Tag: Mavenlink
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Common Spreadsheet Problems (and How They Affect Business)
An over-reliance on spreadsheets can cause unnecessary complications within your business. Here are some common avoidable problems.
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The Importance of PTO Planning
Learn how poorly-managed paid time off can negatively impact business, and how to properly plan PTO to boost morale and optimize scheduling.
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Modern Project Management: An Introduction
Modern project management serves projects that result in unique deliverables, such as a website build or software implementation. Learn how it’s different!
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Intelligent Orchestration: The Key to the Future of Professional Services
Successful resource and project management in the modern era of professional services needs to be backed up and guided by dependable data insights. But simply having a data lake of potential insights pulled from the many different software solutions that your company runs on is not enough and is, frankly, overwhelming to most busy managers.…
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Why Services Software is Critical in Today’s Networked Economy
The latest episode of Kantata’s Professional Services Pursuit Podcast features Ray Grainger, the Executive Chairman of Kantata and co-founder of Mavenlink. This episode, hosted by Brent Trimble, is centered around the vision for Kantata and the importance of services software in today’s networked economy. Below you’ll find some highlights and key takeaways from the discussion…
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Workforce Optimization: Getting More for Less
Every team manager dreams of getting their business to a place of true workforce optimization, where decision-makers have the tools they need to make the most out of limited resources, hours, and employees. This can only happen when an organization is working at peak performance. However, focusing on the strategy and discipline that leads to…
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Creating Paths to Long-Term Client Success Through Services
This is a guest post from John Ragsdale, distinguished researcher and vice president of technology ecosystems for Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA). As the technology industry continues to evolve from on-premise hardware and software to cloud and “anything as a service,” or XaaS, the approach to technology implementations is also evolving. With the primary…
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10 Common Resource Management Mistakes
Resource management is a critical piece of every professional services organization, but it will take hard work for managers to be truly successful. Besides requiring in-depth knowledge of all available resources and how to best use them, resource managers also need to make corrections on the fly as new project requests and changes in both…
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Integration Management: Dos and Don’ts
Cross platform integration software is becoming more advanced than ever before. More and more tech companies are creating software solutions with the intent of supporting integration from the get-go, making their products more accessible and desirable to the corporate world. However, because integration has become so synonymous with descriptors like “streamlined” or “simplified,” project managers…
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Is Business Intelligence Software Right for Me?
The term “business intelligence software” can seem daunting, but in actuality these software solutions can be used by any number of businesses to track resources, view data, and create growth plans. If you own and operate a professional services business, take a moment to assess the needs of your company and if you’re meeting them…
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Improve Predictive Accuracy with Resource Forecasting Tools
We all wish we could predict the future. Whether it’s wanting to know the outcome of a football game, the weather forecast, or even the lottery numbers, everyone has fantasized in some way or another about knowing what’s to come. The same is true for project management. Being able to predict a project’s timeline, possible…
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5 Reasons Professional Services Organizations Need The Kantata Professional Services Cloud
Running a professional services business is more challenging than ever, but with the right strategy and execution, the rewards can also be greater than they’ve ever been. The continued expansion of the professional services world, the increasing types of products and services required to keep up with client demands, and the seemingly limitless potential of…
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What Is The Kantata Professional Services Cloud?
This is an excerpt from “The Kantata Professional Services Cloud—Purpose-Built Technology for Unmatched Advantage.” Read the full whitepaper here. The Kantata Professional Services Cloud provides technology specifically designed to address the unique needs of services organizations. Kantata enables exponentially more effective operations and scaling in today’s networked economy. There are five key technical advantages the…
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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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Get Ahead with Project Planning Tools
As much as movies and television tell us differently, improvisation is not the way to make your mark on the corporate world. Successful projects are defined by detailed project plans, not doodles scrawled on a napkin. Project plans need to loosely encompass the entirety of the project lifecycle and provide parameters like timelines, workloads, expenses,…
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Kantata Forms: Empowering Professional Services Teams of Every Size
Software solutions are often seen as exclusively impacting the most mechanical aspects of work and not the human elements. But companies often overlook the direct impact that a solution can have on an employee’s day-to-day job satisfaction and their long-term outlook at a business. According to G2’s 2019 State of Software Happiness Report, 62% of…
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Real Life Insights Into Professional Services Strategy and Operations Roles
Melissa Korzun, the Managing Director of Client Transformation, Strategy and Operations at TeleTracking recently joined host Matt Finch on The Professional Services Pursuit podcast from Kantata. This episode sheds light on Melissa’s approach to transforming TeleTracking’s operational imperatives and how that has helped to define the business’s organizational direction and culture. Melissa opens by pointing…
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What Resource Management Solutions Will Work for Me?
