Tag: Editors’ Picks
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Can Excel Manage Resource Allocation at Scale? The Limits of Spreadsheet Forecasting
Excel gets the job done when you’re staffing a handful of projects with a small professional services team. But scale up the project volume, the skill sets, and the schedule changes, and that same spreadsheet starts working against you. Static rows and columns can’t keep pace with a business that’s moving in real time, and…
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Why Kantata Is Building a New Expertise Engine for Professional Services
Yesterday, Kantata’s CEO Michael Speranza wrote about the crossroads the professional services industry is facing. The old ways of scaling services have run their course. In the age of AI agents, headcount can’t be the growth engine anymore. Clients won’t settle for “hours delivered” when what they need are outcomes that move their business forward.…
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Kantata Feature Spotlight: How Talan Streamlines Financial Operations with Intercompany Accounting
Talan, a leading global consulting and technological expertise group which accelerates the transformation of its clients through data, innovation and technology, faced challenges managing internal transactions between business units across its global network. Following a strategic imperative to streamline financial operations and enhance transparency in the face of rapid expansion, Talan turned to Kantata. This…
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Kantata Feature Spotlight: How Scott Logic Maintains Revenue Accuracy With ‘What-If’ Modeling
In the world of consulting, where time is quite literally money, managing multiple currencies, cost rates, and project variables is fundamental to both the bottom line and strategic growth. This Kantata feature spotlight highlights how Scott Logic, a bespoke software consultancy, is leveraging Kantata’s ‘What-If’ Scenarios to tackle these complexities head-on, ensuring precise forecasting and…
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Breaking Down Tech Debt: Strategies for a Healthier Tech Ecosystem
When considering critical issues regarding technology used by businesses, technical debt is a concept that often gets overlooked, yet its effects can ripple through an organization significantly hindering growth and efficiency. The recent webinar “Tech Debt Unmasked: The Culprit Behind Your Costliest Blind Spots and Bottlenecks” brought together industry experts from TSIA and Kantata to…
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Beyond One-Size-Fits-All: 5 Reasons Why Professional Services Organizations Need More Than Just an ERP System
In the ever-evolving landscape of professional services organizations (PSOs), staying competitive necessitates not just adopting the right technology, but also deploying software solutions tailored to a company’s unique needs. Central to the administrative backbone of these organizations are Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, often hailed as the one-stop solution for a myriad of business functions.…
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Optimizing the Professional Services Value Chain: How to Demonstrate Value at Every Stage of the Project Lifecycle
Powerful forces are reshaping the professional services industry, changing client expectations. Demand is volatile. Competition is fierce. And needs evolve rapidly. To win projects, meet client expectations, and build long-term relationships, professional services firms must adapt, too. Traditionally, sales conversations centered around exactly what the customer was buying. For product-based businesses, it was all about…
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When Is the Right Time for Your Business To Scale?
By Moira Alexander, Founder of PMWorld 360 Magazine and Lead-Her-Ship Group Every business naturally needs to grow to succeed, but scaling a company doesn’t just happen on its own. An estimated 80% of start-ups fail to see new products or services through to full scale-up. According to McKinsey, established businesses are no exception, with 65%…
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Navigating the Pressures of Agency Work: Unveiling Huge’s Transformation and the Power of Purpose-Built Technology
Brent Trimble, VP of Advisory Services at Kantata The agency business is incredibly diverse, spanning digital transformation, product design, communications, social, digital media shops, and more. One thing is universal today — agencies are under rate, cost, and workload pressure. Client procurement trends, the implicit desire to over-service, drive extra-creative cycles, and innovate are conditions…
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Top 5 Professional Services Resource Management Techniques
TL;DR Modern professional services resource management has moved well beyond task assignment. Leading organizations are combining cloud-based visibility, skills-based hiring, and continuous upskilling to align capacity with demand in real time. The firms that treat these not as trends to chase but as strategic capabilities to build are the ones improving utilization, retention, and delivery…
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How To Use Technology To Scale Your Agency
Regardless of what your agency focuses on – marketing, branding, advertising, media – growth is a crucial part of ensuring your business stays relevant and profitable. Agencies that don’t grow can become stagnant, fall behind competitors, and lose touch with the desires of their clients. That doesn’t necessarily mean that every small firm should try…
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How To Improve Project Performance: The 10-Step Guide
