Provoke Solutions
Software company Provoke Solutions stepped away from their internal business management system, gaining visibility over staff resourcing and maximizing how time is utilized.
Provoke Solutions is a software development company with over 100 employees in four global offices. Provoke has a strong emphasis on user-experience design and crafting software to enable digital transformation. They are a Microsoft Gold Partner and have been Microsoft’s New Zealand Partner of the Year on three occasions.
“Being able to see updated financial forecasts validated against our work to date and resourcing makes it really clear where my monthly revenue will land. And the gross margin reporting shows the real financial performance, which is the icing on the cake!”
The Challenge:
An internal management tool relied too heavily on internal resource to maintain - especially for a business in growth mode.
Like many software development companies, Provoke had their own bespoke system to manage aspects of their business. They used their own tool for timesheets, booking resource and tracking projects. It met most of their needs, but required internal resource for maintenance and support, taking away from time spent on client work.
This was time Provoke did not have. With customer work across all offices on the rise, it was more important than ever to focus their resources and understand how time was spent. A lack of understanding would lead to financial implications, like over committing to work or missing big opportunities.
“Having visibility of real-time resource availability across all our offices helps me get projects underway more quickly. It also improves overall company utilisation, fosters better relationships between offices and provides better margins than engaging contractors.”
The Solution:
Projectworks freed up internal resources and delivered business visibility beyond Provoke’s expectations.
Switching to Projectworks answered Provoke’s need to replace their internal business management tool. By doing so, Provoke freed up valuable resource which could be allocated to client work, creating the opportunity to bring in more revenue.
With Projectworks, Provoke has better visibility of their resourcing and can see it at an individual, team and office level. A forward view of capacity has made it easier to identify under utilization and shift projects between the global offices accordingly. This has helped reduce the use of external contractors and has increased internal staff utilization.
By marrying financial forecasts and resource utilisation information together, Projectworks offers business insights so Provoke can better understand their month-end results.
Now Provoke relies on Projectworks as their central hub for all business operations. They’ve even replaced their Human Resources Information System, with the HR features Projectworks has on offer.
The Results:
Gained business insight on time spent
Increased staff utilization
Freed up internal resource
Provoke is now set up to scale.
Partnering with Projectworks, Provoke now has the business management system they need to continue their global growth. Staff are easy to onboard and made available instantly in the resource pool. The simple monthly fee price structure provides room for staff numbers to increase at minimal extra cost.
Ready for the next step?
For more information on how Projectworks can transform your services organization book a demo today.