No more
business
as usual
– How Professional
Services organizations
can improve
In business for people.

Many Professional Services Organizations have
been using legacy tools for so long that their
limitations have been accepted as inevitable.
Without challenging these limitations, Professional
Services Organizations miss opportunities to
improve the way they run their businesses.
Taking a fresh perspective reveals
reasons to challenge the status quo.
2 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations

Introduction
This is the era of the Digital Revolution.
Business models are transforming,
customer expectations are surging,
and organizations are evolving faster
than ever. Professional Services
Organizations must navigate a
changing landscape.
Often the tools they use are relics
of the past: legacy ERP systems,
spreadsheets for planning, email
for collaboration, and slides for
stakeholder reporting. None of these
properly support the dynamic nature
of Professional Services. In many
ways, both subtle and pronounced,
outdated tools contribute to the status
quo, resulting in missed opportunities
and limited organizational
responsiveness.
It’s time to change the way you look at
‘business as usual’.
New innovations and developments
in enterprise software directly
challenge that status quo, and call
on organizations to change their
perspective on what is possible.
Professional Services Organizations
face new challenges on a regular
basis because change is ever-
present in this sector. Projects must
be managed for customer satisfaction
and profitability, while also advancing
internal strategic goals. Organizations
must attract and retain the best
talent and make the most of their
skill sets. While shaping the future,
it is still essential to deliver yearly,
quarterly, and daily results. Obstacles
to achieving both near- and long-
term goals arise in the form of time-
consuming manual processes, lack
of reliable and accurate information,
difficult collaboration, and rigid
structures in the face of a changing
business environment.
It’s time to take a fresh look at the
way your business works, and the
tools that support it. Eliminating these
limitations will allow you to transcend
the status quo, and take control.

In modern business, change is
swift and inevitable. Organizations
have to evolve constantly.
Innovation is essential to remain
competitive and to sustain
growth. In an increasingly
dynamic economy, any successful
business of today may be under
pressure tomorrow.
Challenge 1 - Mastering growth
Growing organizations need to be able to smoothly
integrate new entities into the business model
without disruption.
For any company operating with evolving
organizational structures, the ability to keep projects,
orders and resources in sync is a key requirement.
How well are your business systems
supporting your growth strategy without
major disruptions?
Likewise, if you are on a business transformation
track, you should be able to restructure in lock-step
with the internal business model as you evolve.
When you expand sales, add service lines, change
the way in which you deliver services, enter
into new markets, follow your clients into new
geographies, or partner with other organizations,
your business system should scale. It should support
you in keeping your processes running smoothly
and providing relevant and complete information
dissemination.
Does your current business software
enable or hinder transformation?
“Business as usual is the top priority
for any company operating with
multiple moving parts and a changing
organizational structure...The {Siemens}
merger was done surprisingly fast and
smoothly...For us it’s not a surprise that
Unit4 can do this - we’ve successfully
handled more than 20 other merged
companies.”
Download customer success story
Bravida1
4 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations
1
http://bit.ly/1LHDHE2
Challenge the status quo

Challenge 2 - Achieving operational efficiency
With increased global competition, Professional
Services Organizations are constantly looking for
ways to improve productivity and efficiency.
Introducing standardized and structured procedures
across your firm will enable your team to spend less
time on routine, administrative work and more time
on managing exceptions.
Your team needs full transparency on KPIs such
as margin per project, resource utilization rates,
and days sales outstanding (DSO). Receiving this
information with a few clicks instead of having to
spend time collecting information from multiple
sources represents
Are your consultants spending too much
time on administration and too little time
on high-value activities?
Where do you stand in the maturity model?
The core idea of the maturity model is that Professional Services Organizations can achieve progressive
improvements in their level of empowerment as they advance from one maturity level to the next.
1. Standardize for Ease of Operations.
2. Optimize to Reduce Risk and Costs while Sharing Services.
3. Predict Future Financial and Market Conditions for Better Long-term Positioning.
4. Drive Profit Growth, Capitalize on Opportunities, and Raise the Bar.
Download the whitepaper: The Business Empowerment Maturity Model Explained: Learn what it
takes to become a truly strategic player in your organization.1
1
http://bit.ly/1Kvv2Ub
Business software needs across maturity levels

6 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations
Challenge 3 - Delivering superior
customer experiences
Delivering superior customer services depends
on having a well-trained and motivated team of
consultants. A team with the right skill-set gives
your organization the edge to outperform the
competition.
At the same time, the professional services market is
in the midst of a talent cliff, which may soon result in
a critical void of knowledge and expertise.
Your business needs to plan strategically to attract
the best talent with the right skill-set. Doing that
requires that your HR team can predict future
resource shortages for competencies and skill levels
based on reliable data about your current and future
pipeline.
Employing and retaining motivated employees has
a direct impact on operating margins, growth and
consistent quality of service to clients.
How are your business systems
supporting your efforts to hire and retain
the right team to deliver superior services
and exceed client expectations?
Successful strategy starts with getting
the fundamentals right
The ever-changing dynamics of projects,
consultants, and financial KPIs demand constant
attention.
To ensure success your teams must balance
budgets, resource constraints, scope changes
and other project-related risks, without being
slowed down by inefficient business software.
With the integrated tools in place to support
end-to-end project delivery, you are enabled
to win business, successfully deliver on the
expectations of your clients, and bill with
precision.

