The 10 Best Performing PSA Solution Providers Sept 2017

The way of business solutions

DigiThoughts Companies Amid the Digital Transformation Storm

Center of Attraction Business Process Automation: Reshaping Outlook of IT Industry

Editorial

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magine a world where there is no longer the need to wrestle with a pile of spreadsheets, when you want a quick peek at the organizations’ performance. Imagine a world where information for strategic-planning is just a click-away. Imagine a world where time is no longer a concern as it was before. This is the world that Professional Service Automation brings to the forefront for PS organizations.

Recovering the Most Valuable Business Attribute - Time

A decade ago, if a Professional Service Executive was asked about their usage of tools to manage billable, projects and Professional Service resources, the most likely answer would have been – Spreadsheet. Back then Professional Service Automation was just introduced into the service landscape. But the industry has changed tremendously since then. Though it took a few years for Professional Service Organizations (PSOs) to realize the benefits of automation, questions about the selection of PSA platforms have presently become a common enquiry.

The need for automation of business processes stems from a vast number of unrivaled advantages; but above all, automation helps businesses resurrect an irrecuperable loss – Time. The professional services industry is vividly concerned about the usage of time. Business owners and managers have an inherent concern regarding the amount of time employees spend on individual tasks or on the sidelines. In addition to these, they also tend to be concerned with the time till the next sale is processed and the time spent in meetings and other corporate-activities. Time is an indispensible factor for businesses, and PSA enables them to save a lot of it and increase the overall productivity and efficiency of the firm.

Half the battle towards understanding how to improve a business involves figuring out where your business stands in the first place.

Implementation of PSA enables organizations to assess where they stand, ultimately helping in recovering the most valuable business attribute – Time!

Sourav Mukherjee

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Ariana Lawrence Managing Editor Saurav Mukherjee Co-Editors David Smith Abhijeet Parade Stephanie Andrews Shakti Tomar Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Alex Noel Picture Editor Aparna Vanzul Art Editor Vijaykumar Dudhbhate Business Development Manager Mark Harris Marketing Manager Steve Smith Business Development Executive David, Alex Noel John, Joseph, Mary Research Analyst Jennifer Circulation Manager Robert Database Management Steve Technology Consultant Swapnil Patil sales@insightssuccess.com

September, 2017 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: Visit www.insightssuccess.com

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C O V E R S T O R Y

08 TOP Step Consulting:

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The most Cost Effective way to Build an “IT” Brand

Companies Amid the Digital Transformation Storm

Managing Corporate Communications on Mobile Devices Mentors’ Insights

20 DigiThoughts

In Brief

Empowering Professional Service Organizations with its Solutions

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18 Avaza: An All-in-one PSA Tool Helping Businesses Run more efciently

Atera: Delivering Solutions that Helps to Improve MSPs’ Businesses

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28 DATABASICS: Delivering Next Generation Time and Expense Management

Bric: Delivering Analytics to help you get back to the work you love

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40 JOVACO Solutions: A Leader of Integrated Management Solutions

WSG Systems Corp: Better Professional Resource & Project Management Software

A R T I C L E S

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Business Process Automation: Reshaping Outlook of IT Industry

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PSA: Robust, Efcient & Productive Software for Contemporary Businesses

The Need for Professional Service Automation for Organizations

Providing Opportunity to Automate Core Business Processes

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roject-based, people-centric businesses are surging ahead of the pecking order, to become the growth engine of world economy. As these businesses grow in size, stature and complexity, the need for a reliable system in place, one which gives them visibility and control, becomes imperative.

To continue its rise up the ladder of success, Professional Services Organizations (PSOs) need automation solutions that improve efficiency and curbs down complexity. These solutions provide organizations with the opportunity to automate their core business processes, such as billing, time capturing, and resource management.

Keeping in mind the distinctive advantages and offers that PSA solutions brings to the table and how it effectively impacts the services industry, Insights Success Magazine has shortlisted “The 10 Best Performing PSA Solution Providers, 2017,” which are enabling organizations to successfully run their business.

Featuring in our Cover Story section is TOP Step Consulting, which uses Customer First approach to enables and empowers Professional Services organizations to be profitable, scalable, and efficient through change management, process enhancement, technology deployment, and skill set training.

We have also shortlisted, WSG Systems Corp, which is a software company that strives to help companies and professionals increase their productivity, profitability, and efficiency through the use of its award-winning software platform – Empire SUITE; Atera Networks, which is a cloud-based IT automation platform that combines RMM, PSA and remote access into one powerful solution; Jovaco Solutions, a software development firm who specializes in developing and implementing Enterprise Resource Planning solutions in a B2B environment; DATABASICS, which provides cloud-based, next-generation Expense Reporting, Timesheet, Leave Management, and P-Card Control; Bric, a time-management software built with analytics at our core. We provide managers the analytics they need to run their businesses — to help creatives think strategically; Avaza Software, which is an online software suite with modules for Project Management, Timesheets, Expenses and Invoicing.

In addition to these, don’t forget to flip through the pages of our Editorial Articles; Business Process Automation: Reshaping Outlook of IT Industry — Center of Attraction; The Need for Professional Service Automation for Organizations — PSA in Perspective; and PSA: Robust, Efficient & Productive Software for Contemporary Business — PSA in Vision.

Also, expand your knowledge base and expertise through our CXO Standpoints; Companies Amid Digital Transformation by Prof. Dr. Marco Mevius and Florian Kurz — DigiThoughts; The Most Cost-Effective Way to Build an IT Brand by Bob Gold — In Brief; and Managing Corporate Communications on Mobile Devices by Andrew Silver — Mentors’ Insights. So, what’s the wait for? Dig in!

www.inonic.com

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ime is what we want most, but... what we use worst.

Automation of business processes helps enhance a company’s productive output, and most importantly, curbs down an ample amount of time – the most irretrievable of losses. Professional Service Automation solution brings itself various advantages, with a significant upside being its implementation in all key business areas, from sales and HR to marketing and management. One such company, standing tall with its PSA focused solutions is TOP Step Consulting. It enables and empowers Professional Service organizations to be profitable, scalable, and efficient through change management, process enhancement, technology deployment, and skill set training with a Customer First approach.

Unparalleled PSA-Focused Solutions TOP Step offers a hierarchy of services under its PSA centered solutions, such as Business Efficiency Assessments, Deployments, System Extensions, and Virtual Administration including integrations with ERP, CRM, HCM, and other common business operations systems. Let’s break each one of them down for further cognizance:Ÿ Business Efficiency Assessments ensures technology is aligned to your business model and therefore, the technology works for you instead of changing your way of doing business. Ÿ Deployments follows a proven methodology of customer engagement and business modeling to ensure data capture and metrics reporting, thereby helping organizations realize the investment benefits of the PSA tool. Ÿ System Extension enables workflow efficiencies within the PSA solution by adding logic to complement the vendor platform and integrations to streamline data flow among

systems for accuracy and timely data-processing. Ÿ Virtual Administration provides a help desk to aid with your PSA system adoption and supports your administrators, by addressing questions from the team.

In addition to these, TOP Step also provides Project Management Office consultancy to businesses, to help them deliver projects successfully and to have a more predictable project execution and management of their projects.

STEPS – A Staircase of Success TOP Step has developed its very own program called STEPS, which is a fivephased approach; namely Strategize, Tools and Process Implementations, Educating and Training, Performance Tracking and Reporting, and Systems Management. This helps organizations to effectively utilize its PSA-based software solutions.

An Industry Veteran Focused on Improving Efficiency and Profitability Jodi Cicci, President and CEO of TOP Step Consulting, boasts over 25 years of experience in the Professional Service circuit, wherein she helmed various roles ranging from software developer to project manager to operational director. This breadth of experience in technology services has enabled her to understand the uniqueness that each company offers and how tools and processes can

“We empower Professional Services organizations to be profitable, scalable, and efficient”

radically improve the efficiency of business operations.

Jodi began TOP Step Consulting in 2007, focused primarily on improving the efficiency and profitability of professional services organizations through process improvement and technology. Since then, the company has grown under her able leadership into a globally renowned and respected consulting organization. It should come as no surprise that TOP Step has received several awards and industry recognition, thereby establishing the company as leaders in providing business consulting, PSA implementations, PSA administration and consulting skills training. Through all these, TOP Step enables an organization to be more efficient and profitable through process and technology.

