Consulting firms and their consultants are a boon to any industry and organization. Their expertise helps businesses develop a growth or finance strategy, strengthen operational processes, put in place a technological upgrade, stay in compliance, and even generate sales. But their own work environment is complex and riddled with challenges.
The unpredictable economy adds an additional layer of volatility. Now, more than ever, consulting services need a resource management system so they can stay ahead of competition and keep delivering invaluable services to their clients. But this can only happen when they take care of their superpower —- their resources (consultants).
Join us as we explain the advantages of using a project management system in a consulting scenario. We even feature a project management product that will help you achieve the desired results.
Consulting Services in 2024
Before we get into the benefits of a project management system for consulting firms, let’s understand the consulting industry. Consulting, in our blog, refers to businesses that provide expertise in areas such as information technology (IT), law, construction, finance, and engineering. There are consulting experts in almost all industries, including defence, agriculture, automotive, etc. The global market size of the consulting industry is approximately $1.3 billion and experts predict the industry to grow at 3.3%. The job growth prospect of management consultants and analysts is pegged at 14%, which is higher than the U.S. national average.
Trends impacting the industry include difficulty in hiring and retaining top talent, acquiring new customers, rapid digitization, increase in cyber attacks, and scalability. Furthermore, the consulting market is no longer a monopoly. A decade ago, Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, and PriceWaterHouseCoopers were among the big names in the market. Today there are multiple smaller and boutique consulting firms that are entering and dominating the market.
What do all these figures and trends signify? The competition is fierce and rising customer expectations make it imperative that consulting firms stay on their toes. How can they do that? Only when they are able to manage their greatest resource —- their consultants.
This is exactly where a resource management system fits into the picture. Next, we explain what a resource management system is and its benefits.
Resource management is the practice of identifying, scheduling, and tracking resources in your organisation for a project. Resources can be full-time employees, part-time employees, contract workers, remote workers, and sometimes even equipment. For the purposes of this blog, we’ll narrow the definition of resources to just people.
A resource management tool or software is a technical tool that can help your organization manage its MVP — your people.
As mentioned earlier, the consulting industry has serious challenges. The work environment is also quite different from a hospitality business or a healthcare facility. Consulting services typically work with multiple clients on short-term assignments, and have a few top resources that are shared amongst projects. For instance, it’s a common scenario for one consultant to be requested by two clients at the same time, meaning they are double-booked. This results in overworking the consultants. However, there’s more to the picture — the majority of the time, the consultants are also burdened with the administrative task of tracking their billable hours.
You can imagine the scenario that results from this. Poor productivity, increased chances of errors and burnout, and high attrition.
Managing availability, time, and productivity is the need of the hour and that’s precisely what a resource management tool is equipped to do.
Effective Allocation of Resources
With a resource management software, your consultancy will have a single, centralized database of all its consultants. This database can be customized to include full-time, remote, part-time, and contract hires. Everyone’s expertise, billing rates, availability, and work preferences are captured to make sure people are aligned with the right tasks.
In addition to identifying the “right” person for a task, the dashboard will also highlight the current capacity or workload of the consultants and their utilization. This will allow the manager or consultancy owner to avoid double-booking and ensure the same resources aren’t being spread too thin. Both of these will lead to increased productivity and a better work-life balance for the consultants. They will also be able to deliver the best results for their clients because now they are matched perfectly with their roles and are given an optimum level of work.
Improved Time Tracking and Metrics
One of the greatest advantages of a resource management solution is that it is packed with metrics and data — data that can be used to make informed and strategic decisions. Time tracking is a feature that accounts for the hours spent on individual tasks and projects. This metric helps a company measure the productivity and accuracy of their planning.
For instance, if task A is allocated two hours but it takes around three hours for a resource to complete, then there are two possible scenarios: 1) the resource needs additional hiring or upskilling or 2) the allocated time is not sufficient and needs refinement.
Tracking time with the help of timesheets also speeds up the payroll and billing processes as everything is automatically captured via the system and there is less administrative backlog. Other features that will aid the decision-making process include planned vs. actual cost and revenue and profit calculations.
Furthermore, the digitization of resource management keeps all the relevant data in one place. No more stressing and scrambling across emails, spreadsheets, and various legacy platforms to assemble and analyze the data. You have the option to view data in any way you want — prefer importing it into Excel or viewing a visual graph? Both are possible.
Accurate Planning for Current and Future Projects
The resource scheduling software has capabilities to improve your planning and execution of current and future projects. First, you can create project timelines, set milestones and deadlines, and assign tasks. Next, all this can be shared with the consultants so they get a visual of all that is going on and what their responsibility is. The platform lends itself to creating transparency and collaboration.
The software also has inbuilt capacity planning functions that can help you plan for future projects. By having a dedicated resource capacity planner, you can foolproof your workforce against changing market conditions. Your consultancy will have adequate resources to take on more clients and successfully complete them. You also have the power to ensure most resources are working on billable tasks.
Give visibility on all resources across the organization
Eliminates overuse or underuse of consultants
Matches the “right” consultant for the task
Provides real-time data on availability, resource utilization and capacity
Helps you track planned time vs actual time
Aids in planning for pipeline projects through capacity planning function
Reduces administrative burden of collecting and analysing data from multiple sources
If you are a consulting firm looking to streamline your project management processes, improve your profitability, and maximize productivity, consider implementing project management software like eResource Scheduler. eRS is a resource allocation software that offers a comprehensive suite of tools for consulting firms. We offer a 14-day free trial so you can see how the software would benefit your consultancy.