Challenge 4 - Winning more business
In today’s business, it is all about customer centricity.
Without efficient management from the outset,
the end-to-end project lifecycle can be difficult to
plan, manage and track. The goal is to ensure that
deliverables and customer expectations stay in-
sync.
A lack of insight into past project profitability, and
an inability to quickly source the right skills when
building plans, can stand in the way of improving the
quality of future bids.
Both of these issues can be addressed with
information about previous client records combined
with an HR database that matches skills, expertise
and availability to a client’s requirements. Access
to your firm’s historical and resource data not only
helps win new business, it is also essential for
seamless delivery when projects are won.
How do you enable your sales team to
win more bids?
Challenge 5 - Executing every project
profitably
As indicated by SPI in their recent PS Maturity
Benchmark report, when done right, gross project
margins in excess of 50% are within reach. Done
wrong, project yields can drop to single digits, or
even go negative.
When project managers are able to produce precise
forecasts with correct completion percentages and
the necessary costs to deliver each milestone, the
predictability of each project will increase – to the
benefit of both you and your client.
A lack of transparency around project scope and
poorly managed change requests negatively
affect profitability. Transparency on what has been
contractually agreed combined with visibility into
the project status will enable you to have informed
conversations with your customers about change
requests and the additional investment needed.
How are your business systems enabling
you to mitigate risk, and handle change
requests?
In an increasingly competitive consulting
marketplace, success relies on operational
excellence – with visibility and management
controls in place to ensure effective
resource and project management.
Source: Service Performance Insight, February 2015
Download the report
2015 PS Maturity Benchmark report by SPI.1
1
http://bit.ly/1fMfjYF

8 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations
Challenge 6 - Optimizing resource utilization
Organizational flexibility is critical for companies
working on complex or international projects. You
need to match internal resources – availability,
location and skills – with client requirements.
Many companies have to deal with resource silos
that hamper efficient collaboration. If all billable
staff are managed by an integrated scheduling and
HR system, then you can knock down those silos.
You empower your project teams to search for
and allocate qualified resources to projects more
effectively. The result is lower cost and increased
utilization rates, while preventing key resources to
be over-worked.
How can you increase billable utilization
with your current business systems?
Challenge 7 - Attracting and retaining the
best talent
The success of Professional Services Organizations
depends on hiring candidates that complement,
improve and expand your existing skill sets. Once
hired, you need to identify individuals who have
specific talents and aspirations, and manage them
and their career accordingly.
An HR system that is integrated with your project
and payroll solution gives you a true picture
of people cost. You can predict and report on
these costs, utilization rates, and staffing across
departments in real-time.
When planning an organizational restructure,
your team can move a position or cost center and
immediately see the consequences. If you decide
to execute the restructure, all workflows, reporting
structures and access rights are automatically
applied.
How are your business systems
enabling you to grow faster by
elevating employee engagement?
Download the white paper
HCM Systems and Employee Engagement.
The Steak vs. The Sizzle.1
1
http://bit.ly/1Vor06g

Challenge 8 - Delivering accurate actuals
Once the project is underway, Professional Services
Organizations often struggle to accurately record
time and expenses incurred. Expanding budgets
and inaccurate charging upset client-supplier
relations – and can hit the bottom line when they
lead to write-offs. But there is a solution to help
maintain client satisfaction.
If you help your fee-earning consultants capture
activities and transactions directly on the project, this
data will be available in real-time to your Finance
department. Integration should be absolute and
complete to the extent that transactions from any
department can post to a project.
When controlled as a single record entity, day-to-day
analysis can contain the same data as monthly and
even annual reports. This enables you to support
the business with faster, richer, and more accurate
insight into the actual situation and to plan for future
scenarios.
Do you lack confidence in your
financial data?
Challenge 9 - Billing with precision
How often have you missed opportunities to bill?
That’s practically impossible to answer if your
consultants are not recording hours and expenses
directly on their individual project records – or even
worse, recording them off-system.
A lack of best-practice billing, inaccurate information,
or missing data contributes to lost revenue and
longer-than-necessary cash cycles. But when you
get full visibility into who and when to bill, improved
cash flow and profitability will automatically follow.
When your tools capture billable actions as they
happen, your records and forecasts reflect the
current situation – not a snapshot from the past.
Integrating your billing and project solutions gives
you the structure, data discipline and workflows you
need to bill accurately.
How do you achieve higher realization,
more accurate planning, streamlined
invoicing, and higher overall profitability
with your current systems?