The Master Degree holder in Computer Science from the Michigan Technological University, Jodi’s ultimate focus is to provide a platform for the PS community to learn and share knowledge.

Tackling Market Changes Companies are continually on the lookout for ways to be more efficient by extracting more productivity out of fewer resources. This, in turn, leads to technology needs and repeatable processes that support predictability.

Technology is advancing at a rapid pace with cloud solutions evolving and new solutions in marketing coming up quite often. TOP Step Consulting keeps itself plugged into the PSA market by participating in leading services associations and by being involved in the PSA community through conferences and community events.

“We pride ourselves on connecting with leading PSA vendors to gain

knowledge about their platform and make investments to learn key go-to-market focuses that provide differentiators among vendors. By making this investment and gaining insight, we have a solid base from which to provide information to customers and prospective customers alike about how various solutions will meet their unique business model requirements,” asserts Jodi.

PSA Tool Selection, for various firms, is a primary investment, which will support the scalability of the organization for the next decade and beyond. The company positions itself to provide firms with that support.

Staying One-Step Ahead of the Industry Unlike its contemporaries, TOP Step Consulting focuses only on Professional Services consulting with a technology emphasis of PSA solution support or deployment. There is often the push to have boutique firms expand into a onestop solution provider by broadening their offerings into HR, CRM, and ERP solutions, since they align so closely with PSA. On the contrary, TOP Step has maintained their focus on PSA and have instead chose the direction of finding quality partners that excel in other platforms and services. This is to provide a best of breed team approach in addition to best of breed technology. In this way, the company keeps its eyes on top of the industry trends and is able to contribute as thought leaders in the marketplace.

An Insightful Look at the Company’s Background Back in 2005, Jodi was heavily involved with the PSA solution NetSuite OpenAir both as a customer and as an advocate. She was working as a Project Manager at Software AG and led in deploying the solution. She soon recognized an opportunity to start TOP Step Consulting as a way to assist customers to get more out of their investment with the NetSuite OpenAir platform.

During that time, only the product vendor themselves had the requisite expertise in the platform. The emerging company quickly gained notoriety in the customer base by partnering with the OpenAir vendor and worked its way up to establish both an online and in-person customer community to share information and experience. By starting as a boutique consulting firm focused on PSA and professional services consulting, TOP Step Consulting garnered a reputation of partnership and knowledge enablement, and has continued to grow each year.

In 2010, integrations became a focus to NetSuite OpenAir by introducing the NetSuite/OpenAir integration offering along with standardizing integrations to Salesforce and other systems alike. Integrations are a key part of having an efficient solution of effective time productivity and TOP Step Consulting has continued to expand relationship to partnering with integration vendors like Dell Boomi and

Our consultants come from industries leverage PSA tools and have gained their experience through practical application, trial and error, and vendor interaction Celigo to promote the best fit solutions to the customer base.

In 2014, the company expanded to include the FinancialForce PSA solution, keeping the focus on the team’s expertise in Professional Service business processes and technology. Two years later, TOP Step introduced a focused Integration and System Expansion team which supports code development, enhancing the robust platforms provided by the PSA vendors they supported. This year saw the company introduce yet another PSA platform to the TOP Step Consulting knowledge base – Kimble Applications.

Fighting off the Initial Struggle The initial phase for TOP Step Consulting was both a boon and bane. Jodi was the sole member of the company, and within a year since the company formation, the response from its customer base was overwhelming. But because of this, far too much work was coming in and Jodi couldn’t handle them alone.

“It was quickly apparent that a company structure with payroll, etc. would be needed sooner than expected,” Jodi mentions.

Ronn Breaux, Vice President of Client Services, became the very first employee at TOP Step Consulting, framing the infrastructure for a virtual company and continues to shape and grow the company alongside Jodi. “When you are a single person in a company, the business plan is simple.

When you need to start hiring, your business plan becomes more complicated and critical is understanding how cost grows with revenue growth so plan to put one in place sooner rather than later,” Jodi points out. Amidst all the struggles, the company overcame all of it and surged ahead to climb the ladder of success.

Ronn has spent his career solving business issues and striving for operational excellence. He has worn many hats throughout his career including VP of Sales, VP of Delivery, COO and CFO, giving him insight into the many challenges of service oriented businesses both operationally and culturally. He brings a unique set of knowledge and

skills to his customers for understanding the business needs as well as process and tools that can help solve efficiency challenges.

As a strategic business partner for Jodi, Ronn receives a great deal of satisfaction by providing solutions that result in improved operations and ultimately ease the stress within a company; thereby allowing them to shift their focus on the activities and people who are making a difference in their companies. His technical capabilities established and continue to grow key areas of the TOP Step from NetSuite/OpenAIr integration to learning additional PSA solutions like NetSuite SRP. Future Roadmap – Continuing to Spearhead the Industry TOP Step’s focus in the near future will continue to be a leader in PSA technologies. It hopes to do so by staying on top of roadmaps and new features or releases from the vendor, as well as educating its existing customer base to continue to take advantage of releases to be even more efficient and productive.

While vendors continue to expand their own solution, many of the platforms support building custom solutions including coding such as Javascript or Apex code. TOP Step Consulting is investing in building custom solutions that can plug into existing PSA platforms to address functionality gaps or deliver unique requirements to the end-customer. This additional service is highlighted in its new Extension Marketplace, which demonstrates the typical custom solutions that can be purchased for installation.

TOP Step listens to its customer base; hence, a lot of its direction is driven organically by the industry, vendor products and customer requests. Its Extension Marketplace is the newest example of how the company strives to deliver excellence that can be repeatable and facilitates a winning situation for its customers.

“In the upcoming years, we will continue to focus on offerings that educate our customers and provide quick assistance that drives PSA adoption, PSA accuracy, and PSA reliability as a critical platform for their own businesses.” Jodi concludes.

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Company Name

Management

Brief

Atera Networks atera.com

Gil Pekelman CEO & Founder

Atera is a cloud-based IT automation platform that combines RMM, PSA and remote access into one powerful solution.

Avaza Software avaza.com

Tim Kremer & Behram Khan Co-Founders

Avaza is an online software suite with modules for Project Management, Timesheets, Expenses & Invoicing.

Bric getbric.com

Grant Stanley CEO

Bric is time-management software built with analytics at our core. We provide managers the analytics they need to run their businesses — to help creatives think strategically.

DATABASICS data-basics.com

Alan Tyson CEO & Founder, Marcel Syriani CTO

DATABASICS provides cloud-based, next-generation Expense Reporting, Timesheet, Leave Management, and P-Card Control.

Specializing in meeting the most rigorous requirements, DATABASICS offers the highest level of service to its customers around the world.

Function Point Productivity Software functionpoint.com

Chris Wilson President & CEO

Function Point alleviates the chaotic nature of operating creative agencies, internal marketing teams and professional service firms.

JOVACO Solutions jovaco.com

Jean-Claude Coutu Founder & President

JOVACO Solutions is a software development firm who specializes in developing and implementing Enterprise Resource Planning solutions in a B2B environment.

Mavenlink mavenlink.com

Ray Grainger Co-Founder & President

Mavenlink provides enterprise-class Software as a Service (SaaS) that transforms the way services organizations work.

Professional Services of America psainc.com

Judy K. Sheppard CEO

PSA’s core business is providing quality human resource staffing to meet each client’s needs in the government, medical, educational, industrial and commercial sectors.

TOP Step Consulting topstepconsulting.com

Jodi Cicci President & CEO

TOP Step Consulting enables and empowers Professional Services organizations to be profitable, scalable, and efficient through change management, process enhancement, technology deployment, and skill set training with a Customer First approach.

Bill Cornfield President

WSG Systems Corp is a software company that strives to help companies and professionals increase their productivity, profitability, and efficiency through the use of its award-winning software platform – Empire SUITE.

WSG Systems Corp empiresuite.com

O

ne of the critical decisions every Managed Service Provider (MSP) has to take involves what to do with the abundant information they collect, and how to track and bill for the tasks that their clients might need. Solely relying on email and calendar entries and jotting down mobile numbers and IP addresses on various uncategorized sticky notes scattered around the office isn’t viable for an efficiently functioning MSP. To better organize and plan, MSPs needs a platform that can centrally manage all the business processes and workflows. Professional Services Automation (PSA) software does just that by streamlining operations for MSPs’ businesses.

