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The intensity of global competition in the professional services market has just begun. As the Internet takes its rightful place as the platform for communication and collaboration it also has increased the commoditization and competitiveness in services. This evolution has been profound, and will influence how services will be delivered for years to come. To compete in this changing business environment many organizations have adopted integrated information platforms to gain enterprise visibility and improve operational efficiency. The vision for intelligent information integration is to provide the necessary decision support to effectively compete and win in the marketplace. Service Performance Insight (SPI Research) spent two months surveying and interviewing 14 professional services organizations (PSOs) that have adopted Epicor Software Corporation's "Epicor for Service Enterprises" business solution to better understand the changing market dynamics, why they selected Epicor and the benefits Epicor for Service Enterprises has and will provide their organizations to effectively compete in the dynamic services marketplace.
On average, these global organizations had about 1,350 resources and billed approximately $170 million annually ? putting these PSOs squarely in the midmarket. The organizations surveyed grew revenues approximately 16% over the past year, which is more than double the 6.5% five-year annualized growth of the industry. Part of this growth has been organic, however, a number of these firms have been involved in acquisitions, which has increased their need for a comprehensive information strategy. Epicor for Service Enterprises showed benefits in a number of areas that will be discussed later in this paper.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM
The competitive climate for Professional Services Organizations has changed significantly since the turn of the 21st Century. The effects associated with the changing geopolitical environment, business and regulatory climate, and economic globalization have created both opportunities and challenges for PSOs as they try to adjust to meet the new demands for services around the world. Clients now demand greater and more demonstrable value for their investment dollar, and they want it faster and of higher quality than ever before. Factor in that these clients also want real-time information, 24-by-7 support, and are not willing to pay excessively for it, and there is little doubt why PSOs have had to change business models to meet these new challenges. Respondents to this survey echoed these sentiments and showed how changes in the economic picture change their priorities. These organizations were asked to rate the issues about which they had the greatest concern on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most critical).
Several firms stated that they had seen consolidation among their competition. In the past they might have seen four to six main competitors, but now only see two. With these changes, their newly consolidated competition tends to be much bigger and better funded. This situation has forced these organizations to more rapidly implement their own merger and acquisition strategies ? increasing the necessity for a standardized application infrastructure. Much of this growth has enabled them to offer both increased breadth and depth to their services strategy.
Epicor for Service Enterprises has helped several of the firms to grow operations internationally by offering one standard solution without the need for application integration. The solution provides standardized toolkits that made customer deployments much cleaner. Some of these PSOs have had to change business models, requiring more fixed time/bid engagements, necessitating the need for greater predictability in operations, something Epicor for Service Enterprises has helped provide.
Working in a Global Economy
Only 55% of the PSOs surveyed had their workforce located in North America, showing the growing distribution of resources globally. Respondents of the survey were a reflection of the marketplace in that these organizations are rapidly expanding overseas and are creating new business models to better capture and maintain market share as they expand. Survey respondents were particularly concerned about increased executive liability given certain regulatory requirements. These requirements necessitate the need for more timely and transparent information. Information integration to their financial systems, or lack thereof, appears to be a source of much concern to these executives, especially as they increase the global scope of services. These organizations also have concerns associated with the speed at which they can complete and invoice work.
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