Does My Business Need PSA Software?
PSA software is designed for service-oriented organizations needing to automate their processes and streamline their operations. This can include service delivery, administration and new business generation.
With a fully integrated PSA solution, a business can improve intangibles that are more difficult to quantify, such as vendor efficiency, employee turnover, and most importantly-customer satisfaction. Enterprise-level PSA will typically include capabilities for project and resource management, financial accounting and time-sheet management.
PSA systems are used dominantly by service-based businesses - i.e. a business that can produce something other than physical goods, such as utilities or consulting firms. The challenge is to balance front-end service delivery and customer satisfaction with back-end operations. Any industry that is project-focused and client-accountable will likely benefit greatly from a PSA solution.
"In 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there were over 116 million U.S. jobs in the service sector, making it hands-down the largest portion of the job market, with a 79 percent share. By 2022, that number is expected to reach 130 million"
As the service economy grows, it’s important for a business to have the right tools to manage client life-cycles while staying profitable on the back end.
So, if PSA software is cost efficient and extremely effective, why don’t more service businesses use it? That’s a good question. At CrossConcept, we noticed a pattern that businesses in the service industry neglect to see. They are either unaware of the PSA existence or they're too busy in their current process to educate themselves on the topic.
Typically, they have been struggling in a dead-end routine using a tangled mess of spreadsheets and tracking tools. In turn, they don't fully appreciate how much their business could be saving in time and money with a proper PSA solution in place.
At CrossConcept, we want to make the educational process of PSA straight-forward. To make this possible, we simply put together four of the biggest challenges that service businesses highlighted they experienced before they made the leap to PSA.
Four signs your ready for PSA software
1. You're having trouble utilizing resources
To minimize side-line time and get the right people on the right projects, you need to be able to track them. That’s going to take PSA software. Consider, if you get one more billable hour out of your consultants every week for a year, you could significantly increase your bottom line revenue. SPI Research found that larger organizations increased billable utilization from 71% to over 75% with PSA, meaning roughly 80 additional billable hours annually per consultant. More importantly, PSA has helped increase profitability per consultant by over 200%.
2. You’re still operating on spreadsheets
Even in 2017, many businesses are managing most of their processes via spreadsheets. This technique may work well for a small business with 4 to 5 users. However, once you go above 5 users and want to operate professionally, traceability and effectively managing resources becomes impractical, messy and unprofessional without a PSA solution in place.
3. You have no insights on your resources
Once a service business grows and expands, keeping track of who has what skills can be a monumental burden without an automation tool designed specifically for that task. Often, those businesses without it find themselves relying on external contractors to fill in the gaps, which increases costs while keeping revenue flat. With a PSA solution, your business has a central dashboard view of your entire organization’s resources. This allows for more effective planning and bids on future projects, making staffing decisions on current tasks, and ensure that everything is done on-time and within budget.
4. You’re over-servicing clients
As a service business, your main goal is to ensure client success and satisfaction. Frequently, businesses can spend up to double their quoted time on a project in order to make sure it’s completed correct and in a timely manner. This is not only a huge 'cost overrun', it’s a lost opportunity for people that could be doing billable work. With PSA software, businesses can track not only how much a client is spending but how much work their putting into it.
If you can relate to the issues above, then it's time to consider a PSA solution. Regardless of the complexity of your business or the basic tools you currently use to get by, CrossConcept has a PSA solution that will fit your needs.
CrossConcept Continuum - The Future of PSA for Small to medium sized businesses
CrossConcept Continuum has been specifically designed with a focus towards small to medium-sized businesses in the Professional Services industry. Our SaaS PSA solution offers the same cutting-edge enterprise level capabilities at affordable prices and implementation costs. With CrossConcept Continuum your organization can run core business operations including project
management, resource optimization, project accounting, time and expense management, and billing and revenue forecast reporting.
No longer will SMB be left in the dark. Our new software allows SMB to finally compete with the big brands without spending a small fortune on automation software.
To book a demo or find out more on how Continuum can help your SMB scale, contact us today! (email: marketing@crossconceptinc.com or call: 1-888-528-3898)
technologyadvice. (2017). professional-services-automation. Available: technologyadvice.com/professional-services-automation. Last accessed 12/1/2017.