Optimus SBR Improves Forecasting Horizon by 50% with Kantata
Industry
Company
What Kantata Replaced
Headquarters
The Challenge
In the early years of operating the business, the Optimus SBR team used spreadsheets for project and resource management. In 2011, Optimus SBR merged three companies into one, growing the team to 35 members, which was manageable but there were limitations. In 2013 the company adopted a timesheet management system and a project portfolio management solution in 2017. However, the rapidly growing company outgrew these assorted software tools and its ability to support them. These outdated solutions created several challenges that Optimus SBR needed to overcome with a new project management solution, including:
Forecasting Challenges
The team was unable to create a real time revenue forecast from the old systems to better understand what future financial performance could be. Despite the data needed to create a forecast being present in their systems, Optimus SBR was unable to easily forecast with the available reporting functions.
Difficult Data Analysis
In order to analyze the data generated from their projects, managers had to manually extract data and create their own forms. This resulted in a cumbersome and time-consuming process for the management team. “There were too many workarounds in play and we knew there had to be a better way,” said Oliver Mexner, Manager at Optimus SBR.
Optimus SBR is one of the largest independently owned professional services firms in North America, with a focus on providing customized advisory services to leading firms and organizations of all sizes. Optimus SBR is an execution focused firm, and has a long track-record of delivering game-changing results for clients in the Financial Services, Government & Broader Public Sector, Health Care, Social Sector, Transportation, Energy, Travel and other industries.
“We had requirements we could no longer match using spreadsheets and data manually extrapolated from our project portfolio management system. We needed visibility into our business through real-time data that was easily accessible and at our fingertips.”
Manager, Optimus SBR
The Solution
The challenges being experienced by the Optimus SBR team with legacy systems meant that a new solution needed to be implemented to support the ongoing success of a growing organization. As such, Optimus SBR began to look for a new solution that could support the company far into the future. During the search for a new project management system, the Optimus SBR team looked at five other potential solutions, but none were as complete as what Kantata offered. In the end, Optimus SBR chose Kantata for several critical capabilities, including:
Real-Time Revenue Forecasting
Being able to forecast future revenue and determine what was impacting margins for the company was critical for Optimus SBR to understand how to move forward with projects. Forecasting financial downturns or predicting increased opportunities were essential for helping the organization make informed decisions.
Resource Forecasting
Given that Optimus SBR relies on using the highly specialized skills of each of its team members to provide crucial support to every client, managers were in need of resource forecasting capabilities that let them see future availability for successful planning and project staffing, which was made possible through Kantata.
Insights Reporting
Years of business consulting projects in a wide variety of fields gave Optimus SBR critical data on project performance, team skills, and client satisfaction, but without the ability to create deep insights. Kantata Insights reporting gave the business an enhanced data analysis structure it needed to find greater success.
Kantata offered everything we were looking for. We could picture how using this system would make our lives easier and would improve our ability to run our business.”
Manager, Optimus SBR
Benefits
- Improved forecasting
- Improved timesheet compliance
- Enabled completely-remote work delivery
- Enabled data-driven hiring decisions
Improvement in forecasting horizon
Timesheet entry adoption
The Results
Supporting the Entire Company
Today, everyone at Optimus SBR uses Kantata for timesheet entries. Project managers plan, schedule resources, and prepare invoices through Kantata while the accounting department performs financial project audits and generates client invoices. Senior leadership uses revenue and resource forecasting reports and the administrative team creates audit reports using time entries and billing.
Informed Decisions for Stronger Teams
Optimus SBR uses Kantata to support its hiring decisions and human resources department. Using Kantata for forecasting, the team can determine which upcoming unconfirmed projects will most likely happen so they can staff them effectively. The result is an organization that can consistently stay on top of its continual project needs.
Insights for Future Success
With Kantata, the Optimus SBR team has experienced the benefits of being able to have real-time access to the forecast, making it easier for senior leaders to understand what they need to do today to accommodate changes in future business opportunities. In addition, Optimus SBR has also gained a 50% increase to resource planning foresight, helping the company make the necessary changes for a constantly shifting industry.
“Kantata was really what we were looking for. Kantata provided us with insights and visibility into our business. The Insights reports and ability to slice and dice data, as well as its user friendliness, was a major help for our organization.”
Manager, Optimus SBR