One such company that can help with the same is Atera, a cloud-based IT automation platform that combines Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), PSA, and remote access into one robust solution. They provide PSA services with the MSP in mind.

PSA is designed to automate and manage some of the most common business tasks. The goal through such a service is to ensure the projects of the customers are delivered on time, within the pre-determined budget, and in accordance with the client’s needs and demands. Atera’s all-in-one innovative platform offer MSPs improved operational efficiency, seamless integration, end-to-end management, and disruptive pricing. Their PSA solution enables optimal support to MSPs so they can run and manage their businesses successfully.

Translating a Vision into Reality Atera was conceived in 2011 in Tel-Aviv, with a simple goal in mind— to help MSPs build better businesses by

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making things easier for them. They translated this vision into a reality with the launch of their easy-to-use all-in-one platform.

After being launched in the US market in 2016, the company was focused on gaining MSPs’ trust. In just one year, Atera has already established the company as a trusted name for MSPs, enabling both small and large businesses to grow and thrive with its technology. Their disruptive pricing model—which charges per technician rather than per server—has enabled MSPs to improve budget planning, business efficiencies, customer management, and overall operations. Atera’s technology is both agile and built for the future, so it functions well and does not require large teams of sales support.

The Empires of the Future are Empires of the Mind Gil Pekelman, CEO and Founder of Atera, is the visionary and leader who built a successful business. Under Gil’s guidance, Atera has grown into the most innovative and industry-leading platform for MSPs both large and small.

Most recently, he was recognized for his thought provoking leadership and accomplishments by ChannelPro Magazine as a 2017 Channel Visionary. Prior to founding Atera, Gil held senior positions at Indigo NV, which is now a division of HP ($1B NASDAQ IPO) and Exanet (Acquired by DELL). His educational resume includes a degree in both Economics and Management from the Tel-Aviv University.

It is also worth mentioning that Gil is the sole inventor of three patents.

September 2017

Gil Pekelman CEO & Founder

Best-In-Class Solutions and Services for MSPs Atera offers MSPs a powerful all-inone IT management platform with RMM, PSA, and remote access.

Through this unmatched technology, Atera ensures operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness for MSPs when managing their customers’ IT ecosystems. To further enhance their services, Atera partners with some of the best breeds of IT vendors to offer online backup, security, documentation, workflow automation, remote support, patches, warranties, and more.

Through their best-in-class PSA, services, and security, Atera facilitates business improvement. The company also provides additional benefits to MSPs by delivering a Business Intelligence (BI) tool called The Benchmark. This technology provides MSPs with industry data to better understand where they match up against their competition.

The sleek user-interface is easy-to-use and offers a vivid experience to MSPs worldwide.

Bringing MSP Business Together Whether it’s RMM, powerful ticketing, or a great customer experience—Atera’s innovative technology brings the MSP business together. Integrating their technology leads to less hassle and offers better strategy and more control.

Atera stands out among its industry competitors with four key differentiators:

All-in-one (single code base): RMM, PSA, and Remote Connection Ÿ Ease of use and a beautiful modern user experience Ÿ Transparent SaaS pricing Ÿ Real-time data intelligence and analytics With continued advancements in IoT and cloud technology, Atera will continue to leverage Big Data to meet the evolving needs of MSPs. Additionally, the company adds new functionality and features to the IT management platform every 30 days, based on regular feedback received from MSPs. This allows Atera to offer a more agile and disruptive pricing model. Ÿ

Driven by an aim of providing MSPs of all scale and sizes with the most advanced set of tools and data, Atera hopes to improve MSPs’ businesses, and as a result, the quality of IT for small and medium-sized businesses everywhere.

Additionally, Atera incorporates The Benchmark statistics into its billing dashboard so that MSPs can gain realtime statistics about pricing and ways to improve their business practices.

September 2017

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A

ccording to a Wellingtone study in 2016, more than 30% of organizations never complete a project on time or budget. This is a result of taking on too many projects, change in scope, and poor resource management. Enters Avaza with a beautiful online software suite; making it easy for businesses to handle complex projects, review performance and stay on budget.

Born out of the need to manage consulting teams efficiently and grow profitable consulting businesses, today, Avaza is an all-in-one professional services automation tool that seamlessly combines resource scheduling, time tracking, expense reporting, quoting and invoicing with project management. Founded in 2014, Avaza grew from one user to serving roughly 18,000+ across 150 countries. Its revenue has massively grown by 10-15% every month in the past two years.

Bringing ERP Level Project Management Features to Small Businesses Aiming to bring ERP level project management features to small businesses at a much more affordable cost, Avaza has re-invented the technology for SMBs with a design that’s really easy to pick up and use. It starts with utilization reports, billable and unbillable time, profitability reports and whether a customer project was financially worth it or not.

Users can sign up for a free plan, or choose from one of their paid plans, starting at $9.95 USD per month. Keeping client satisfaction at the forefront, Avaza’s customer support

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is available 24/7, including weekends and public holidays.

This includes chat and email support, along screenshare calls to troubleshoot more complex problems.

User-experience at its best, Avaza is a highly cost effective solution and provides greater insight into business performance. It gives managers the ability to automate common business processes and gain visibility on team billable utilization and project profitability. It’s also a great tool for small businesses and freelancers, giving them the same professional interface afforded by large companies.

Understanding the Opportunity and Building a Worldclass Software on it Tim Kremer and Behram Khan are the founders of Avaza.

Both have a background in software consulting. While managing large teams of over 30 consultants, they discovered that there was a significant amount of inefficiency in collaborating on projects with teams and clients. There was no single repository for project tasks and discussions with clients, for time tracking or billing. As a result, there was a lot of duplicated data, out-of-sync customer records and painful manual administration.

Joining forces together, they saw the opportunity to create a single project management product that was simple to use, could run a business much more efficiently and provide the transparency to clients, integrated reporting and business insights they craved. Through their vision and hard work, Avaza was incepted and has emerged to be an efficient tool for small businesses.

September 2017

Tim Kremer Co-founder

Going Deep into Solving Business’ Problems at Competitive Rates Growing the startup – for Tim and Behram – was a “slow and steady” process, and they were faced with the arduous challenge of going up against the project management giants like Trello and Asana, or larger ERP software. However, they differentiated Avaza from the crowd by going deep into solving a business’s problems but at competitive rates.

As a result, Avaza now has Project Management, Resource Scheduling, Time Tracking, Expense Management, Estimate, Invoices, and Reporting.

Users can enable various workflows, such as converting estimates to projects, recurring invoices/expenses/tasks, and approval processes for timesheets and expenses.

Offering Multiple Business Solutions in One App Operating with an integrated approach to project management, Avaza offers multiple business solutions in one app, which means users are able to save time and money as they don’t need to

September 2017

pay multiple subscriptions or sync data between apps. Users can manage clients, projects, timesheets, expenses, estimates and invoices in one place.

Also, an intuitive design makes Avaza easy to use, and its customized demos provide users with helpful tips on how Avaza can best work for their business.

Avaza users also have access to features that aren’t available anywhere else such as; 1) Gantt charts based on logged in user’s assignments, 2) Hourly cost and billing rates that are customizable at the project level, 3) Multi-currency support, and 4) Timesheet and Expense approvals with the option to lock approved items from editing.

Leading Experts with an Extensive Experience Tim has spent the last 10 years consulting & managing enterprise consulting companies in the competitive Australian IT industry. His experience includes developing major projects for Mining, Engineering, Medical, Media, Manufacturing & Finance industries, both in hands-on and leadership capacities. These include leading the team developing the public website for the largest Engineering company in Australia and developing the Intranet for Australia’s largest Media company.

Behram was previously the head of software applications at Australia’s largest media group (Seven Media Group), where he managed teams of 40+ developers in the largest media management system development in the southern hemisphere. He has extensive qualifications & experience in finance, accounting & computer science. He has previously consulted in Oracle Financials.

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In Brief

COST EFFECTIVE WAY TO BUILD “ AN IT” BRAND THE MOST

I

n today’s data-driven tech world, it appears the priority is all about the speed of innovation and how we move data safely, effectively, efficiently and securely. But if no one knows about your solution, how will they purchase and use it?

For those of you who wish to grow in this broad-based IT market, and can strategically plan, there is simply no more cost-effective investment than PR to help establish an organization and its innovations in a very noisy marketplace in which we all compete.

