Top 10 Ways to Optimize Your Firm’s Performance in 2018 and Beyond

February 14, 2018

Welcome to Today’s WebcastTop 10 Ways to Optimize Your Firm’s Performance in 2018 and Beyond

andyy@saglobal.com

Public

infrastructure

funding

uncertainty

Growth pressures

Evolving

contracting

structures

Lack of pricing

power

The war for talent Digital disruptors

Mixed realitydesign

The Internetof Things (IOT)

PredictiveIntelligence

Digital services(DAM, market

intelligence, etc.)

Data andanalytics Collaboration

Mobility

Digital Disruptors in

the A/E/C Industry

Social for the Enterprise

67Years

25Years

15Years

The time to adapt to disruptions is shrinking

Source: BBC

A hundred years ago, the average lifespan of a

company listed on the S&P 500 index was 67 years

75% of the S&P 500 will be new

(not on the index today)

25% of the S&P 500 will

be ones on the index today

In the 2020s…

In A/E/C, only 60% of the 20 largest firms in the ENR 500 from 5 years ago are still on the list!

1. Update your 5-year strategic plan

2. Get your finance and administrative house in order

3. Evaluate your portfolio of service offerings

4. Create a differentiated marketing strategy

5. Update your marketing database

6. Build a differentiated talent strategy

7. Formalize your firm’s business intelligence strategy

8. Put (enterprise) social platforms to work for you

9. Be a technology leader – not a laggard

10. Empower your employees with the latest technologies

The Impacts of Digital Transformation in A/E/CLeverage disruptive technologies to reimagine how your firm can:

customers

service offerings operations

employees

• Benchmark and measure key financial metrics• Revenue forecasts

• Expense budgets

• Net income / Operating profit

• Cash flow - Average days to collect or DSO

• Financial ratios (Current ratio, Debt-to-Equity ratio, Return-on-Equity ratio, etc.)

• Cash is king - find new ways to optimize cash flow• Expedited time and billing processes

• Expedited invoice review and approvals

• More active cash flow monitoring

• Evaluate back office processes for automation and optimization• Project and Client setup optimization – automate from integration from CRM system?

• Billing automation – streamline invoice processing, approvals

• AP pass-through automation – automate document capture, coding, and routing

2 – Get Your Finance and Admin House in OrderAP Pass-Through Invoice Automation

• Perform a competitive evaluation• What services are your closest competitors offering to

be unique?

• What services do you need to offer to be successful in your market?

• Leading firms are:• Leveraging disruptive technologies to differentiate the

client engagement experience

• Offering new data-driven service offerings to be unique

• How can you leverage big data/advanced intelligence/IoT to offer new services?

Vertical and Value-Chain Integration in the Provider Market

Owner-Driven Innovations for Shorter Project Schedules and Risk Allocation

Traditional Construction Lifecycle

Architect-led Design-Build

Estimation & Construction ManagementDesign

Design-Build & CM At-Risk Maintain/Operate

CM At-Risk (with GMP)

Design-Build Contract

Design-Build Maintain & Operate Agreement

Build Maintain & Operate

• Perform a competitive evaluation• What services are your closest competitors offering to

be unique?

• What services do you need to offer to be successful in your market?

• Leading firms are:• Leveraging disruptive technologies to differentiate the

client engagement experience

• Offering new data-driven service offerings to be unique

• How can you leverage big data/advanced intelligence/IoT to offer new services?

3 – Evaluate Your Portfolio of Service OfferingsFour Ways Smart, Technology-Driven Firms are Using Big Data

Monitoring sensor data for structural integrity

RFID data for equipment and materials tracking

Field data collection

Project and safety risk mitigation

3 – Evaluate Your Portfolio of Service OfferingsLeveraging Data to Drive New Services

• Take a walk down the client journey with your firm• Look for ways to differentiate your offerings

• How do you attract new clients and win pursuits?• Strong client relationships?

• Unique project experience?

• Differentiated service offerings?

• Better marketing execution?

• Distinctive client experience?

• Use predictive insights to focus on the right pursuits

• Optimize your marketing/BD process (steps, gates, go/no-go, etc.) to win more business

Leading firms are:✓ Actively performing win/loss analyses

✓ Performing competitive assessments

✓ Automating proposal generation

✓ Deploying next-generation CRM tools that improve business development execution

• Take a walk down the client journey with your firm• Look for ways to differentiate your offerings

• How do you attract new clients and win pursuits?• Strong client relationships?

• Unique project experience?

• Differentiated service offerings?

• Better marketing execution?

• Distinctive client experience?

• Use predictive insights to focus on the right pursuits

• Optimize your marketing/BD process (steps, gates, go/no-go, etc.) to win more business

Leading firms are:✓ Actively performing win/loss analyses

✓ Performing competitive assessments

✓ Automating proposal generation

✓ Deploying next-generation CRM tools that improve business development execution

•Proactively answer key questions:

•Who knows who?

•Who have we worked with?

•What have we done with them?

