Steering a Professional Services company from the pilot’s seat

[catherine_lynch]

Managing a professional services company from a financial perspective can be compared to flying a plane – the pilot has a 360° view of the flight path in normal conditions, can be assisted by many automated mechanisms and real-time alerts but is constantly on the watch for new parameters.  The pilot is required to makes adjustment based on the interpretation of data in flight until he or she has landed the plane.

Professional Services firms need to keep a watchful eye on the profitability of their projects, customer satisfaction and issues which might cause budget overruns which can adversely affect their margins. In the past CFO’s and engagement managers have had to rely on project data which may be a few days old depending on the last extract from the data warehouse.

All that has changed with advances in technology and the availability of up to the minute data in real-time, enabling business decisions to be taken in the moment. New technologies such as in-memory computing, global talent networks and cloud applications are opening up opportunities for CFO’s and engagement managers to drill down into real-time information and analyze different courses of action on the spot.

What if you could immediately see the profitability of each project and shift focus to the most profitable services?

Some of our Professional Services customers are already experiencing the benefits of having access to real-time data by using SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management for core finance, billing and invoicing and streamlined procure to pay processes. Deloitte is an example and you can hear more about their transformation journey and how SAP S/4HANA software and the SAP HANA platform played a key role at their Theater Session at SAPPHIRE NOW. 

The recently released version of S/4HANA Professional Services Cloud incorporates core finance processes.

With SAP S/4HANA Professional Services Cloud you can

• Gain real-time visibility into your professional service organization’s performance and profitability
• Deploy the right resources to the right projects at the right time
• Bring together business process and analytics in real time to be smarter, faster, and simpler

80% of project profitability is determined at bid time1

Project profitability is mostly determined at bid time (80%). How can CFO’s and Engagement managers ensure they use the right parameters at the bid stage? With HANA it is easy to search on unstructured data and mine past project bid data. A good example is searching for past bids for projects with similar characteristics and margins in order to reuse the parameters as a project template for creation of a new bid.

Figure 1: Past Project Bids

What if you could receive project issue alerts via your Apple Watch, iPhone or iPad?

Further to the co-innovation announcement on May 5^th about the SAP and Apple partnership to make mobile apps available on IOS run devices, the possibility for Project Managers and Consultants to receive alerts about project issues on their Apple Watch, iPhone or iPad can be demonstrated by our Industry team at the Industries campus at SAPPHIRENOW.

Figure 2: Project Issue Alerts on iPhone

Join us at SAPPHIRENOW to hear how Professional Services are using SAP solutions to run their live business. View our Professional Services use case at the Digital Showcase outside the auditorium.