By Randy Cole, Senior Vice President of Professional Services, NeoSystems

Professional services are multifaceted. They help integrate systems, build new processes, introduce modern technology to operations, and reinvent and improve technology that is already enabling  operations.

The enterprise consists of many moving parts. Each day numerous transactions, both financial and non-financial take place. These transactions rely on people, processes, and resources that act in unison to drive  and shape business operations.

The conundrum, however, is that business leaders are ensconced in such operations and do not always have the time, knowledge, and insight to expand and improve their business.  This inhibits their ability make it fully compliant, efficient, and at acceptable standards of quality that meet customer expectations.

To achieve success in a business means adapting well to the environment in which you operate, and managing the processes and requirements imposed by the environment and your customers. 

Professional services provided by a third party can assist in unraveling this challenge and help the many moving parts to operate efficiently. They bring an "outsider" perspective that is often missing inside an organization.

Here are four ways that professional services can provide you and your business with the necessary tools for companies to efficiently and effectively manage your business processes:

1. Regulatory Compliance - Depending on your business, the regulatory landscape can be overwhelming. This can be proliferated by industries that are highly regulated such as those in the public sector - especially those with federal systems and clients. Other industries such as banking and finance, transportation, construction, and healthcare - all have austere regulatory compliance standards to which they must adhere.

Such compliance can be daunting and overwhelming. The litany of regulatory requirements - for example in federal acquisition - often require a dedicated focus and insight to achieve and maintain compliance. Add to this, the fact that the regulatory requirements change often, have new regulations frequently added, and often require definitive actions within a tight timeframe. Failure to comply can have dire consequences.

Working with a professional services firm (who has expert knowledge and experience into your regulatory environment) adds notable value that would be unachievable should you approach compliance alone.

2. Improve Efficiency - Inefficiencies within a business process, in a demanding business environment, can be the Achilles heel that prevents a firm from achieving its goals and objectives.

Consider efficiency to be output relative to input. When the input becomes clouded and obfuscated with clunky processes that absorb time, cost, and labor, the outputs will never meet the mark. The problem becomes more pronounced when an enterprise strives to find the inefficiencies from their own vantage point.

An outside third-party professional service firm not only brings fresh insight to an operation, but also industry leading practices they have refined and built from approaching efficiency in numerous scenarios, across many different businesses, in different industries and operations.

3. Boost Quality - Quality is king. A business may operate, but if the product or service produced is of inferior quality, they will face grave consequences as customers will not stand for quality that does not meet your standards or theirs.

Again, firms miss quality glitches, and become nearsighted to inferior quality because they are accustomed to outputs that may hide quality deficiencies; day-to-day glitches become opaque.

Enter a third-party professional services firm and you add a new set of skills and perspectives with a sharp eye for detail and factors that influence quality or serve to degrade it. As with efficiency, a professional services firm brings knowledge of leading practices, common quality glitches, and a heap of experience that can bring the insight regarding quality that just cannot be conjured from within the organization itself.

4. Add Fidelity to Reporting Capabilities - Accountability has become a staple of modern business operations. Such accountability is often heightened in certain industries and business environments that demand it by requiring business reporting.

This may entail reporting on metrics and measures related to compliance. Or it may be financial and accounting reporting - or for that matter, any established standard that incorporates and requires regular reporting for internal or regulatory purposes.

Simple reporting is seldom enough. The reporting must have accuracy and fidelity that provides credence to the report. Such credence means extracting the proper information, from the proper place, and with integrity.

A business that is self-reliant on building such reporting integrity stands at a disadvantage as many things can go wrong; improper data and data sources make reporting prone to error. Add to this the fact that ordinarily there is little to no tolerance for mishaps - and not much margin of error.

Conversely, commissioning a professional services firm to assist in establishing and implementing reporting capabilities, affords the benefit of lessons learned from like-kind organizations, and brings the experience needed to uplift the reporting to be reliable and trustworthy.

Summarily, a professional services firm brings the acuity of an outside agent, with experience, insight and expertise, to help you help your customers, constituents, and those you serve, rise to a new level that meets the success you strive to achieve.

##

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Randy Cole is Senior Vice President of Professional Services for NeoSystems, a full-service IT integrator, managed services and cloud provider. He has more than 30 years of multi-faceted experience providing a strong financial and technical perspective. As the Professional Services lead for NeoSystems, Randy works to deliver services including system design and implementation, integration, and optimization of ERP software solutions. Previous to joining NeoSystems, Randy held a wide range of roles at Deltek during his 15-year tenure including Vice President in the Software Engineering organization as well as Managing Director for Sales, Services, and Account Management. Randy holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree in Finance from East Carolina University.