On January 12th Adexta and Service Performance Insight announced the completion of an 88 page report titled:

The New Professional Services Maturity Model —
A Roadmap to Achieving Professional Services Excellence

Adexta and SPI Research have come together to develop a comprehensive benchmark to help captive and independent technology professional service providers assess their own capabilities as well as provide a “Roadmap for Achieving Professional Service Excellence”. This report shows how PSOs can begin the process of establishing a maturity roadmap. It provides information that will enable PSOs to compare themselves to industry benchmarks.
Until now, little if any research examined Professional Service strategies and benchmarks within the context of a rapidly maturing technology environment. The information contained in this analysis is great for small and mid-market PSOs that do not have the time or financial resources to invest in hiring significant staff to begin this process. Larger PSOs can also use the information to compare themselves to their midsized competitors to help understand how these organizations operate.
 

Effective pricing and discounting strategies are one of the key reasons why some technology professional service organizations succeed and others fail. According to the “The New Professional Service Maturity Model” benchmark report just completed by Adexta and SPI research, companies with the lowest bill rates experienced twice the project cancellation rate (3.2%) compared to companies with the highest bill rates (1.6%). The results for on-time project completion were equally dramatic with only 67% of low bill rate projects delivered on time as compared to 85% for companies with the highest bill rates.

These insights and many more are provided in “The New Professional Services Maturity Model – A Roadmap to Achieving Professional Services Excellence”, an 88 page benchmark report developed by Jeanne Urich and R. David Hofferberth, P.E. This report provides benchmark data from 52 professional services providers in addition to actionable guidance on how to improve organizational maturity, leading to performance improvements and increased profitability. It provides information that will enable PSOs to compare themselves to industry benchmarks and start to develop their own roadmap to service excellence.

The Benchmark Report contains:

• Benchmark results from 52 companies 65% PS within software companies; 25% system integrators; 10% other

• 63 insightful charts

• 24 powerful tables

• Five Maturity Level descriptions and statistics for:

• Vision and Strategy

• Finance and Operations

• Human Capital

• Service Execution

• Client Relationships

On July 10th Service Performance Insight announced the completion of a 120-page report titled:

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in the Professional Services Sector

This report has industry significance because it is the first of its kind — a focused report on the move of ERP to professional services organizations.  It highlights the growing trend and movement toward the adoption of ERP solutions in professional services organizations. It also shows that ERP has moved beyond core Financials and encompass is many of the other applications necessary to build a world-class professional services organization and increase both productivity and profitability. 

Professional services organizations (PSOs) increased their adoption rates of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions with the goal of increased operational visibility, greater financial transparency and higher productivity — driving their ability to compete. 

ERP gives PSOs tools that enable them to optimize three core areas of their organization — their people, processes, and capital.  In the past these organizations considered ERP as merely a financial management system.  ERP has evolved with integration to other core PSO business solutions that include Client Relationship Management (CRM), Human Capital Management (HCM), Project & Service Delivery, Procurement and a Business Intelligence (BI) engine that help organizations make better decisions going forward. 

PSOs will benefit from ERP’s integration and automation, which will provide the necessary infrastructure to keep firms structured and in control.  ERP will grow in the Professional Services sector at a much faster pace than research showed just five years ago.

The report examines business solutions that answer key concerns professional services executives have:

• Why should ERP be adopted rather than integrate “best-of-breed” solutions?

• How can ERP improve key performance indicators throughout all areas of their business?

• How will ERP lower the cost of deploying and maintaining their application infrastructure?

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