You can improve project performance through a combination of managerial skills and software tools. A good place to start is to ensure that the team understands the goal of every project, has access to open communication channels, and understands the priorities of tasks. These seemingly simple — yet essential — steps are necessary for successful project…
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5 Stats That Show Why Resource Forecasting Is One of Professional Services’ Biggest Challenges
Being able to accurately predict and respond to resource demands is one of the biggest keys to success as a professional services organization. But for many, creating and utilizing trustworthy resource forecasts is one of the most difficult challenges they face. If your organization is in the midst of a struggle to effectively forecast, know…
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5 Ways Agency Management Software Can Help Your Business
Every marketing agency feels the pressure to do more than is possible in a single day. With a growing client list, you’re balancing completing projects and pieces in-house, or delegating them out to freelance writers. Between communicating with your own team, clients, freelancers, and other people, it’s easy to become disorganized, or simply resort to…
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Five Best Practices to Improve the Value and Effectiveness of Agency and Client Relationships
The latest episode of Kantata’s Professional Services Pursuit Podcast, hosted by Brent Trimble, features author, speaker, entrepreneur, and high-tech business executive, Bruno Gralpois. Brent and Bruno discuss the evolution of his business, Agency Mania Solutions, and dive into some critical tactics agencies and clients can implement to enhance their relationships and deliver better services. Bruno…
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Introducing the 2022 Professional Services Automation End-user Survey
By Sarah Edwards and Jared Haleck, Chief Product Officers, Kantata This is an excerpt of Kantata’s introduction to SPI’s 2022 Professional Services Automation End-User Survey report. Click here to download the full report for free. This is a very exciting time to be shaping the product vision for a technology vendor serving the needs of…
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Uncovering the Reasons Professional Services Organizations Benefit from Vertical SaaS Solutions
The latest episode of Kantata’s Professional Services Pursuit Podcast, hosted by Banoo Behboodi, features Charles Gustine, Brand Evangelist at Kantata. This episode focuses on key results from new research from Kantata and Salesforce, which was conducted by Forrester Consulting. The resulting study, Vertical SaaS for Professional Services is Driving Material Benefits, reveals current trends shaping…
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Purpose-Built Technology: What It Is and Why Professional Services Companies Need It
Running a professional services business often means creating solutions on the fly and making whatever’s available work to keep projects going and clients happy. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way. Frequently, software used by organizations isn’t specifically designed for the professional services industry and doesn’t have the right features for a company’s…
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The Increasing Importance of Collaboration Across a Distributed Workforce
Environmental factors originally jump started the work-from-home revolution, but current research suggests the distributed workforce model is here to stay. Some estimates claim that at least 70% of employees don’t believe going into the office is necessary. Flexibility, less travel time, and reduced office costs are just a few of the perks of having a…
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4 Resource Management Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
The five pitfalls that should be considered when assessing the need to fine tune your resource management strategies and aligned with today’s tools and best practices.
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The Unified Data Model and Its Superpowers in Resource Management
Mavenlink and Enterprise Times have partnered to break down the tenets of a Unified Data Model and its implementation into a company with a new whitepaper, “The Importance of a Unified Data Model in Resource Management.”
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Are Your Clients Unhappy? Look for These Signs
To keep your clients happy and on board, keep an eye out for these red flags—they’re good indicators that your clients are not satisfied and may turn over.
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Becoming a Resource Manager – A Firsthand Account of My Path to Success
Read this blog to hear from Jordan Boemer how you can find success in your career path as a resource manager.
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The Critical Role of Sales Engineering in Product Success
Learn 3 critical roles that sales engineers should play in the long-term success of a product at your services organization.
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How to Improve Your Chances of Project Proposal Approval
Learn about the six different types of project proposals and the steps that you can take to increase your chances of client approval.
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Project Managers’ Top 10 Tips for Keeping Projects on Time and on Budget
The following tips can ensure your project continues its desired trajectory, and finishes on time and on budget (every project managers goal!).