For professional services teams to thrive, they require the unparalleled insight and control that only a purpose-built resource management solution can provide. When used well, a great resource management solution can help you keep track of the many moving parts across your projects, create timely and accurate reports, improve your team dynamics, and equip teams…
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Simplify Success with Resource Management Software
Resource management is the cornerstone of success for a thriving professional services business. That’s because in professional services organizations, your product is your people – without them, there would be no way to ensure clients are successful. Simply having the resources to undertake a project isn’t enough; you need to know how and when to…
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Why Client Success Will Define Professional Services In 2022
John Ragsdale, Distinguished Researcher and Vice-President of Technology at TSIA, recently rejoined The Professional Services Pursuit podcast from Kantata. This episode sheds light on what professional services organizations should be focusing on in 2022, including rethinking client success and improving adoption rates. Regarding this year’s priorities, John revealed, “2022 is the year that the rubber’s…
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Leveraging Kantata Tools to Assist with Strategic Resource Management
In our previous blog, “Data Governance: The Secret to Great Resource Management,” we discussed the importance of having strong data governance models, data selection, and maintenance strategies in a modern professional services company. Ultimately, this data helps resource management offices make strategic decisions with a level of objectivity. And while it may seem challenging to…
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Discover What You Can Accomplish With PSA Software
Sustainable productivity is key for a successful business in this day and age. Not only do we need to reliably provide a quality product or service, we need to ensure that all of the internal systems we rely on are supporting this productivity. After all, products and services may be the bread and butter of…
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What Is The Future of the Liquid Workforce in Professional Services?
John Ragsdale, Distinguished Researcher and Vice-President of Technology at TSIA, recently joined host Matt Finch on The Professional Services Pursuit podcast from Kantata. This episode sheds light on John’s unique insights regarding the state of the liquid workforce and how contract work will continue to shape the future of the professional services industry. John shared…
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The 5 Biggest Resource Challenges Facing Agencies in a Post-COVID-19 World
By Moira Alexander, founder of PMWorld 360 Magazine and Lead-Her-Ship Group Industries around the world are familiar with how business landscapes are in a state of constant change. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented additional harsh difficulties and revealed some brutal realities, posing significant resource challenges in 2021 and beyond. COVID-19 has served as a…
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The Power of Purpose-Built Resource Management SaaS
In the world of professional services, every moment and every resource counts. And this is where strong resource management (RM) processes play a critical role in ensuring that team members are used to their fullest potential without burning them out. However, it’s not simply enough to use time-tested resource management strategies in today’s highly competitive…
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Building the Optimal Implementation Team
So you’re ready to make the move to the Kantata Professional Services Cloud and your Client Success Manager (CSM) is asking for dates and times for the kickoff and wondering who will be involved in your implementation. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with all the upfront important decisions that need to be made. So here’s…
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3 Crucial Resource Management Goals in Professional Services
Changemaking organizations consistently field the best teams. Your potential for success is built upon the collaboration between individuals that make up your business. The right people are important and so are the right systems to support them. That is where resource management comes into play. As the services industry continues to evolve, effective planning and…
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Project Time Tracking: Make the Most of the Moment
Most aspects of project tracking are fairly intuitive. Frequent progress reports, task completion, and various milestones all provide valuable insight about the state of a project and its estimated completion. A less intuitive aspect is project time tracking. Many of us are familiar with recording hours worked in the form of clocking in or out.…
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What Professional Services Teams Need to Thrive
By Ray Grainger, Executive Chairman Thriving teams depend on being made up of a diverse group of people. And those people need to not only be supported by a company, but to be able to take care of themselves. In the article, What Makes A Good Team, author Joseph Garvey shares some insights and observations…
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Three Handy Tips for Getting Started with Report Building
By Martin Beil, Senior Product Manager, Business Intelligence & Analytics at Kantata Success in the professional services world requires more than simply providing great work to your clients. Success depends on having a complete understanding of how your business is functioning, both the good and the bad. And this is where building insightful, accurate, dependable…
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How To Truly Solve Your Business Pain Points With Best Practices
By Nick Evans, Senior Enablement Consultant When clients decide to come to Kantata, they are looking to solve a pain point. Some common reasons are to improve (or introduce) their resource management process, unify their delivery processes, or improve their reporting. Fortunately for our clients, Kantata has solved these problems for many other clients before…
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My 3 Favorite Features for High Impact Improvements
By Nadia Chang, Senior Business Consultant at Kantata Kantata is a powerful platform that allows for multi-faceted management of projects and resources. And while there are many ways that Kantata can help a professional services organization, leveraging the different features of Kantata will allow you to optimize the data outputs you can get from the…
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The 5 Pillars of Resource Management Solutions
Resource management is an art form that requires an excellent understanding of how the parts of a project come together to create a successful product or service. While resource management has never been simple, the larger and more complex businesses of today are becoming increasingly difficult to manage and include more individual pieces than ever…
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Data Governance: The Secret to Great Resource Management
Managing the many moving parts of a modern professional services company can be almost impossible without a strong grasp on data. This is where data governance plays an important role, as it is a collection of the processes, policies, roles, standards, and metrics that help businesses use information to achieve their goals. Strong Resource Management Needs…
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Project Management Software: Find the Balance
While there are many contributing factors to the success of a project, nothing is as key as establishing a good project management system. There’s no singular “best” way to manage a project, as every project has its own needs and expectations that need to be met to achieve success. Some management styles may be better…
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Should My Business Use Professional Services Automation?
