The Value of Visibility for Consulting Firms

Tweet it:'As we moved through 2020, it was the organizations with high visibility into their business and projects that were able to maintain, if not grow'

During our SPI 2021 Professional Services Maturity Benchmarks: Reveal Webinar we discussed key benchmarks and business drivers for growth derived from the survey of of over 700 professional services firms. One of the many takeaways from the webinar, hosted by David Hofferberth, Managing Director at Service Performance Insight (SPI), and Natasha Engan, Senior Vice President of global consulting here at Deltek, involved the value of visibility for firms with a growth mindset.

As we moved through 2020, it was the organizations with high visibility into their business and projects that were able to maintain, if not grow in many cases. As you can see below the firms who had better visibility were able to grow the most (7.2% vs. 5.2%). In addition, and not surprisingly, they also showed lower employee attrition (7.7% vs. 13.5%) and better on-time project delivery (87.1% vs. 76.2%). In short, those firms with better visibility into their business and projects performed better.

Benefits of Reinvestment

The study showed that overall the annual revenue growth for professional service organizations was down to 7.8% from 10.9% the year before. However, larger and more mature firms still performed well. They were able to invest more funding internally, dedicating money towards training talent, enhancing collaboration, and automating business processes as workers went from traveling to having more time for billable work. Additional findings around sales and marketing performance included:

• Revenue growth was down a bit at 8.7% (slower than last year) but still growth
• Overall revenue still grew more than headcount – firms were more productive
• Clients want to buy outcomes: demonstrate value
• PSOs have expanded their services offering, mainly around managed/subscription services

One thing is clear, the firms who were able to re-invest in themselves and in digital transformation initiatives to ensure visibly should be setup for success this year and in the future. For more industry insights and benchmarks please download the full 2021 SPI Professional Services Maturity Benchmark Summary & Report below.

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