• Identify higher probability opportunities based on opportunity health

•Quickly pinpoint trouble spots and who needs the most attention

• System-driven pursuit checkpoints:

✓ Relationships

✓ Qualifications

✓ Cost of pursuit

✓ Profitability analysis

✓ Risk analysis

• System driven Go/No-Go decisions

• Client and prospect lists

• Contacts and connections

• Project history and qualifications

• Employee experience and resumes

• Supplier/contractor database and documentation

• Create a differentiated experience throughout your employment lifecycle• Recruiting / candidate engagement

• Onboarding

• Employment

• Termination

• Infuse HR with a marketing attitude

• Minimize costly attrition

6 - Develop a Differentiated Talent StrategyInfuse marketing into your recruiting strategies

6 - Develop a Differentiated Talent StrategyCreate a unique candidate engagement experience

• Retention strategies:

• Employee development plans

• Goal setting

• Appraisals

• Feedback loop

• Training plans

• Succession planning

6 – Develop a Differentiated Talent StrategyMinimize costly attrition

• Average attrition:

• Voluntary = 5.6%

• Involuntary = 4.7%

• Identify your firm’s most critical KPIs

• Build a strategy to harvest data and calculate key measures• Where will the data come from?

• How will we calculate key measures?

• Empower employees • Broadcast KPIs

• Create dashboards

• Disseminate, disseminate, disseminate

Identify Trends

Support Business

Decisions

Drive Accountability

Benchmark vs. Peers

Backlog

Bid-to-Win Ratio

Pipeline vs.

Bookings

Revenue per

Employee

Billable

Utilization

Bill Rates

Achieved

Multiplier

Average A/R

Collection Days

Revenue

(Growth)

Operating Profit

(EBIT)

Financial Ratios

Staff Turnover

(Attrition)

Staff Ratios

Headcount

Business

DevelopmentPeopleFinancial

Service

Delivery

On-Time Project

Delivery

Average Project

Overrun

Review your firm’s strategic goals over

next 3-5 years

Identify key metrics that will drive

achievement of goals

Are you currently tracking these

metrics?

Can your current systems calculate and

report on these metrics?

Measure, measure, measure (and

disseminate)!

• Enterprise social technologies are delivering significant value to organizations• Social is not just a consumer tool anymore

• Monitor social properties to understand what’s happening with your clients and projects• Better anticipate their needs

• Be more responsive than competing firms

• Use social listening to auto-generate and route marketing leads

• Use social listening to auto-generate and route service cases

• Use LinkedIn to build connections and communicate with clients

• Leverage social engagement platforms

• Monitor social activity from popular social platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.).

• Build social profiles of your clients to better anticipate needs

• Identify and create leads in CRM systems from social media posts

8 – Put (Enterprise) Social to Work for You Social Listening in Marketing

• Analyze social sentiment to proactively address customer service hotspots

• Auto-create customer service cases based on social activity

8 – Put (Enterprise) Social to Work for You Sentiment Analysis and Customer Service

• Explore contacts and relationships to build new connections

• Target personalized offerings through integrated content creation and sharing

• Leverage embedded analytics to understand customer behavior and content response

• Integrate with leading CRM systems for consolidated view of connections, communications, and activity

What tools and capabilities are required to meet strategic objectives?

Technical applications strategy (CAD, BIM, Document mgmt., DAM, etc.)

Business applications strategy (Accounting, Project Mgmt, CRM, HCM)

Productivity systems

Mobile strategy

Infrastructure > Cloud strategy

Required IT skills and capabilities

• The cloud provides much more than just a place where your software systems are hosted

Advanced intelligence tools

Predictive analytics / AI

Internet of Things (IoT)

Business continuity strategy

Computing scale and elasticity

Security and compliance

• Access to today’s latest technologies

• Pervasive access to tools and information • Self-service everything

• Mobile everything

• Collaboration throughout your business• Marketing/business development

• Design processes

• Project execution process

• Timesheets

• Expense reports

• Workflow approvals

• Project plans

• Reporting and BI

• HR self-service

• Resume/experience updates

• Pay stubs

• Benefits

• Compensation details

• Performance information

10 – Empower Your EmployeesWith “self-service everything”

10 – Empower Your EmployeesWith “mobile everything”

Expense CaptureTime Entry Contractor Invoice Approvals

Customer Invoice Approvals

CRM

• Use Teams and Groups to easily collaborate across focused teams

• Automatically spawn collaboration groups from CRM

• Embed email, calendars, Yammer feeds, SharePoint sites, and OneNote documents into CRM pursuits

• Easily invite internal and external parties to collaborate on pursuits, proposals and projects!

10 – Empower Your EmployeesCollaboration Using Office 365 Groups and Teams

1. Update your 5-year strategic plan

2. Get your finance and administrative house in order

3. Evaluate your portfolio of service offerings

4. Create a differentiated marketing strategy

5. Update your marketing database

6. Build a differentiated talent strategy

7. Formalize your firm’s business intelligence strategy

8. Put (enterprise) social platforms to work for you

9. Be a technology leader – not a laggard

10. Empower your employees with the latest technologies

andyy@saglobal.com

Thank You!