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Latest Professional Services Posts
Monday, August 30th, 2010
 A recent report from the Aberdeen Group, a Boston-situated provider of fact-based business research for corporations and individuals, suggests that project-based businesses—including engineering firms—could benefit dramatically from the adoption of both enterprise-level project management tools and the mindset to put them to effective use. (more…)
Tags: engineering firms, Enterprise Software, PM tools, Professional Services, project management, project scheduling
Posted in Business, Professional Services | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
 Public Relations (PR) specialists are unique beasts. In their sweaty palms rests the fate of any number of companies; every client a potential runaway hit or crash-and-burn failure. It’s the promise of the former—secured with an excellent PR campaign that attracts serious media coverage at a fraction of the cost of advertising—that keeps clients, of every stripe, engaging these professionals. (more…)
Tags: IP Phone Systems, Public Relations, Public Relations Software, Public Relations Software Automation, Public Relations Telephony, Public Relations Web Presence
Posted in Business, Professional Services | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010
 Back in the day, the advertising field was populated by a scattering of small but innovative firms—little knots of original thought, whose output was impressive for its cleverness, if not for its efficiency. But that cottage industry has evolved with time, consolidating into corporate leviathans with global scale and massive reach. (more…)
Tags: Advertising, Advertising Agency, Advertising in 2010, Evolution of Advertising, Professional Services
Posted in Business, Professional Services | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
 Forecasting – Essential to Every Strategic Business Decision
Call it an art or call it a science—just so long as you call it essential to the continued success of your professional services firm.
Forecasting is the material acknowledgement of the much-ballyhooed crie de coeur that time is money. The more you shell out doing stuff that’s providing no return, the more you’ve wasted. Full stop.
(more…)
Tags: forecast planning, forecasting, forecasting methods, forecasting technology
Posted in Business, Professional Services | No Comments »
Friday, March 26th, 2010
In a recent report by SPI Research, “The 2010 Professional Services Maturity Model Benchmark”, Maconomy has been recognised as one of the 11 best-in-class Professional Services organisations that significantly outperformed their peers worldwide.
The 11 companies dwarfed their peers on the following five benchmark scores: (more…)
Posted in Maconomy, Professional Services | No Comments »
Monday, March 15th, 2010
 In a recent example of Barack Obama’s estimable prowess as an orator, the president referred to corporate America’s ability “to squeeze more productivity out of the workers that they’ve got; they’re working people longer hours, they’re doing more overtime, or not, but either way they’re producing the same amount of product or providing the same services without hiring more people. And that’s something that we’re going to have to really work on.”
True enough. But the work’s already afoot up here at 360 Visibility, where we long ago recognized the value of being smarter with fewer resources. (more…)
Posted in Professional Services | No Comments »
Monday, February 15th, 2010
 The Aberdeen Group released a report recently that made me shake my head in one of those “I-told-you-so” kind of ways.
The study, called Delivering Project Profitability: On Time and Under Budget, looked at project-based businesses and the challenges they face in remaining profitable inside a distressed and developing world.
While it acknowledged that a subject like this can’t be accurately painted with a single brush, given the range of corporate activity bustling out there, it does provide some strong counsel on how everyone could get a leg up in this cramped economy by paying attention to certain proven practices. (more…)
Tags: projects early, projects on budget, projects on time
Posted in Professional Services | No Comments »
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
 Just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it can’t be done another way. A better way. Particularly if the first way has been knocked to the turf with a one-star rating and a 67% decline in license revenue in the last quarter alone.
Times are high right now and getting higher for Ontario engineers. Finally seeing some of the government funding earmarked for infrastructure trickling into their coffers from the last economic recession, these professionals are presiding over a scene that features more projects, more project management, more accountability for funds. (more…)
Posted in Maconomy, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Professional Services | No Comments »
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
Sometimes it’s instructive to step outside of your comfort zone and spear a fork into the uncomfortable. I recently delivered myself squarely there, with a deliberate stroll to the services buying side of the menu, instead of the services selling. It was with the aim of identifying a firm that could help us with some of our growth challenges that I lurched across the divide.
I honed in rapidly and found for myself a couple of likely candidates. I had telephone conversations with each of them, in which I described the nature and direction of our business, and explained some of the roadblocks our hurtling success has been dropping in our path. After our telephone call, I met with each of these contenders, and explained our situation further.
My experience to follow has been revealing. (more…)
Posted in Business, Professional Services | No Comments »
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
The concept of billable hours first drew the attention of the world around the same time nuclear power and Gordie Howe did: in the 1950s. All these years later, we still haven’t got a handle on it.
Technology—surprise, surprise—can automate this process; can help offices be more efficient, productive and profitable; can furnish hungry clients with demonstrable, auditable records of what was done for them, and when; can bypass the typical scene that sees most billables calculations taking place after the fact, rather than during; can help small firms deliver a standard of customer service generally reserved for larger ones.
Here’s How Technology Can Shape Your Billable Hours Business: (more…)
Posted in Maconomy, Professional Services | No Comments »
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