The phrase “professional services automation” is often thrown around when business owners look into optimizing their operational strategy. However, professional services automation (PSA) isn’t just a hollow buzzword without any real world application. Businesses of all sizes could immensely benefit from implementing PSA software into their day-to-day operations. But what exactly does professional services automation…
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7 Critical Problems Damaging Your Business Intelligence Integration
In recent years, companies around the world and across every industry have adopted business intelligence (BI) to improve every aspect of their organizational processes. However, even the strongest BI solutions need to be implemented properly to work right. BI software pulls crucial insights from data across all technology being used by a company for improved…
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Resource Forecasting Defined: Why You Need It Now
Understanding what resource forecasting is, why it’s important to the success of your business, and how to apply forecasting properly can help you more effectively utilize your resources to meet the needs of your clients. What Is Resource Forecasting? Resource forecasting is the prediction of your company’s future project demands on your talent pool. It…
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Unlimited Resource Capacity: From Fantasy To Reality
The true capability of a company is based on their resources. Not just the skill they bring, but the volume of work they are able to take on and their level of efficiency. But any growing professional services business will run up against limitations that get in the way of taking on the opportunities that…
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Overcoming The Top 4 Barriers to PSA Adoption
Professional Services Automation (PSA) has helped companies around the world tackle the challenges of project and resource management. But there are still plenty of companies that haven’t taken advantage of the possibilities in front of them. A recent research report from Forrester, “How Professional Services Firms Can Optimize Resource Management And Planning,” found that companies…
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Our Predictions For 2022: A Surge in Vertical SaaS Adoption Will Drive M&A Activity
Organizations have spent the last decade migrating their on-premises IT systems to the cloud and adopting horizontal SaaS solutions designed for general business uses across a wide range of industries such as CRM, project management, and accounting. We predict enterprises will spend the next decade migrating away from those horizontal SaaS solutions in favor of…
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Meet New Mavenlink and Kimble Applications CEO Michael Speranza
In the latest episode of the Professional Services Pursuit podcast, John Ragsdale, a Distinguished Researcher and Vice President of Technology Ecosystems at TSIA, sits down with Michael Speranza, recently named CEO of Mavenlink and Kimble Applications. The two discussed Michael’s immediate priorities and his long-term vision following our recent announcement that the merger of both…
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How To Say “No” to a Professional Services Client
By John Waite, Principal Project Manager at Kantata How to say “no” to clients. It’s something project managers and delivery teams – or anyone on the front lines – wrestle with on a regular basis. Have you been daunted to say no? To a client? To a sales prospect? Saying no to clients can be…
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Finding Professional Services Success as a Way of Thinking
By Ray Grainger, Executive Chairman Professional services firms have long survived on “experts on demand” – the contractors that can be hired for just-in-time projects. But simply using contract workers is not enough anymore. Businesses need to build and improve their digital infrastructure and domain expertise to scale on demand and dependably deliver freelancers on…
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What is Resource Management: Five Key Features
What is Resource Management? We have a tendency to think of resources in concrete terms, like natural resources such as water or industrial resources like steel used in manufacturing. However, resources can also be abstract. Both time and labor are abstract resources. Efficient resource management requires that all resources, both concrete and abstract, are used…
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Introducing the Professional Services Pursuit Podcast From Kantata!
Are you looking for new insights into the world of professional services? “The Professional Services Pursuit,” Kantata’s just-launched podcast, is just what you are looking for. This bi-weekly podcast has a very simple goal: to give you — and all professional services leaders — a place to go to be inspired and tap into expert…
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Do You Have What It Takes to Attract The Talent You Need?
It’s no secret that contract workers have become more important than ever, especially in the world of professional services. More projects, higher client demands, and new types of services mean that today’s organizations must absolutely use freelancers to supplement their full-time workforce. But simply finding a single freelancer for a large-scale project with high demands…
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Why It’s Time to Embrace Change Management in Professional Services
By Moira Alexander, founder of PMWorld 360 Magazine and Lead-Her-Ship Group Between 2020 and 2030, job growth in areas such as change management is expected to grow 14% faster than the average profession. Why? Because we’re in times of major change for many industries and agencies, with the speed of change increasing, not least due…
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3 Ways to Successfully Balance Your Full-Time and Freelance Workers
In today’s work environment, building the best team with the capabilities to successfully deliver project-based work usually requires a combination of full-time and freelance workers. Capacity planning during the estimation phase of forecasting is always challenging, but you can set up your workforce for success by optimizing the differences between these two types of workers.…
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Being Outcome-Centric: Ensuring End of Project Success
By Peter Taylor, international keynote speaker, author of “The Lazy Project Manager.” This is the final part in a three-part blog series on the journey of a successful project. Read the first part on building a great project foundation here and the second part on harnessing the power of your project team here. Successful project…