In such a world of amazing tech innovation, if we don’t control the story of what we do and what we make, the story will control us. Think about the FAKE NEWS ripping through our social media every day.

Today we communicate in a virtual three-dimensional level of game-like complexity — we do more and more on mobile, while managing larger and larger databases of friends and associates on multiple platforms, while multitasking in simultaneous discussions. In other words, it’s noisy out there! Worse still, we usually can’t remember the source of information we share.

How noisy is it, you may ask?

By some counts, the number of marketing technology solutions has doubled since 2015 and will soon surpass 4,000.

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Today’s executives are overwhelmed by the amount of technology choices and confused by vendor claims that their platform can do it all. Before investing in more technology, they want to optimize what they already own.

This brings us back to the role of PR in technology.

Technology can’t speak for itself. If we want folks to adapt and use our innovations, they must be educated about the benefits they bring.

The process of storytelling requires a specialized PR discipline to break beyond the noise buzzing with clichés: “We have an end-to-end solution” (isn’t that what you get when you mix salt with water and stir?); “We are Best-ofClass” (which rarely comes with a degree or grade point average); or one of my favorites – the promise to be able to monetize technology investments.

Just consider: Security – Everybody is hacking everyone else – if it can be made, it can be broken. How can you tell the market, with specificity, that your security system addresses this issue?

Lack of Policies – Exploding quantities of data zapped into hidden clouds, without access and use policies means we have a big problem. Big Data and real-time analytics are super sexy in 2017, (thanks Alexa!) and for an on-demand September 2017

2) DO SAY WHAT ELSE MAKES YOUR COMPANY DIFFERENT Can you answer these questions about your company and about your product?

What are the three core messages about your company?

1.You might think about your founders and executive leadership 2.Are you the most complete (Gulp! I’m gonna say it) solution? Serving which market areas?

3.What problems do you solve for today? Are you visionary and future proof?

3) DO VALIDATE YOUR STORY WITH NUMBERS: What are the most profound messages about your product/service?

Can you describe your product more succinctly than, “it’s non-disruptive to install?” State your big customer benefits -for example is it 50% better than anything else on the market? Does it consume 50% less bandwidth?

Or think about describing your product validated by numbers and in measurable scope.

Bob Gold Founder, President & CEO Bob Gold & Associates

world where all content is supposed to be available anytime, this will be big! How will you take advantage of this building trend?

Content Protection – This takes us to a world where everything is on-demand and connected. How will “autonomous everything” work? In a world facing more confusion than certainty, there is an “opportunity ahead” street sign in your path to address this overwhelming and often confusing situation.

So following are some key dos, don’ts and cautions. Caveat emptor – reader beware! There is no one-size-fits-all for every situation, but there are some general rules of thumb that when followed will generate success:

This brings us back to PR. All connections start with sharing good stories. Breaking through isn’t as simple as sending an email to a reporter, calling a friend or telling one colleague who has 2,000 followers on Twitter. It takes diligence and the ability to find new ways to tell your story over and over again.

The case for storytelling has never been more powerful.

Your space has never been more competitive and the noise about other companies’ tech options is deafening.

PR is the secret sauce that re-interprets the science in human and business benefits that can drive change. Sure, one-on-one word of mouth is powerful, but for businesses, nothing beats engaging, resonant, pervasive, quotable stories, as presented by your experienced PR professional.

And PR will beat any other investment as the most cost effective tool in your sales and marketing arsenal.

1) START WITH A CLEAR MESSAGE: PR is all about your core message, positioned as a story with a beginning, middle and end – that’s just good construction. Good storytelling starts with a clear message.

September 2017

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Center of Attraction

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utomation has a widespread use across widespread industries. From the industrial automation to robotics automation, it has been able to change the entire outlook of the different industries. Similarly the use of automation in IT businesses has been a key factor, especially regarding IT service management. These involve different aspects of IT service management such as Business Process Automation, Operations Automation, Service Provider Automation, Monitoring Automation and Tools Automation.

Business process automation (BPA) is a process or workflow which describes automation of business, helps them in reducing the costs. This helps business in integrating applications along with containing labor resources using different software applications. Automation performs a large number of actions with ever increasing usage; it comes with different variations in the time and time again.

BPA is required in business for implementing automated workflows by which there is absolutely no need of human intervention. As a well-known fact, automation will save time and will contain costs. The use of automation will assist users in the transaction and reduce human errors.

The implementation of business process automation is vast but still, it’s far better to decide whether the automation is

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useful or not in some processes, first. As it has turned out in some scenarios, business process are best suited and handled by humans only. So it’s also important to decide which process requires automation and which doesn’t.

Digging in Deep for Better Understanding of BPA Businesses are in the dire need for implementing strategic and operational software, and their drivers in order to enhance the process capabilities in their organizations. For many organizations which are finding hard to keep up pace for putting up their product in the market at the same time performing the required marketing for the given product, there is a desperate need to economize their operations. It is majorly convenient to improve margins with the help of automation rather than increasing prices of products. With global market pressure, companies need to start automating their business process for sure.

The processes which become more time consuming and resource-oriented, are prone to human errors, with the use of BPA, companies can fast-track these processes ultimately improving product quality. This is followed by advantages such as improvements in product to market, revenue capture and reduction in operating costs.

Business process automation focuses on business outcomes rather than amplifying the use of technology. For business process automation to be successful, it becomes important September 2017

that each automated fragment of processes is integrated for end-to-end business processes. Each of these fragments are first decided and then automated. So business process automation is about refining business processes rather than just automating it.

There are three major ways of implementing business process automation, these are as follows: BPA Software Business process automation related software helps business in order to contain ’the cost in time’ and cost required for implementing usual functions. For this particular scenario, business can substitute human intervention by software. With the help of this software, companies can mix different systems so that they can implement end to end business process. Business which already possesses automated process inside of them can also increase their functionality. This helps in customizing a perfect environment in the company.

BPA Tools Business process automation tool-kit is probably the latest trend in the global market. A number of industries are digging in their hands into BPA for providing newly created customer-base with the shortest path to automation. This can be achieved by manipulating UI layer. These tool-kits will also speed up the process of deployment; even further, September 2017

making it possible for a non-technical employee to perform these tasks.

With the latest advancement in the market such as Process Driven Messaging Service, that helps in optimizing data exchange layer and ultimately helping the implementation of automation in business.

BPA Extensions It is far easier and at the same time important to relate BPA to BPM. For making it possible, business needs to write application code or use the tailored BPA tools. This BPA extension comes along with advantages and disadvantages which are linked with each other. As BPM implementation gives away the structured approach for all the processes which are to be plotted delaying the automation in the procedure. This causes loss of the functionality for the given process.

Zones of Interest for BPA to harvest GREAT RESULTS Repeatable Tasks The sole aim of BPA is to reduce the manual work in business processes, thus vividly reducing the chances of human error. Focusing on the business processes that are repetitive and predictable, some of the crucial rote and repetitive tasks include assembly work on the manufacturing floor, automated project management task.

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Center of Attraction

Also, in addition to this, services such as status software updates, auto security monitoring and lockdowns of facilities can also be automated.

Customer related services and tasks such as time tracking, and automated process flows for order filling, inventory management, shipping, purchasing, billing and many more are considered.

Making Decision Making Process, Machine Addressable Citing an example of day to day bank processes consisting of the requisites for availing a bank loan or procuring a credit card, information flow and financial analysis and decision making plays an important role. So, with BPA and automated decision making, human interference is minimized, thus the company saves money, reduces the risk of an employee making wrong decisions, and fulfills the customer requirements right away.

Sensor-Based Tracking and Alerts With the propulsion from IoT technology industry, extensive use of sensors and networks has encouraged automation. The ultimate aim of companies is to achieve end-to-end visibility of vibrant business processes

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that occur beyond the enterprise walls.

Application of this technology includes tracking of cargo container movements with seal break alert function, and assessment of humidity and temperature conditions for medicines and perishable commodities.

in their investment options and also take online career enhancement courses to boost their career development. The system is equipped with a facility to register these changes and track future progress without the involvement of a trainer or an HR person to facilitate the process.

