Company goes beyond automation to scale expertise, boosting customer satisfaction, services revenue and margins

IRVINE, CA – October 13, 2026 – Professional services teams are under pressure to deliver more with less, and the answer is not simply automating tasks, but scaling the expertise that differentiates firms and creates value for their customers. Basware, the global leader in Invoice Lifecycle Management, has figured this out and is teaming with Kantata, a leading provider of Professional Services Automation (PSA) solutions, to make it happen. And on October 20, Mark Johnston, Chief Customer Officer of Basware, will join Michael Speranza, CEO of Kantata, at Technology & Services World in Las Vegas to share the story of Basware’s journey from AI experimentation to AI-enabled delivery and the business transformation it is driving.

From Chaos to Control

Basware’s journey started with a foundational problem: “Our services organization was low-margin, slow to scope, slow to staff, and I couldn’t tell you whether the software we were running the business on was actually working for us,” Johnston recalls.

So Johnston and his team set out to build a stronger foundation and identify where AI could have the greatest operational and customer impact. They quickly realized the opportunity was bigger than simply automating tasks to work faster.

“AI can do the heavy lifting on routine work, but the real opportunity is using it to scale the expertise of our people,” Johnston said. “Every customer environment at Basware is unique, and that’s where our people make the difference. What if we could take what our best people know – their judgment, their patterns, their experience – and make that available consistently across every project and every customer? That’s where AI gets really interesting, and the direction we are moving.”

Where AI Meets Expertise

To make this vision a reality, Basware implemented the Kantata PSA Platform and focused first on the fundamentals: automating billing. Now, it is expanding into three additional areas, using AI to transform the way it delivers services and drive key business outcomes:

• Smarter Resource Management: An AI agent powered by the Kantata Expertise Engine helps Basware services managers determine how to staff projects as timelines and requirements change, matching the right people to the right accounts while protecting margins and delivery quality.
• Faster, Better Implementations: AI embedded across the platform allows Basware to delegate the repetitive work that is standard for all implementations to AI while scaling its human expertise to manage tasks that are unique to each customer – where its real value lies.
• Automated Documentation: AI can generate and send project documentation to customers, removing a time-consuming administrative burden so that professional services teams can focus on engaging with customers and delivering expertise.

From Efficiency to Impact

And the strategy is already paying dividends.

Customer success managers who once spent four to five hours a day on research before a customer call are now spending that time on the phone instead – capacity Johnston says could let the company double revenue with its existing CSM team rather than adding headcount.

In customer support, an agent now manages roughly half of the 10,000 monthly tickets submitted by non-paying customers of Basware’s customers, resolving them faster and more clearly and lifting satisfaction.

“In professional services, automation is table stakes. Expertise is the differentiator. And the challenge is scaling it without diluting what makes it valuable,” said Speranza. “Basware is showing what that can look like in practice, using AI to take the work off its experts’ plates so they can spend more time doing what customers actually pay for – solving problems, applying judgment and delivering outcomes.”

Johnston and Speranza will take the stage at TSW for “Congratulations, You Hired an AI Agent! Now Who’s Managing Its Margin?,” a fireside chat in which they will discuss what it takes to move AI from experimentation to real-world delivery and share practical tips and lessons learned about operationalizing AI and measuring the real economics of AI-enabled delivery.

Click here to register for the event and attend the session.

About Basware

Basware is the market leader in Invoice Lifecycle Management. Our platform allows finance teams to gain complete control of every invoice, every time. One place to govern their entire accounts payable process end-to-end, across every country, every ERP, and every supplier. Basware delivers four outcomes CFOs can rely on: Governed Autonomy, AI you can control and decisions you can defend; Continuous Compliance keeping every invoice compliant, protected and provable; Financial Integrity on every transaction; and Enterprise Control over 100% of invoice operations. Basware’s intelligence draws on 2.5 billion invoices, $10 trillion approved for payment, 20 million suppliers and 40+ years of industry expertise. Basware serves 6,500+ customers worldwide, and industry leaders including DHL, Heineken, and NBC Universal Media rely on Basware to run their invoice operations. Gartner, Forrester, and IDC recognize Basware as the category leader. Now it all just happens.

About Kantata

Kantata is a leading provider of Professional Services Automation (PSA) solutions that help professional services organizations and agencies ensure consistent excellence and profitability across projects. More than 1,500 organizations worldwide rely on Kantata to instantly assemble the ideal team, easily amplify institutional knowledge, and confidently forecast outcomes. Recognized as a Leader on G2’s PSA Software Grid® and Resource Management Software Grid®, and consistently ranked among the top project management software products in G2’s annual Best Software Awards, Kantata supports the full services lifecycle — from scoping and staffing to delivery and forecasting. For more information, visit www.kantata.com.

Media Contact:
Kantata@pancomm.com