project is directly related to contract delivery, and though it may
not be billable, this information is relevant to measuring project
efficiency.
Product definition. It can be difficult both for clients to fully
grasp what a services company offers and for a company to
unambiguously define its products. As services companies
produce and deliver complex services, both the services company
and its clients must clearly understand the scope and deliverables
of the contract, time of delivery, and all the additional terms
and conditions of that delivery. All the changes that arise after
contract creation necessitate appropriate changes to the terms
and conditions of the contract and services delivery. In addition,
a number of potential issues may arise, such as contract closure
terms, quality of intangible services delivered, contract changes
tracking, and even measurement of client satisfaction, that are
not trivial tasks to address.
Professional services providers address the aforementioned
common issues in various ways, and software systems play an
extremely important role. The lack of a proper solution can have
various effects, ranging from an annoying inconvenience to a
highly detrimental or even show-stopping outcome. But if we have
two organizations using the same or similar resources, we can
surmise that the one most successful in achieving its goals will
be the organization that is able to efficiently manage its internal
business processes. Enterprise-wide software solutions are
key to the effective management of these processes, and those
applications designed and developed specifically for professional
services organizations will best fit their specific needs.
As ERP solutions for services organizations have been developed
with these common industry issues in mind, the majority of such
systems include specific functional modules or applications that
better address the aforementioned challenges. In fact, although
it is possible to find the required functional modules among nonspecialized software packages, that functionality will most likely
be scattered among different applications, and it is unfeasible for
services companies to purchase several packages for the sake of
using only one or two modules from each. Services organizations
should be able to find all the functionality they need packaged in
one solution.
The Need for ERP for Services Software
ERP for Services software is designed to greatly reduce waste
and uncertainty. It gives a services organization true visibility
into project activity, costs, resource allocation, and billing
activity. It allows for business metrics and analytics to be viewed
across the enterprise. This not only allows for optimal project
resource allocation and efficient project execution, but also
creates a structure where the enterprise can create clear and
repeatable frameworks for project success. There are six main
functional areas specific to ERP for Services software. The key
characteristics and benefits of each are described below.
Project portfolio management. PPM is essentially a way of
grouping projects across the business into “portfolios.” ERP
for Services software has a wide variety of tools to facilitate
PPM. Portfolios include reports to illustrate project timelines,
progress, health, and risks, among other things. This empowers
decision makers with the analytics capabilities required to
take action in order to mitigate project risk and ensure proper
resource loading across a series of projects and/or departments.
It allows the business to determine if projects are feasible from
a budgeting or requirements perspective. A series of dashboards
allows executives to have at-a-glance views of general project
and departmental performance. Having all this data at hand
allows for the creation of comprehensive “what-if” scenarios in
order to determine different ways by which the organization can
achieve maximum project efficiency and profitability. This ensures
that there is governance at the executive level and a basis for
measuring progress against the strategic goals of the company.
Project management. ERP for Services software contains a
suite of tools that facilitate project management practices. The
concept of work breakdown structure (WBS) is key to project
management. This refers to the way a project is broken down into
smaller component deliverables, down to the level of granularity
where a task can be assigned to an individual person. A task
is an amount of work to be done by a certain expert resource
in an allotted amount of time. The WBS creates an outline of a
sequence of tasks that need to be done to complete a project.
Costs and billing information are captured at the task level. This
is the data that is used to inform the project manager, and by
extension the executive group, on the progress of a given project.
ERP for Services software generally has extensive capabilities
in regard t