Self-Service Employee Portals Self-service employee portals enable employees to make and track changes

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Delivering Analytics to Help you get back to the Work you Love he injection of statistical insights combined with the evolutionary realization that information can be a valuable asset, has and will continue to have serious echoes in the business world. For decades, being smart has equaled success, and analytics has played an integral role in generating competitive advantages. The importance of analytics for professionals is the importance of making good decisions.

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planning your team’s calendar, thereby enabling you to confidently get back to do the work you love.

Born out of a burning passion for analytics and professional services, Bric stands out among the crowd with its software maximizing your team’s time and talents through analytics.

Based in Omaha, NE, Bric spreads its tentacles to users in 75 different countries, and aims to provide analytics to 10,000 companies in 2018. Incepted in 2014, Bric started as an internal project by three professional service firms: a design agency, a software development shop, and a data science consultancy, eventually panning out as its own startup.

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Additionally, Bric automatically finds patterns in your team’s timesheets, which are then used to recommend more accurate project plans. Bric provides the following unrivaled features for a monthly subscription per managed employee.

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Unmatched Product Features Primarily used by teams of designers, writers and developers, its product combines project planning, time tracking, and task management to automatically analyze your employee utilization and financial performance. Upon implementation of Bric, data is collected that provides you with analytics on employee utilization, capacity, scheduling conflicts, and financials. This way, Bric helps in accurately

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Project Planning – Bric alerts you to schedule conflicts, calculates charges, and recommends more accurate project plans.

Project Management – Irrespective of what happens, Bric provides you with tools to identify changes and respond accordingly.

Task Management – Know what is finished, in progress and what needs to be done. With time and tasks side-byside, you are enabled to deliver tasks on time and on budget.

Time Tracking – Bric allows your team to track time, and compare your planned and tracked time side-byside.

Reports – Bric is your company’s information hub—alerting you to potential issues and opportunities.

A Leader who Facilitates Change Grant Stanley is the visionary who led Bric from the front ever since he took hold of the CEOs chair. Prior to Bric,

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Grant Stanley CEO

Grant spent 8 years as the CEO of Contemporary Analysis, which specialized in providing predictive analytics to Fortune 500 companies and political campaigns.

His educational resume includes a degree in Economics from the University of Nebraska, where he received the Horizon Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He has even studied Mandarin at the National Pingtung University of Education in Taiwan. Formerly selected as one of the top 40 under 40 businessmen in the Midwest, Grant has been a regular contributor to the Midland’s Business Journal, Silicon Prairie News, and the UNO Alumni Magazine. He has also been featured in the Omaha World Herald, Inc. Magazine, and Entrepreneur Magazine, among various others.

Standing Out from the Crowd “Too many BI systems provide metrics that are used to punish employees.

Once this happens, employees resist or

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worse stop filling out timesheets and updating project plans,” explains Stanley. Bric has given workforce analytics a new purpose — improving management. This new purpose combined with an easy-to-use product has made people excited to track time and update project plans.

Bric is true software as a service company. It releases new code each week, based on its users’ feedback.

Continuous improvement allows the company to capture more of its user’s workflow, and provide them with new analytics to look at their business.

Preparing for the Future PSA Trends “The first trend will be professional services firms’ pressure to minimize non-billable employees. Consultancies will look to PSA’s to automate account management and administration. This trend will be welcomed by clients that have grown accustomed to digitized support as consumers.

Secondly, the most profitable professional service firms allow partners and managers to specialize on either business development, service delivery, or recruiting/training.

However, this requires technology.

Traditionally, each partner has been involved in each part of leading the firm, because there was a lack of analytics and reporting,” asserts Stanley.

Future of Continued Innovation Bric’s advantage is its familiarity with data science and its optimal focus on product design. The company strives to design products that its vast customer base loves. Today, most of its focus centers-around improving its user experience. Bric wants your employees to love tracking time and planning projects. In addition to all these, the company is constantly developing and testing new ways for managers and partners to analyze their businesses.

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or over 20 years, DATABASICS has helped leading organizations throughout the world meet their timetracking and expense reporting challenges.

Focusing on the specific needs and goals of each customer, DATABASICS provides Software-as-a-Service solutions that are known for their ease-of-use, flexibility, integrations capabilities, and cost-effectiveness.

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meticulous problem-solving. With its adaption of the Software-as-a-Service model in which DATABASICS hosts its software on its own servers, implementation and support were vastly simplified. As a result, DATABASICS is now able to concentrate exclusively on solving its customers’ business problems as opposed to troubleshooting its customers’ IT issues.

Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, the company released its first web-based time and expense products in 1997. From the beginning, DATABASICS specialized in the requirements of project-oriented organizations and the adaptations needed by federal government contractors.

A Leader Who Fostered a Culture of Meeting Obligations Alan Tyson founded DATABASICS and has been its leader since the beginning. Prior to DATABASICS, Alan worked at the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and Control Data Corporation. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Rochester with a degree in Philosophy.

DATABASICS has gone on to extend its portfolio of solutions to an increasingly diverse range of customer types, including nonprofits, manufacturers, multi-store retailers, pharmaceutical companies, multi-national organizations, and more.

Overcoming the Initial Struggle DATABASICS originally installed its products on systems owned and operated by the customer. Often, these environments integrated multiple vendor products in combinations that, to a significant extent, were unique.

DATABASICS had to maintain versions of its products specifically tailored to the most common types of infrastructure, but each installation typically required

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Before the first product release, Alan focused DATABASICS on custom software, systems integration, and IT management consulting. The experience gained through these activities laid the groundwork for DATABASICS’ pivot into software product development and hosting.

Alan believes that his major contribution has been to foster a culture of meeting obligations to customers, suppliers, and co-workers.

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Alan Tyson CEO & Founder

“Trust,” he says, “is indispensable if people are going to work together at the highest levels. Trust is earned by doing what you say you are going to do. In other words, we need to live up to your obligations.” His support for this principle has been critical to DATABASICS’ success.

“It’s Always About the Customer” Tyson maintains that “these are not simply words to us. Our commitment to customer success has led DATABASICS to develop products that can be easily adapted to meet customer requirements to an extent that is unmatched. It also underlies our insistence on providing outstanding customer service at a time when the industry as a whole is frankly struggling to free itself from the cost and effort that delivering world-class customer service requires.”

Striking the Right Balance For Each Customer Before DATABASICS developed its first time and expense products, it was September 2017

a professional services organization.

Targeting the PSA industry for its initial product offering made sense since DATABASICS was already deeply familiar with the industry’s requirements. DATABASICS’ first offerings were web-based–among the first of their kind. Two ERP vendors, specializing in project-oriented solutions, were quick to “white label” the company’s software and DATABASICS was off and running as a software company.

Today, DATABASICS provides a cloud-based, unified platform for time tracking, employee expense reporting, leave management, and P-Card control.

All of its solutions are “globalized” to support large scale enterprise deployments. Additionally,

DATABASICS provides small to midsized organizations with the exact functionality they need to meet the most demanding of requirements. It designs its products for usability and is deeply committed to strike the right balance for every customer, in terms of both capability and ease of use.

A Future of Continued Excellence In the coming years, the PSA industry will need to adapt to changes in how professional services are delivered.

Some of the major trends will include migration away from billing for time as opposed to work products; a loosening of the grip of the “engineering model” with the recognition of the need for a more dynamic, flexible methodology for executing projects; and the beginning of the transition to Artificial Intelligence from the direct provision to customers of human experts.

Amidst all these changes, “DATABASICS will,” according to Tyson, “continue to provide its customers with its ‘best-fit’ solutions and outstanding services.”

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PSA in Perspective

The Need for Professional Service

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any Professional services and business models are at the risk of disruption due to revolutionary changes and evolving technology, enabling people to proposed new business models, thereby substituting conventional distribution channels and replacing the way people and businesses interact with each other. The pace of change will continue to increase and due to it, only a third of today’s megastructure companies and professional services are going to survive in the next two decades.

To cope-up with today’s technological requirement of a professional service industry, there is an imperative requirement in technological advancement to improve efficiency and profitability. ‘Professional service automation’ (PSA) is a groundbreaking solution for the professional service industry in today’s era of technological disruption. PSA, software is primarily developed to help professionals, such as Lawyers, Auditors, Contractors and IT consultants with, resource management and project management for client help. Typical professional service automation software’s contain functions such as project management and related documentation, time management, labor utilization, reporting and billing. These attributes can be integrated with customer relationship management (CRM), accounting and payroll in order to improve their efficiency of operations and a healthy share of profit from the total investment by preventing loss in revenue and slow billing cycles.

