lot of discovery time. This can be an asset when trying to advance your firm’s business development.

Informer

Informer is a business intelligence tool which allows your firm to collect data and analyze it. Business intelligence provides insight you can use to make better business decisions and evaluate areas for business development. Visual options in dashboards can display a variety of charts and graphs which give you vital information. For instance, you can identify which clients have used your services the most and may require further assistance. Informer thus allows you to pinpoint business development potential.

Deltek Learning Zone

Deltek Learning Zone is a great resource to find out more about tools that can help your firm further its business development efforts. DLZ offers virtual live classes, self-paced classes, support videos, infographics, and many more ways to learn. You can find experts that have a lot of knowledge regarding the best way to target business development using Deltek products. This will help your firm plan a course of action for your business development strategy.

Making Business Development Easy

Time is a precious commodity to all firms. With the many offerings from Deltek and Full Sail Partners, your business development efforts can be handled more efficiently and effectively. It is crucial to target business development if you want to set your firm apart from the competition. Use these resources and stay on top of the business development game.

Business development is crucial to the future of any company. Therefore, efficiently tracking it should be a top priority. So why are so many firms still using outdated spreadsheets that require so much effort to review? Well, once they get their hands on the Informer business intelligence (BI) tool, executives, business developers and marketers alike will be asking themselves that very question. Let’s see how the Informer BI solution will add value to your firm.

Colorful Graphics Save Time

The days of having to spend hours reviewing the specifics of opportunities and the sales pipeline on black and white pieces of paper are over. With Informer, colorful graphics draw attention to the information you seek. Essentially, you can set up your graphical dashboard using whatever dash parts you feel are the most important and drill down into the details as needed. These dashboards refresh automatically to keep your data up to date.

Different Visual Options

With Informer BI, there are different visual options available. Based on the fields selected, Informer automatically creates different visuals and you can choose from a saved list. You can customize your chart visuals depending on what you would like to see and how you would like to see it. Chart types vary from trends to pie charts to bar graphs to scatter plots. There are even geographic heat maps that show where your core opportunities are and where your firm needs to do more business development.

Keep a Finger on the Pulse of Business Development

Business developers are concerned with the health of the sales pipeline. They, of course, want opportunities sold as fast as possible and a way to track the win rates. Another great feature of Informer BI is the option to set up alerts when opportunities are closed. When an alert comes in, you will be drawn back to your dashboard to see what has changed. Informer even allows you to set up comparison boards with side by side displays. You can track win rates from month to month, year to year or even by location.

Get Informer Now

There is no need to waste any more time with those old fashioned and dated spreadsheets. Informer BI shows you exactly what you need to know about your business development as the opportunities unfold. Even more, Informer integrates with Deltek Vantagepoint and Vision. So, what are you waiting for?

Digital marketing, which includes email marketing, is a very effective strategy to growing your business. Most significantly, email marketing and outreach allows you to gain valuable insights into what information and messaging is important to your prospective and current clients. With each email sent, marketers can see open and click rates, and who opened and clicked on a link in the email. As a result, prospects can be easily identified, and messaging modified to grab the attention of other targets.

Email Marketing is Alive and Well

For many people, mainly the non-marketing folks, understanding how email marketing is effective can be difficult. In fact, many believe that email marketing is ineffective since they get so much spam and find it to be an annoyance. However, this is not the case. Email marketing actually has a very positive impact on your business. Here some are staggering facts about email marketing:

• There are 3.7 billion email users in the world and that will increase to 4.1 billion by 2021 (Statista)
• Email marketing has a 28.5% ROI compared to snail mail which has a 7% ROI on average (Chief Marketer)
• 59% of marketers agree that email marketing generates their biggest source of ROI (Emma)
• Email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new clients than Facebook or Twitter (McKinsey)
• 72% of people prefer to receive promotional information via email compared to 17% who prefer social media channels (MarketingSherpa)
• Email marketing is 6 times more likely to result in a click-through than a tweet (Campaign Monitor)
• 90% of people said they will opt-in to receive a newsletter to obtain updates about a company while 10% elected Facebook (Nielsen Norman Group)
• 70% of B2B marketers agree that increasing their email list quality is their top priority (Delivra)
• The average office employee checks their email 30 times per hour (Marketing Insider Group)
• Checking email is the number 1 activity on the internet (Marketo)
• Companies in the United States will spend more than $350 million dollars on email marketing in 2019 (Statista)
• Email marketing drives on average $44 for every $1 spent (Campaign Monitor)

Email Marketing has a Bright Future

With all of these facts about email marketing, it is evident that the strategy works. While your firm is probably using email marketing as part of your overall digital marketing strategy, are you seeing the ROI and maximizing the benefits? Learn more about tracking and measuring email marketing success rates here!

Business analytics has become increasingly important for professional services firms. However, finding a business intelligence (BI) tool that works with Deltek Vision and gives us the analytics we want has been challenging. We need flexibility, customization and ease of use to answer important questions about our firms yet often we find that this type of analysis is not accessible in Vision. Thus, we are faced with the export/import/number crunch process in an external tool like Excel plus countless hours spent doing the calculations over and over. We need a better solution, instant access, and easy updates.

Enter Informer 5

Introducing Informer 5, the BI tool which works with Deltek Vision to make instant analytics readily available. Informer 5 is an integrated customizable interface to Vision data for use in various analytical scenarios. Using the Blackbox Connector, direct integration with Vision is now a reality.  

You simply select the data fields you want in your database including standard Vision fields, User Defined Fields, and User Defined Info Centers, and you’ll quickly be able to visually see project metrics, employee measurements, marketing results, and firm forecasting. You’ll be able to answer questions such as: 

• How are my projects performing?
• How is that new branch office doing?
• Are my employees billing enough hours?
• How is the firm doing compared to the last three years?

Also, remember those spreadsheets with all that data we built over the past years? Informer 5 can integrate this data with your Vision data. No need to reinvent the wheel, we can use it as a data source. Other data sources? Informer 5 can access those too.

Visualize Your Data with Informer 5

Are you interested in where your work is being done and where the profits are made? Well, Informer 5 also includes geographical presentations including maps. You can easily visualize and determine these specifics with Informer 5.

You can even find the numbers behind the pictures. Informer 5 has built in drill down capabilities that can take you directly to the detail data. From Profit Center to Project Manager, Project Manager to Project, and all the way down to line item detail, data can be acquired with Informer 5, and all of this can be gathered from the same graph with no need to run additional reports.

Make Smarter Decisions with Informer 5

On a final note, the Informer 5 package includes set calculations for many of our industry standard metrics. Additional calculations can be added to customize this solution for any firm. Also, firm data can be updated regularly on schedule or updated on demand from Vision. It is up to you. So, with all of these awesome features of Informer 5 and its integration with Vision, isn’t it time for your firm to start making smarter decisions?