Like most industries, professional services firms face increasing pressure to deliver exceptional experiences for their clients while preserving their margins. This begs the question: Is it possible to deliver more value for clients using less resources? Let’s take a closer look at the findings from the recent Harvard Business Review paper, “
Driving Professional Services Growth with Cloud ERP” to learn more.
According to the paper, professional services firms are indeed succeeding by identifying, standardizing and automating business capabilities with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems delivered -as-a-service. Adopting
cloud ERP solves legacy software problems by delivering easy-to-use and easy-to-implement process improvements.
From automatically identifying errors in scanned invoices to routing financial information directly to decision makers, a
cloud ERP system enables professional services firms, of all shapes and sizes, to standardize their data and eliminate the routine manual activities that slow them down.
In the case of
Nagarro, a digital product engineering company with offices in 33 different countries, the company was gearing up for growth and looking to launch new types of business. With their implementation of a cloud ERP system, Nagarro automated intracompany invoicing, saving 50% of previous time spent. “Before, we had to print out a list of [overdue customer payments] and go into the system for each customer and make a new transaction to see the details. Today everything is on the database, so you can double-click, go down through each customer, and jump easily to the overdue invoices,” says Christian Haller, a member of the finance council at Nagarro. Tracking of overdue customer payments, which was done manually, was transformed with centralized cloud access and led to a streamlined payment process and greater success of customer projects.
Older financial systems are often fragmented, disjointed and dependent on manual intervention. And, they require dedicated, large IT teams to execute maintenance and updates. These challenges lead to delays, data errors, and a lack of visibility that make survival and growth a herculean effort. The outcome of leveraging standardized processes and increased automations means resources can focus on value-adding and differentiating work, collaborate more effectively with each other, and deliver better experiences and care to clients.
For consulting firm,
Beyond Technologies, their priority was to optimize their quote-to-cash cycle. With their cloud ERP, they used to match incoming customer payments automatically.
“We have a 95% success rate, which is a great number,” says Beyond Technology CEO Luc Dubois. Their realized improvements to cash flow and operational efficiency now affords them more capital to navigate downturns, expand their workforce, and venture into new markets without resorting to expensive borrowing. With common data in a single ERP solution, the company was able to expedite invoicing and get paid faster.
If you’re curious about the extensive benefits of cloud ERP for growth-focused professional services firms, read this Harvard Business Review paper “
Driving Professional Services Growth with Cloud ERP or listen to this podcast” “
Harvard Business Review Research: Driving Professional Services Growth with Cloud ERP with Paul Saun...