A survey report states- "organization that uses PSA software tends to have the better rate of on-time project delivery, increase in productivity, precise project estimate, through more efficient communication, scheduling and project related document arrangement”.

These are the five most groundbreaking reasons, why organizations required professional service automation software’s:1. Assignment Planning and Implementation: PSA software's provide assignment oriented 360° view, through which, executives can look at what projects are in pipeline and can forecast their resource requirements. Assignment managers can implement detailed assignment plans, match the right resource within the organization for work-done and can have all the mission-related important data at their fingertips.

PSA software can give the organizations, a closed loop communication channel between resources, managers and the entire project team. Resources can communicate quickly with assignment managers regarding the status of their task, and managers can access the impact on the whole assignment schedules, budget and staffing to resolve the issues as they arise during the assignment.

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2. Estimates and Assignment Cost: PSA software has the ability to track assignment costs at comminuted level. Every minute on every assignment can be easily tracked, and any auxiliary expense on assignments, like travel or third-party expenses can be accounted to give a holistic representation of investment.

PSA software tools even become more valuable, when managers are planning and executing assignment with a very tight budget.

All the assignment oriented information is managed within the PSA software system, an assignment can analyze the productivity of their resources at any time to ensure each person’s contribution is maximized.

3. Streamline the Assignment Lifecycle: PSA software is able to handle the assignment throughout every step of the assignment lifecycle, and doing so, gives services organizations the ability to focus on the important aspects and delivering appreciable services to their clients-instead of wasting considerable time on prosaic administrative tasks. This kind of importance on efficiency can quickly translate into sufficient time to spend on productivity and can have a direct effect on the cost of the assignment.

To pipeline this process, most professional service automation software’s can easily integrate with the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and accounting related packages to eliminate, the need for any manual assignment configuration.

These kinds of solutions will help an organization to run like a deep well-oiled machine, and lay focusing on the job that; drives advancement or growth.

4. Improvement in Resource Productivity: Many, professional service automations software’s solutions also contain resources scheduling tools; that help organizations to balance the demand and supply of their resources. Managers who effectively leverage resources scheduling tools also get a clear picture of people who are engaged in work and who are not. It is also a well-known truth within organizations, that effective utilization of employees and resources can yield dramatic results on the organization bottom line. Using PSA software solutions will enable when resources and people with key skill sets are available, which will allow for real-time optimization of resource productivity.

In order to have more efficiency in projects, resource scheduling will give organizations, the tools required to ensure distribution of proper workloads across all their employees. Even with the US unemployment rate hovering around 4.3%, industries are still finding it more difficult to hire key specialized workers.

5. Real-time Decision-making Power: Having a consolidated view of business is critical when making managerial decisions. As all the assignment oriented information that organizations need, resides directly inside their PSA software and management can easily get the insight that required for the development of organizations. Information on project, resources and organizational productivity is a simple click away, and managers can look, what the current status of the project is, with proper and up-to-date information.

PSA software’s have replaced worn-out spreadsheets and also has given the competitive advantage that has laid the foundation for higher client satisfaction rates, higher profitable share and sustainable long-term development.

Future scope of PSA PSA software’s have reduced time consumption used in earlier tedious works such as documentation processing, file transfer and generating the invoice. PSA software still possesses much scope for improvement such as Artificial Intelligence, which will automatically arrange files and document in an array manner. AI will help in the retrieval of the document in a single click by selfcalculation and can help in increasing efficiency by saving time and resources.

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Mentors’ Insights

Managing Corporate Communications on Mobile Devices

By Andrew Silver, CTO Tango Networks

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here is a strange inconsistency in how enterprises manage mobile communications compared to other types of business communications.

With traditional voice communications and data communications, we directly control how communications are deployed and used by our employees. But for mobile devices, we give up this control to external mobile service providers, creating expensive management and regulatory headaches.

It doesn’t have to be this way, which is why I founded Tango Networks a decade ago to revolutionize business mobile communications.

The Company is The Service Provider Consider how other forms of communications are managed for employees.

For typical desktop phone service, the company purchases phones from a vendor along with a central system to provide voice calling, conferencing, in-office dialing, and other features. The company or its contractor will run cabling and power for the phones. Then the company contracts with a service provider for voice services. The enterprise is in control of the communications system, and sets the policies for each user.

It’s the same for data communications. The company will contract with a service provider for Internet service. But then the company will install routers, firewalls, SBCs and Ethernet cabling, or Wi-Fi access points and similar infrastructure to get its employees online. The company similarly is in direct control of its local and wide-area networks, and sets the policies for each user.

In both cases, the company is acting as a service provider

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for its employees - delivering and supporting essential communications services.

But this model has remained broken when it comes to mobile communications.

The Broken Mobile Model In more traditional situations, the company will contract with a mobile communications service provider and buy or lease mobile phones and service for employees. The company pays the provider to handle support, configuration and management of the phones in addition to the primary voice and data service costs. While the company is incurring these expenses, the company does not have direct control over the devices to ensure that corporate policies are followed. Companies that must monitor employee voice calls and data sessions, or archive them for regulatory purposes, face added expenses.

In some companies, this model has evolved into Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs, often when IT departments have simply given up trying to gain control over corporate mobile communications the way they have always been able to manage their other services.

Instead of contracting for phones with a service provider, the employees are permitted to use their own devices. Then the company reimburses or otherwise subsidizes services.

While this can be less expensive than a company-owned phone approach, it makes enforcement of policies very difficult, especially for regulated industries requiring communications recording.

In both cases, the mobile devices and service subscriptions remain separate from the main form of corporate communications. If I call you from the office, you see my corporate number as the caller ID. If I call you from my September 2017

About the Author A company co-founder, Andrew Silver now serves as Tango Networks’ Chief Technology Officer. Silver is an entrepreneur and business technologist who has held senior management and director roles in large and small wireless companies including Ericsson, Nortel Networks, Comverse and Spatial Wireless. He is an accomplished speaker at wireless industry forums and has been granted more than 50 patents in wireless communications systems. Silver holds an electrical engineering degree and an MBA from McGill University.

mobile, you see my personal mobile number, or another number you don’t recognize. If you call me on my mobile but I need to take the call from my desk phone for recording compliance, I need to call you back, or else start up a special app on my phone to record the call.

In short, the user experience is messy, unwieldy, and less professional in appearance.

The Better Way Imagine instead that your mobile phone could be an extension of your main corporate communications systems.

You could make and receive calls using your corporate number. You could transfer, conference, call with inoffice dialing. You could send text messages from your corporate number and receive incoming texts to your corporate number - something your desktop phone probably cannot do.

Your calls and texts could be archived for compliance. Your IT staff would have direct control over when and where you could make toll calls, or even route them through the corporate networks to reduce costs.

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Suppose all this were possible even with your own personal device. Your business communications would operate as an extension of your corporate phone system while your personal communications remained totally private.

That’s exactly what Tango Networks’ solutions do. Our Kinetic Communications Platform enables a company to control mobile communications in an entirely new way.

Shared Control The breakthrough is an innovation in how communications signaling and routing are managed. Our Kinetic platform creates a communications control system that is shared between your company and your mobile service provider, enabling the enterprise to be the service provider for their employees.

This means your IT staff sets policies, determines call routing rules, turns on features, and executes similar control steps. These enterprise-managed policies and configuration settings interface directly with the service provider where they are enforced on the mobile communications in the

service provider’s network.

This provides great advantages for both companies and their service providers. For service providers, it means that companies are taking on much of their own support and management tasks. For the companies, it means the IT staff is more directly in control of this critical form of corporate communications. Our system is supported by many Tier 1 mobile service providers around the world and is serving hundreds of thousands of users with enhanced mobile communications today. On networks where our solutions are not yet supported, we also offer many of the same control capabilities for employees that use Android, BlackBerry and IOS (Apple) devices.

For the first time, mobile communications can be managed by your company precisely the way traditional fixed voice and data communications. In the end, this means easier regulatory compliance, lower mobile communications costs, and a better user experience that maximizes the productivity of your employees on the go.

