| At a glance Why are shared services essential to IT services companies? In what ways do their workflows differ compared to billable projects? How does ProductDossier PSA help manage them without tedious workarounds? |
Professional Services Automation (PSA) software solutions have become indispensable for streamlining the operations of IT services companies. The popularity isn’t surprising because PSA software provides end-to-end digitalization. PSA software integrates and automates Opportunity-to-cash workflows of their billable projects. Their managers can estimate project costs realistically, plan and execute projects within time and cost budgets, optimize resource utilization, provide real-time project financials, and send timely updates to customers with the help of PSA software.
However, not all PSA software available in the market provide the above capabilities. It takes the best PSA software for IT to put all the above at the fingertips of the managers.
Then, there are only a few PSA solutions that help you manage shared support services without awkward and frustrating workarounds.
Why are the shared support services important?
Most IT services companies offer support services to their customers. Some examples of support services are – network and systems administration, application maintenance, security and compliance, help desk support, and training. In addition to helping their customer base, the shared support services provide profitable revenue streams to IT companies. The pool of resources also provides a valuable experience to the employees. It also cushions the ups and downs in demand for resources needed in billable projects.
Customer support services benefit customers, IT firms, and their employees. Customers get well defined and assured support with escalation features, the IT firms get predictable revenues, and the employees get real world experience.
In what ways shared support service contracts differ from billable projects?
Shared support services are typically annual contracts. Customers raise tickets when they need specific support. The tickets can be handled and closed by a pool of resources with the required skills and competence. Anyone from that pool can get assigned to resolve a particular ticket. One specific employee can deal with tickets raised by different customers in a day. There is no need to allocate resources to customers in advance. It is not even possible. Filling out timesheets can be tedious if the support employees must fill in the time spent servicing each customer.
Such shared services may support several, say 20 or 50, customers simultaneously using a resource pool of tens of employees.
If filling out daily timesheets is tedious, people will make mistakes making the resource utilization data unreliable.
Finally, the profitability of shared support services per customer is not important. It is important to know the overall profitability of the support group.
The allocation and utilization of resources must be done differently in the case of shared support services.
How does ProductDossier PSA help manage shared support services?
ProductDossier PSA doesn’t force you to fit your shared services operations in the workflows of billable projects.
It links all customer support projects to a single program of shared support services. Individual resources can then fill timesheets for tickets or activities without reference to specific customers. It is possible to classify support work into different activities, e.g., issue management, security audit, and on-call support. Their manager can allocate their remaining hours to other programs or specific billable projects. ProductDossier PSA lets you manage resources for billable projects and shared support services in an integrated way.
Related: Resource Allocation for Successful Project Management
Individual customer revenues go into respective support projects according to support contracts, but no costs accrue. All customer service revenues get added to the same single program. Resources hours for support services also get booked to the program through the timesheets. ProductDossier PSA provides P & L of the Shared services program.
ProductDossier PSA lets you manage shared support services in an efficient and effective way. You can track resource utilization, profitability, and SLA compliance without manual workarounds.
Conclusion
ProductDossier PSA software provides an elegant solution for managing shared support services on the same platform that helps deliver billable projects.
ProductDossier PSA provides tools for integrated resource allocation, utilization, and billing management without any workarounds.
