Beyond Professional Services Automation – Are new breed PSA systems are changing business?

It’s hard to stay on top of data stored in more than one place. Valuable time is wasted cross referencing and data integrity is difficult to maintain. A PSA solution puts all your sales, service desk and billing data in one place, allowing automated, standardised processes that can grow with your company. Everyone has access to current customer data. Everyone is an expert.

Using one, unified system through which to run your IT business benefits the organisation at every level. Without efficient, purpose-built systems to manage internal processes it is impossible to maximise productivity and profitability, too much time is wasted solving non-billable administrative problems.

None of this is new news, PSA systems have been around for some years now, however, there has been a dramatic evolution in functionality in the last few years.  These improvements, together with increased pressure to know more, do more, be more efficient and make less mistakes have resulted much greater numbers of UK based IT businesses following their US counterparts and leaving behind spreadsheets, whiteboards and other home-grown solutions to run their businesses through a PSA solution.

New breed PSA systems are:

• Fully hosted. Delivered on-demand and accessible from anywhere on any device

• Fully functional.  Specifically designed to do the job in hand, not a CRM system or accounting system with a few add-on modules

• Industry specialised. Providing the right tools to do the job

• Integrated with your other systems. Seamless integration with other business systems

• Rich with the accounting functionality you need

• Designed to control deferred revenue without the need for complex manual spreadsheets.

And all this is now available at a reduced entry cost. Simple pricing per user per month means a surprisingly low initial outlay is needed to get going.

New breed PSA solutions touch every part of your business, and as such the benefit can be felt throughout the organisation:

The CEO can access the business intelligence reports required without the need for time-consuming manual data manipulation, pinpointing profit and loss points and spotting trends. All the information needed to manage and grow the business is easily accessible.

The CFO can control deferred revenue and other balance sheet bookings from within the business, simplifying  ledger activities and reducing manual work. A PSA solution provides confidence that all work is being tracked and billed accurately, stemming any revenue leakage.

Profitability by client, contract, type and service show exactly where money is being made – and lost. This is especially important for recurring or managed services contracts because underlying costs can quickly get on top of you. Understand profitability to protect your margins.

The Sales Manager can manage selling and quoting better and benefit from a seamless handover to service delivery. Accurate pipeline reporting allows managers to see and understand what’s at risk, and what is likely to close when.

Accurate tracking and evaluation of sales against targets over time means that managers can easily to identify and reward individuals and teams who are excelling, as well as highlight opportunities for development. Accurate historical data can also inform more rigorous future targets.

For the Service Manager benefits are around operational efficiency. Assign the right people to the right tasks and so maximise utilisation. Capture all billable hours to evaluate workforce efficiency rates. View ticket completion rates by issue type, source and priority showing exactly where the bottle necks are so that they can be eliminated. Keeping an eye on changes in your backlog volume will help identify any process issues that need to be tackled, improve workflow and reduce the risk of 'lost' tickets.

Engineers and Developers are able to keep better track of work and simplify time tracking. The improvements in communication that come from using one system mean that there will be far fewer errors or duplicated work.

New breed PSA systems are changing the way technology providers do business, helping businesses become more efficient, more productive and more profitable.  If you would like to know more contact us and we would be happy to give you a free, personalised demo.

See also:

At what stage of my business growth should I invest in a PSA system?
How to build a business case for a PSA solution
Implementing professional services automation - where to start?
The 5 golden rules for PSA implementation success
Assessing the ROI for implementing a Professional Services Automation (PSA) solution
Beyond Professional Services Automation – Are new breed PSA systems are changing the way technology providers do business?