Being in the professional services sector myself for almost a decade, I know first-hand how hard it is to find the right balance between working and making time for your personal life. The need to be always ‘on’ just becomes the norm. Checking and answering e-mails outside of the normal working hours, researching things at home once the kids were in bed to stay ahead because there just wasn’t enough hours in the day. Luckily for me, my previous employer didn’t expect this of me – I always wanted to make sure I was doing my absolute best – but there is always pressure in the world of professional services because there are so many elements to keeping business flowing. I know many can relate to coming back from the office, running a household and then logging back on late at night to try and get some additional work errands boxed off.
Manual data input downfalls
Specifically in the world of mergers and acquisitions, a large proportion of your time is spent speaking to clients, buyers, institutional investors, and such like. A variety of e-mails, phone and Teams calls eat into your day and before you know it, it’s lunch time and you’re scratching your head wondering where the last four hours went. Then there’s the dreaded realisation of the administration tasks that need to be logged for each action and interaction you’ve had that morning (ours wasn’t autonomous at the time), which meant manually inputting. You could be as organised and methodical as a chess champ, planning your entire game out for a variety of different scenarios, there is always one opponent who throws that unexpected curve ball move, and it throws your game completely. Having a solution that can eradicate manual data input would have saved us hours each week in our department alone and allowed us to focus more on delivering better outcomes.
Having a CRM solution that works for its users is worth its weight in gold. Team morale is often lower when the team is responsible for manually inputting data. And it’s not a case of people being lazy, it’s frustration at having to spend time doing something when you know your time is best spent elsewhere to accelerate business.
Finance teams in professional service centric businesses that manually input data lose on average 500 hours annually – astonishing, isn’t it? That’s almost 3 weeks spent not getting to know customers and wasted keystroking. And we all know there is a high risk of error when it comes to manually inputting data, which is further increased when you’re working longer hours to get things done.
Flexible working
As we all know, flexible working is now normal practice and, facilitating flexible working successfully for roles that can be fulfilled remotely or flexibly, requires reliable and robust IT. Nowadays, I work pretty much fully remote, and I can log on and off whenever I like, I can access everything I need from my home office space. It means I can do the school runs, make my hours work a little more efficiently around my personal responsibilities. The flexible work pattern keeps morale high, enthusiasm and passion for what I do as high as it was on my very first day.
Let me bring it back to the technical and commercial benefits of flexible working. Technically, having all the good stuff like cloud-based applications, secure access to systems for remote working and analytics and performance management tools means that professional services businesses can support remote workers efficiently. All of which result in a bounteous cascade of commercial benefits such as, improved employment satisfaction, retention and even attracting new talent from wider geographical talent pools. Cost saving is notable too, as business expenses are lower overall when workforces are enabled to be flexible. Flexibility in work schedules allows employees to work during their most productive hours and in environments that suit them best. This can lead to increased productivity and efficiency in completing tasks. Flexibility in work arrangements also enables businesses to adapt quickly to changing market conditions and customer demands, enhancing overall business agility.
In layman’s terms, by leveraging the benefits of flexible working through appropriate technology, professional services businesses can create a more productive, adaptable, and employee-centric work environment, which contributes to their overall success and growth in a competitive market. Just as importantly, it provides staff with a better work-life balance. Of course, not all roles are able to be fulfilled remotely or flexibly, so it’s important to really evaluate role requirements.
The agility balancing act
Understandably, the right solution isn’t as simple as a ‘one for all’. I mean, the Professional Services sector spans so many different businesses – for some, flexible work patterns may not be as easy to offer. However, the bottom line is that businesses need to be more agile, for employees and customers. IT plays a pivotal role in successfully becoming agile and of course, is crucial where flexible working is concerned.
Have a chat with us to discuss how we can make your business more agile.