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PSA in Vision

PSA: Robust, Efcient & Productive Software for Contemporary Businesses

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oday, many professional service enterprises are dealing with diverse challenges. Price war, highly competitive market, low profit margins, shortage of skilled and experienced professionals, spin-offs from mergers and acquisitions etc. are some of the crucial challenges which are affecting the overall operational efficiency, productivity and profitability of an enterprise. At the same time, think tank and top managements are increasingly aware of the benefits of PSA (Professional service automation) solutions and its role in making companies more competitive and profitable.

Expected Growth of PSA software Industry According to one leading research firm named, Grand View Research, the professional service automation (PSA) software market is estimated to reach USD 14.39 billion by 2024. PSA software is used to regulate business processes and provide reports, insights, and control for resources and projects. The importance of such systems is to empower critical information to be analyzed and shared across establishments for more insightful and timely decision-making. Increasing advancements in functionalities of the solution are estimated to boost industry growth over the next seven years.

The market for professional service automation is projected to gain a major share in revenues from developed regions such as North America and Europe over the next 7 years. Demand for PSA solutions in Asia Pacific region is also expected to rise at a stable pace over the next 7 years owing to the rising adoption of PSA

by SMB (Small and Medium) enterprises in the region.

From all across the globe, many technology giants have invested heavily on PSA. Some of the major firms operating in the global PSA market are Microsoft Corporation, NetSuite OpenAir, Oracle, Autotask Corporation, FinancialForce PSA, Appirio, Inc., Deltek, Harmany PSA, Autotask Corporation and Projector PSA. Products and services of these giants are innovative and fuelling greater competition among its peers with each passing year.

Technologies Fuelling PSA Cloud Computing: Cloud computing is becoming popular among cost-sensitive consumers and small & medium enterprises. Increasing abundant computing owing to smartphone penetration and better internet infrastructure is expected to drive the PSA mobile application over the next seven years. Cloud-based software offer benefits such as economies of scale, disaster recovery, effective monitoring of projects, and reduced

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technology infrastructure cost to its clients.

Artificial Intelligence: According to one leading firm, IDC, AI market will grow from $8 billion in 2016 to more than $47 billion in 2020. The market of AI is flourishing and numerous startups and internet giants want to reap the benefits of AI into their business processes. There are numerous AI technologies, on which different enterprises are working and researching.

One of such eminent AI technology is RPA i.e. Robotics Process Automation.

RPA is gaining popularity for developing Professional service automation software. All those tasks of repetitive nature & low skilled are supposed to get automated using powerful scripts. Those tasks which are expensive and inefficient for humans to execute will directly get into the fold of RPA. Eminent Reasons prompting increase usage of PSA software •Better project planning, execution, management & supervision.

•To track project cost at very granular level during all stages of project development.

•PSA software has the capability to integrate other important software which further streamlines business process.

•Improved resource productivity; PSA solution is used to understand when resources with key skillsets are available and will allow for real-time optimization of resource productivity.

•Helpful in taking a big decision in real time due to the availability of consolidated view of a business process.

Benefits of PSA software in Professional arena Various PSA software are used to bring transparency to the processes of a project, including time tracking, expense management, billing, invoicing, and resource and labor allocation. PSA software helps professionals in project and resource management. It can be integrated with accounting, CRM, and payroll, billing, talent management systems etc. for better work efficiency.

PSA software’s/These PSA software provide eminent assistance to varied professionals.

Lawyers, auditors, IT Consultants, HR managers and other professionals are reaping the benefits of productivity, efficiency and profitability by streamlining their business process with PSA software. Many people compare PSA with traditional ERP solution, but in reality, PSA software (there is no plural form of software, hence the word needs to be treated differently) are different than ERP and are tailored for the professional service industry.

Key Deployment trends in PSA There are two types of PSA deployment solution available in today’s market for the enterprises. One is cloud based deployment and other is on-premise deployment. Cloud based deployments are gaining popularity among small and medium enterprises due to the enormous benefits it gives to its clients.

Flexibility, disaster recovery, increased collaboration and reduced infrastructure development price are some of the main factors behind the growing popularity of the cloud hosting module.

Sectors attracted towards PSA Insurance, media & entertainment, retail, telecom, IT, Banking and finance, healthcare, financial markets, business consultants, higher educational authority, different government agency are utilizing PSA solutions for better efficiency, productivity & profitability.

According to a research firm named SPI Research, organizations that used PSA software tend to have a higher rate of on-time project delivery, more accurate project estimates and increased personnel productivity through more efficient scheduling and communication. All these benefits and advantages will further motivate small and medium enterprises towards PSA software and PSA software industry will boom further.

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t is no surprise that firms of all types increasingly rely on cloud and cloud-based solutions for the storage and access of their data and processes. Today, clients are more aware of their expectations, hence putting pressure on the companies to deliver more reliable and innovative solutions. Keeping customer expectations at the forefront, JOVACO Solutions was formed in 1983. Since its inception, JOVACO has emerged as a leader within the field of integrated management solutions and has developed an unparalleled expertise in the implementation, integration and development of both ERP and CRM solutions. It is also the first company in the province of Quebec to offer a project accounting solution fully integrated to financials and specifically designed for the professional services industry.

To meet and exceed diverse customers’ needs, JOVACO has implemented and customized a variety of ERP and CRM solutions, most notably Microsoft Dynamics GP and Microsoft Dynamics 365, and offers personalized consulting services as well. The firm has also developed various modules and vertical-specific solutions such as an integrated project management tool, a web-based time and expense capture module, a manufacturing optimization system, an investment accounting module as well as a business intelligence solution.

A Leader with Rich Experience As a CPA, Founder and President Jean-Claude Coutu has a vast experience with accounting processes and

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professional services. Offering business management solutions specifically designed to meet the needs and realities of these firms was one of his long-standing goals, which subsequently led to the formation of JOVACO. In its early days, one of the initial challenges it had to face was the need to educate firms, as very few had started to integrate computer technologies. This challenge goes on to this day, as many organizations still rely on paper documents or non-integrated systems to manage their operations, even in this era of digital transformation.

However, Coutu’s insights into their specific needs and challenges allowed JOVACO to develop solutions that incorporate their processes and the best practices of the industry. Over the years, JOVACO has gained a unique expertise in meeting their needs, and it counts several certified accountants among its team of consultants. Today, more than half of JOVACO’s clients are part of the professional services sector, as they know they can turn to it for long-term support and guidance. JOVACO also prides itself on being a pioneer of integrated business management solutions, and takes its role seriously in helping firms keep up with new technologies in an increasingly digitalized economy.

Today, Coutu has over 40 years of experience in the accounting and IT sectors, during which he has forged a double expertise in identifying and understanding the accounting and financial processes of its customers as well September 2017

Jean-Claude Coutu Founder & President

as the systems and products that best support them. Since the formation of JOVACO, Coutu has been working more specifically on the development and implementation of integrated systems.

Services that make them Stand Apart JOVACO is a Microsoft partner in Quebec that specializes in the implementation and integration of Microsoft Dynamics GP and Dynamics 365 (CRM). As a full-service ValueAdded Reseller, JOVACO offers implementation, integration, consulting as well as technical training and support to ensure that every customer is getting the most out of their system.

JOVACO also provides custom developments such as dashboards and business intelligence solutions to meet all its clients’ needs.

JOVACO is also an Independent Software Vendor for JOVACO Suite (formerly known as JOVACO Project Suite), a project accounting solution fully integrated to Microsoft Dynamics September 2017

GP and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Specifically designed for professional services firms, this vertical-specific solution is optimized to manage projects from proposal to profits with project cost capabilities, web-based time & billing, resource planning functionalities as well as various outof-the-box project-specific reports to ensure better visibility and tracking.

Committed, Available and Dedicated JOVACO offers a full-range of services to its customers: implementation, integration, developments and customization, reporting and business intelligence, customer support and training, as well as a wide range of consulting services. This way, its customers can meet all their needs and overcome their challenges with only one partner who can help them throughout the entire process, from the initial analysis to post-implementation support and training. JOVACO prides

itself in the long-term relationship it has formed with each and every customer along the way. Moreover, its knowledge of the professional services industry ensures that the company is familiar with the clients’ processes and can identify their needs and suggest the best solutions and products to meet them.

Future Prospect “Regulations and client expectations are also constantly on the rise, and JOVACO will keep making the utmost effort to exceed them. To this end, we seek to increase our offerings to include more cloud-based options and vertical-specific solutions to meet the needs of our customers, as well as leverage the capabilities of cloudbased and CRM solutions to allow our clients in the PSA industry to make the most out of their contact base,” Coutu concludes on the future prospect of JOVACO.

