PSA Software (Professional services automation software) solutions give service organizations the agility and information they need to improve client experiences and grow revenue. These comprehensive platforms offer your organization a viable alternative to the vast array of separate business planning, time tracking, invoicing, collaboration, resource planning and project management tools currently used by most project teams.
PSA solutions, sometimes referred to as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, allows your organization to use a consistent approach to plan, manage and measure key performance metrics of your client's project throughout the lifecycle. These performance metrics include profit margins, utilization, cost and revenue. With these metrics, you can centralize your organization's business data and processes, which means you can streamline and automate various repetitive manual processes. This leads to a more predictable approach to service delivery.
Capabilities of PSA Solutions
Most PSA solutions offer the following capabilities:
Time and expense tracking
Resource management
Proposal generation
Project management
Document management
Team collaboration
Billing and invoicing
Accounting
Increasing Adoption of PSA Tools
Originally developed for the professional services industry such as professional service teams, lawyers and consultants, PSA software is now adopted by numerous project-based industries including:
Architecture
Business consulting
Engineering
Construction
Information technology firms
Marketing and communications
Accounting firms
Some of the factors driving the growth of the PSA market includes the growing need for enhanced mobility among service consultants as well as the preference for flexible and scalable PSA solutions. The market share of PSA software is expected to grow from $716.5 million in 2017 to $1,244.8 million in 2022, at a compound annual growth rate of 11.7 percent.
Benefits of PSA Software
Professional services automation software benefits your organization by enabling it to:
Easily manage projects
Optimize and improve resource utilization rates
Increase profit margins
Make more informed decision-making
Gain greater control and visibility into resource, timeline, financial and project data
Scale quickly when organizational or client needs force you to expand their range of services, expand into new markets and locations or look for better ways of tracking projects, timelines and deadlines due to the failure of manual processes
Companies that implement PSA have proven track records of outgunning their competition. Reports from the Aberdeen Group show that service-based organizations usually described as "Best-in-Class" are 80 percent more likely to have used PSA software than their counterparts.
According to Service Performance Insight, businesses that have implemented PSA tools see the following improvements on average:
Project staffing time: 21% decrease
Percent of on-time projects: 12% increase
Percent of on-budget projects: 12% increase
Employee billable utilization: 9% increase
Project margins: 45% increase
Revenue leakage: 50% decrease
Billing cycle: 47% decrease
Days sales outstanding: 15% decrease
Choosing a PSA Platform
Before selecting a PSA solution for your business, you must first identify your organization's needs and objectives. You should also state your requirements using business objectives rather than prescriptive features. You also need to ensure that qualitative requirements, such as user experience, are taken into consideration.
It is best to use a PSA solution that is based on a core system that combines planning, project analysis and accounting as well as execution into a single operating environment. As such, it becomes your organization's core and can be used to improve internal processes and service delivery by providing much-needed insight and analytics into business data.
Named one of the top PSA solutions by Forrester, BQE CORE takes professional service delivery to a whole new level by taking a project-centric view of PSA. Whether your project involves the development of a go-to-market strategy, execution of a new marketing campaign, implementation or customization of a commercial off-the-shelf system, the development of a custom-built software application or other project-type services, BQE CORE can help your organization successfully deliver on these project-centric engagements.