10 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations
Challenge 10 - Getting accurate and
reliable data and insight
In the Digital Age, Professional Services
Organizations need to get beyond unreliable
spreadsheet-based, make-do workarounds and find
ways to simplify planning, budgeting, forecasting,
and reporting processes.
Whether analyzing cash flow, consolidating accounts
from multiple companies, or consolidating several
tools, the key to better forward-looking reports is to
integrate data. Achieve this and it will be accurate,
fresh, and available to everyone who needs it.
With the right tools to gather and format your
project, resource, and financial data, you can spend
more time executing projects and planning for
success.
To what degree do your current systems
support flexible real-time analysis and
empower an automated self-service model?

Answers to the Challenges
You understand best how your business works. You shouldn’t let
your enterprise software dictate what your organization can or can’t
achieve. Unit4’s approach is different. Our solution starts with you. It
is built for Professional Services Organizations and designed to bend
towards your people. Say goodbye to legacy enterprise software,
spreadsheets, emails, and PowerPoint reports. Expect solutions that
are tailored to your business and your needs.
The value offered by the right kind
of business software:
• Organization-wide view of projects, resources and
finances.
• Multi-company, multi-currency and multi-lingual
project solution that supports multiple charts of
accounts.
• Opportunity to standardize and optimize
processes that predict and empower.
• Choice of deploying and consuming your solutions
– in the cloud or on-premise.
• Mobile technology for easy access everywhere.
• Cope with change without disruption to the
organization.
• Easy to use solution, essential for uptake by teams
across the organization.

12 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations
Unit4 can help
People are at the heart of Professional Services Organizations. Unit4 solutions empower your people to
fulfill their purpose with passion, providing comprehensive tools specifically designed for their role:
CFOs
• Maintain financial control – Manage
project and services execution for
increased margins and profitability.
• Streamline accounting processes
– Generate proactive, predictive
budgets based on what-if scenarios.
• Bill with precision – Streamline AP/
AR processes through integrated
workflows and process automation
for an optimized cash flow.
• Be a strategic business partner
– Use business-wide visibility to
advise colleagues how to stop
profits falling between operational
cracks.
CEOs and COOs
• Drive business transformation –
Execute mergers and acquisitions
smoothly without the need for
system reprogramming.
• Enable operation efficiency –
Achieve more with the same
resources by optimizing and
automating processes and reducing
manual steps.
• Restructure rapidly – Instantly view,
create or modify organizational
structures faster than any other
system on the market.
• Improve user adoption – Provide
your people with an inherently
flexible architecture and user-
friendly interface.
Project Managers
• Execute profitable projects – Use
real-time project visibility and
planning tools to deliver on time, in
scope, within budget.
• Forecast effectively – Proactively
plan using real-time data to identify
future capacity constraints.
• Optimize resource utilization – Set
the perfect project teams; assign the
right people with the right skills on
the right projects.
• Collaborate to motivate – Discuss
key challenges with your team
through online chat and task-sharing
capabilities.
HR Director
• Attract and retain the best talent –
Plan and match skill levels to project
pipeline and requirements to recruit
and on-board the right people.
• Operate on a strategic level – Use
an integrated perspective from
HR, finance and projects to extend
influence beyond Human Resources
functions.
• Respond with agility – Make
changes to model and execute new
organizational structures, processes
and reporting without coding.
• Nurture and develop employees
– Ensure comprehensive support
for all aspects of your hire-to-retire
cycle and payroll processes.

Why Unit4
• Unit4 is a recognized leader of business software for the Professional Services sector.
• Our consultants understand the unique needs of a project-intensive and consulting-focused firm.
• Unit4 R&D has an ambitious roadmap with visionary capabilities for PSOs.
• We provide global support for your teams.
• Relevant and referenceable clients both locally and globally.
• User groups and conferences to inspire your teams to maximize your investment in Unit4 Business World.

14 Unit4 Professional Services Organizations
Checklist
Challenge the status quo of your Professional Services Organization
✓ How well are your business systems supporting our growth strategy without major disruptions?
✓ Does your current business software enable or hinder transformation?
✓ Are your consultants spending too much time on administration and too little time on high-value
activities?
✓ How are your business systems supporting your efforts to hire and retain the right team to deliver
superior services and exceed client expectations?
✓ How do you enable your sales team to win more bids?
✓ How are your business systems enabling you to mitigate risk, and handle change requests?
✓ How can you increase billable utilization with your current business systems?
✓ How are your business systems enabling you to grow faster by elevating employee engagement?
✓ Do you lack confidence in your financial data?
✓ How do you achieve higher realization, more accurate planning, streamlined invoicing, and higher
overall profitability with your current systems?
✓ To what degree do your current systems support flexible real-time analysis and empower an
automated self-service model?

In business for people.
About Unit4
Unit4 is a leading provider of enterprise applications empowering people in service organizations. With annual revenue north of 500M Euro and more than 4000
employees world-wide, Unit4 delivers ERP, industry-focused and best-in-class applications. Thousands of organizations from sectors including professional services,
education, public services, not-for-profit, real estate, wholesale, and financial services benefit from Unit4 solutions. Unit4 is in business for people.
unit4.com
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Contact us
For further information regarding Unit4 for Professional Services Organizations please contact:
info@unit4.com or visit www.unit4.com