Total Economic Impact Study Reveals Kantata Provided $24.5 Million in Benefits to Services Organizations

Kantata, a leading global supplier of purpose-built technology for professional services, today released findings from a commissioned Total Economic Impacttm (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Consulting. The study, commissioned by Kantata in collaboration with Salesforce, revealed that organizations that invest in the Kantata Professional Services Cloud improved billable utilization and back office efficiency, enhanced project margins, and increased profit from better planning, providing a three-year 499% return on investment (ROI).

Forrester interviewed 10 decision-makers at organizations using the Kantata Cloud to obtain data with respect to costs, benefits, and risks associated with their investment in Kantata. Interviewees included leaders representing consulting, software, and technology businesses across the globe. Key challenges the services organizations faced before adopting Kantata included:

• Lack of visibility into resource usage and capacity
• Out-of-date and conflicting data on project profitability
• Inability to scale systems for their growing businesses

From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework that helps organizations considering an investment in Kantata identify the potential financial impact, factoring in cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk. The study finds that a composite organization with 2,500 billable consultants ? representative of the 10 customers that Forrester interviewed ? experienced benefits of $29.5 million against costs of $4.9 million over a three-year period. This correlates to a net present value (NPV) of $24.5 million and 499% ROI. The framework also projects a payback period of less than six months from the launch of Kantata.

In determining the NPV and ROI of Kantata Cloud, Forrester focused on five quantified benefits, including the savings from decommissioned systems. Other quantified benefits attributable to Kantata over a three-year period are:

• Billable utilization improvement worth $10.7M
• Project margin improvement worth $9.8M
• Added revenue from better capacity planning worth $5.2M
• Operational efficiency gains worth $2.7M

When discussing Kantata's benefits, the CFO of a pharmaceutical services company mentioned, "When you're trying to manage resources across 500 projects and 700 people annually, you need to understand where people are spending their time. Our ability to optimize that by just a few percentage points produces a significant improvement to our bottom line."

"Professional services organizations are under constant pressure to optimize productivity and performance, while also using multiple, siloed software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications to manage different aspects of their operations," said Michael Speranza, Kantata CEO. "A single source of truth is essential for professional services organizations because it ensures that everyone within the organization has access to accurate, up-to-date information. The Kantata Cloud offers a more holistic view of the organization's operations and enables managers to make data-driven decisions that elevate operational performance to build a thriving business."

According to the Forrester Consulting study, additional benefits that Kantata customers experience that weren't quantified in the study include higher job satisfaction, more accurate forecasting, improved alignment within and between teams, and flexibility when extending access to partners and vendors. The Kantata Cloud can prioritize multiple factors regarding consultant skills and preferences, and it can facilitate "what-if" scenarios during the assignment process. As a result, consultants and other employees are more likely to be working on projects that fully use their skills, experience, and passions. While this clearly benefits the project team and clients, it also helps to improve morale and reduce turnover in a challenging recruiting market.

Click here to download the full study and see the financial impact the Kantata Professional Services Cloud has on organizations, and click here to learn more about Kantata.

About Kantata:

Kantata takes professional services automation to a new level, giving people-powered businesses the clarity, control, and confidence they need to optimize resource planning and elevate operational performance. Our purpose-built cloud software is helping over 2,000 professional services organizations in more than 100 countries focus and optimize their most important asset: their people. By leveraging the Kantata Cloud for Professional Servicestm, professionals gain access to the information and tools they need to win more business, ensure the right people are always available at the right time, and delight clients with project delivery and outcomes.