As SoftwareONE evolved from a solution provider to a global digital services consulting firm, one thing became apparent: the company needed a project management solution for its approximately 1,000 technical project consultants located in 90 different countries.
“We had a lot of process and not enough automation,” Hanno Swanepoel, Director of Global Service Delivery at SoftwareONE, describes the situation. “We needed to reduce redundancies and manual processes, make it easier for global service leaders to locate specific skills and share resources across project teams, and build a central knowledge base that team leaders could use to help manage all projects.”
Time recording and booking approval was one of the areas where automation was lacking. These tasks were not only time-consuming but also error-prone.
The company decided to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation (PSA), which would enable it to use its global talent pool more efficiently and profitably, and complete projects faster and at lower cost. PSA would provide a central platform for all offices worldwide and be scalable as the company continued to grow.
Implementation within a few months
SoftwareONE, following a recommendation from Microsoft, chose proMX as a partner for the implementation of PSA. Deployment and optimization of the system happened in two phases within a few months. By early 2019, the solution started to go live in 50 countries.
In June, the sales app Dynamics 365 Sales was added to the project management solution.
SoftwareONE also uses Microsoft Power BI to consolidate and visualize data from PSA, simplifying monthly reporting, analytics and, ultimately, decision-making.
Result: Consistent project management worldwide
With PSA and Sales, SoftwareONE can now allocate its resources to projects globally, efficiently track expenses, evaluate costs and pricing, as well as make more informed decisions. As a result, it can offer consistent global services and project delivery.
“Dynamics 365 offers visibility into the skill sets and availability of your people everywhere, so you can more easily share resources across the organization,” says Swanepoel.
Much to the delight of the customers: “This provides us with consistency of execution, for every project all over the world – whether it’s in Mexico or the Philippines. And that has a direct impact on customer satisfaction.”