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ver 30 years ago, WSG Systems Corp began as a custom software development shop. Back then, WSG specifically targeted the professional services industry, with its extensive subject knowledge and the need for improvements on both the operational and financial fronts. The products offered by the company were a natural extension of this knowledge and market needs which allowed its customers to grow their businesses and improve profitability. Fast forward to the present, as the NYC-based software company strives to help companies and professionals increase their productivity, profitability, and efficiency through the use of its award-winning software platform – Empire SUITE. Hammering the Nails of Success to Build an Empire The Empire SUITE, WSG’s flagship product, is designed and engineered to give project and financial managers the required tools to manage their projects, and the information to deliver a successful and profitable outcome. It is a modular cloud-based project and resource management solution designed to help project managers and consultants.

Empire SUITE maximizes the profitability and success rate through employee management, expense management, and resource scheduling. It is the only cloud-based project and resource management solution with a financial perspective that possesses the distinct ability to track time, budget and resources in real-time. Empire SUITE’s depth of information and ease of implementation, as well as its userfriendly interface and mobile access feature for on-the-go data input, allows it to replace or complement some of the world’s most popular software packages.

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When There’s a Crack; Light is Bound to Pass Through After some initial engagements with various PSA organizations back in the day, WSG identified many loopholes in the existing offerings of the providers. Among them, the biggest gap identified in the PSA space was the lack of financial perspective available within the systems.

Suddenly, the ability to have predictive capability rather than just backward-looking metrics became as important as the ability to handle the complex accounting requisites.

WSG’s customers soon realized they could potentially see where the problems were going to transpire from, instead of simply recognizing from where they had occurred. Since then, whether it is resource scheduling or revenue sharing or even time tracking, WSG’s distinctive methodology has proven invaluable for its clients and continues to help them drastically improve their project-related business practices while growing their businesses.

Focusing on the Outcome, Not the Obstacle Like any other organization, WSG faced some of the usual business challenges like cash flow, name recognition, growing pains, etc. in the early years. It entered into a market space that had some very large and well-established competitors; including some of the largest software companies in the world.

Whether it is WSG’s shift from a customer development shop to a packaged software provider or its most recent movement to the cloud, the company faced various September 2017

Bill Cornfield President

challenges along the way but overcame them and succeeded with an impressive client roster showing their trusted space in this industry. The company prides itself on its job of making people aware of the different alternatives and more efficient ways of running their businesses.

with various prospects, clients and the industries WSG serves and has established himself as a trusted advisor with clients and partners.

Standing Out from the Crowd Instead of Standing Among the Crowd

almost 1,000 configuration options, Empire SUITE users find it a lot easier to stay current, add new functionality, deploy and upgrade from a common core platform rather than customizing a new software build; saving both time and money in the process.

Embracing the Industry Changes

A Trusted Leader with a Strong Vision but Flexible Methodology Bill Cornfield, President of WSG, has been the driving force of the business from a strategic perspective since day one. Being a Certified Public Accountant, Bill had spent most of his career in the professional services industry and banking. He worked in software development for a large bank and began to think how his software knowledge could benefit other areas.

And it then he initially envisioned the opportunity to focus on delivering a better solution for professional service organizations.

At WSG, Bill shoulders the responsibility for driving product direction and the continuing evolution of the platform. He formulates strong relationships September 2017

WSG understands the PSA space and differentiates itself from others in the market with its broad range of product offerings. It has a robust yet easy-touse system with a technically sound platform. With its dedicated focus on its clients and financial perspective, the company serves its customers unlike any of its industry contemporaries.

WSG also offers just one version of Empire SUITE for all its customers worldwide, thereby eliminating any confusion about licensing models and options and simplifying upgrades. With

WSG embraces and supports all the evolving changes and demands ongoing or arising in the industry. Its support for AI is imminent, as WSG moves to an automated workflow and resource scheduling optimization. By using predictive analytics, the company is already helping its clients reap the advantages of Big Data, enabling them to make better business decisions as a result. WSG is also ensuring that its mobile solutions continue to evolve, thereby meeting the needs of the workforce on the go. The company takes it upon themselves to help minimize friction for the simplest yet the most important tasks, like timereporting and resource scheduling.

www.empiresuite.com

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DigiThoughts

C

omputer scientist Florian Kurz and Prof. Dr. Marco Mevius lead the bamero AG in close cooperation. Although both personalities sweep everyone around them with their energy and live on agile and process-centric approaches, they also complement each other with their qualities. Together they are well versed about their field of knowledge and can channel this competence in a result-oriented way with the bamero AG. Due to their steady character, passion and open-minded way of thinking, this duo can look back on the biggest achievements of the bamero AG. However, they are determined to anchor innovative business models on the market using a process-centric perspective. Florian Kurz and Prof. Dr. Marco Mevius are enthusiastic about pursuing this objective with much strength within the bamero AG, but they are willing to learn new things on their way and talk to any contact person of a customer to determine where the pain within running business processes originates. The central idea behind this is to support every customer from a strategic view of the business to the point of the operative transformation by managing the underlying business processes.

“Established companies and institutions traditionally fight for the biggest piece of the cake on the

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market, though they could reinvent themselves to become the confectioner.” – Florian Kurz, CEO and partner Especially medium-sized companies are in the charming situation to realign their business model using new technologies to position themselves on the market strategically. Their growing economic strength combined with their yet flexible structures allows them to manage their business processes, including a new experience for their employees regarding processes and technology. The basic challenges of the digital transformation hereby are to answer which products and services are to be offered and how to address the “process experience”. Formerly products were sold, today it is services and it is going to be experience in the future, that is why we need to be agile!

Digitization means individualization.

Customers become co-customers and generate self-services.

“Within only short time the bamero AG became one of our most important strategic partners. Due to their methods used and their extremely quick perception, Mr. Kurz and his team are a tremendous gain for our business development. Initial successes were already evident after only a short time and most notably measurable. We are looking forward to continuing our

cooperation with bamero.” – Björn Scharnhorst, CEO Exportverpackung Sehnde GmbH The bamero portfolio exclusively covers services in a business process management context, although addressing it in different granularities.

Foremost bamero supports companies in the dynamic alignment of their business models. To support this claim bamero offers to concertedly organize the business processes including systems, roles and implicit requirements. On the one hand to complete the scope of services and on the other hand an attractive service itself the bamero also automates business processes.

Using an iterative and an incremental approach (M.E.M.O.®) the impact on short- and long-term successes can be measured throughout the projects.

M.E.M.O.® is an innovative way to extend the traditional business process management by agile concepts to operationalize the wish for digital innovation. The efficiency and effectivity of business process management projects can be improved significantly by adapting the four steps process analysis (map), process design (enrich), implementation (monitor) and execution (optimize) to agile software development approaches and assigning defined roles. Contrary to traditional, September 2017

Prof. Dr. Marco Mevius Chairman of the Board & Founder bamero AG model-centric approaches the purpose behind M.E.M.O.® is to explore the practiced process instead of process models – “more process, less model!”

The highly specialized team of the bamero AG lives and merges digitality and business process management in their DNA. This is the fundament to collaboratively and perfectly executed create tailor-made and highly innovative business models. The process engineers that currently work for bamero learned how to evaluate and develop the digitization of processes at the HTWG Constance.

Therefore, these process engineers are capable of consulting customers using their very knowledge instead of worn out reference guidelines.

“By being in permanent spar with the scientific community we are capable of substantially meeting the new and rapidly changing demands of the market.” – Florian Kurz, CEO and partner September 2017

Florian Kurz CEO & partner bamero AG Especially the new, digital business models require welldirected process innovation. With bamero’s tools and methods the challenges of partly digitizing processes are addressed directly and in a unique way. With the digital transformation of business processes and models all participants expect higher customer tie, more efficient processes and higher sales due to the possibilities to efficiently and costefficiently offer customer-specific and personalized products and services.

“We stand at the edge of a digital gold rush. bamero enables companies to immediately find first digital nuggets and to define the relative claims in the long term.” – Prof. Dr. Marco Mevius, Chairman of the Board and Founder.

The crucial competitive advantages are generated by the process experience of the process participants. Therefore, an adequate and best possible integration of humans into the digital processes and new services is central for the transformation of established companies.

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