PSA Software: An Integrated Solution For Project Delivery
Professional Services Automation (PSA) software is an integrated solution that helps business manage project delivery. Many of today’s businesses have siloed departments for time tracking, invoicing, business intelligence, resource planning and project management.
The result? A disconnected back and front office using separated solutions that affect both productivity and morale. Businesses can have departments operating with their own software— sales with their own CRM, accounting software that looks after billing and procurement and project managers fumbling along using spreadsheets.
If that’s a description of your enterprise, you’re not alone. The reality is most service based businesses start out this way. However, there are costs and solutions you need to be aware of.
Lost Efficiency
In short, having siloed business departments operating independently creates task duplication and affects your bottom line. Without the proper communication, there’s little or no way to know if the work being done in one department isn’t being replicated in another.
The best case scenario is teams coming up with the same end result. More often than not they come up with different numbers which draws your data analysis techniques into question.
The Best PSA Software and Your Financials
This can lead to problems in areas like revenue forecasting. A small firm can get away using email and spreadsheets. But as your business takes off and starts to grow, your financials become more complicated. The larger the account, the more a spreadsheet that’s prone to even small errors makes your firm look unprofessional.
Businesses with an eye to the future need one efficient simple solution that incorporates best practice project delivery.
An Effective Solution for Lost Efficiency
A big part of keeping your revenue forecasting accurate is a consistent standardized approach. PSA software helps by eliminating the overhead and confusion of any billing process with an integrated invoicing solution.
With this technology, it’s possible to create batched invoices and sync them with solutions like QuickBooks. The best provider should have these features too:
The ability to manage different currencies in all cost rules.
A feature that quickly and easily identifies financially underachieving projects. The ability to set up budget notifications that are triggered at specific thresholds.
Capabilities to see all the financials on the project pipeline.
Architectural and consulting firms can also see big advances in their efficiency with the right automated workflows. The best products will also have rule-based analytics and user friendly dashboards that improve business insights and visibility.
Another important feature considers real-time visibility into business, client and project line margins and profitability.
PSA Software: A Solution for AEC Firms
Businesses in this industry face constant balance budgeting challenges while they try to get projects completed on time. Time can be lost when project managers are working on administrative tasks like assigning work.
That’s why these businesses need to automate as many of their functions as possible.
Here are just a few of the other advantages PSA software can provide:
The ability to invoice either using fixed contract numbers or labour hours as required.
KPI reports that show different metrics like project performance.
Remember that mistakes like under and over budgeting, and not logging in time properly can cost money.
Retail Woes With Siloed Data
There are several reasons for siloed data in the retail space. They include how a company sets up a structure with departments that ignore or don’t understand how their colleagues can benefit from the same data sets.
Some companies don’t have the right technology to make passing information between departments easy. Conflicting information can be a result of siloed departments in the retail space.
In retail industries, contradictory information takes on the following forms that hinder productivity.
Out of stock items that are marked as in stock.
Content that gets placed in the wrong fields. As an example, size numbers placed where prices should be and vice versa.
Empty fields where product information should be.
Data of that doesn’t correlate with attribute type specifications.
Here’s another scenario where the right PSA software can help to correct an issue. Say your marketing department is trying to put together a product catalog for resellers. The spreadsheet information they pull up is outdated and different from the content that’s being used on the website.
Fixing the situation means the marketing team needs to track down the right information like the correct spreadsheets. It is an unproductive and time-consuming task.
The Risks to Your Clients
Of course, there is a big risk of siloed data to your clientele. As everyone in the retail industry understands, the customer experience is the lifeblood of a successful business. Whether your retail business is online or brick-and-mortar, your clientele will expect a seamless experience when interacting with your brand. Poor data information can mean lost sales as potential customers lose interest in buying. They can also be unhappy with the product once they receive it.
The Evidence and End Results
The evidence and end result of siloed and information departments show themselves in shopping cart abandonment trends and product returns for retail business owners. A businesses’ revenue can increase by a big margin by improving customer experience and that means providing quality data for better client relationships.
Keep in mind that a lack of data integration hinders a retail organization’s ability to provide customized messages and offers. Personalized offerings through brick-and-mortar and e-commerce channels are affected too.
The best PSA software can corral all the necessary information together.
One Solution. Best Practice Project Delivery
At CrossConcept Continuum, we help you implement best practice project delivery to reduce costs & improve margins. Our number one priority is to make it simpler and more profitable to run your enterprise. Let us show you how we can organize information and automate manual tasks. Our solutions are specifically designed to allow your business to spend more time providing services instead of managing internal processes.
Our solution is a simple, yet powerful PSA solution built with the end-user in mind - fast, flexible, powerful, and user-friendly! We are offering all new clients a free 2-week trial with no contract obligations. This is a great opportunity for any business to try out the solution and decide if PSA software is for you!
To book a free 15-minute consultation, email: marketing@crossconceptinc.com or call: 1-888-528-3898 x110.