Total Economic Impact Study Reveals Kimble Delivers 489% Return on Investment to Services Organizations
BOSTON, MA & LONDON, UK — APRIL 28, 2021
Kimble Applications, a leading provider of cloud-based professional services automation (PSA) solutions, today released findings from a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Consulting. The study, commissioned by Kimble in collaboration with Salesforce, revealed that organizations that invest in Kimble PSA experience a 489% three-year return on investment (ROI).
Forrester interviewed six decision-makers at organizations using Kimble PSA to obtain data with respect to costs, benefits, and risks associated with their investment in Kimble. Interviewees included leaders representing consulting, software, technology, and recruiting businesses across the globe.
From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester constructed a Total Economic Impact™ framework that helps organizations considering an investment in Kimble identify the potential financial impact, factoring in cost, benefit, flexibility, and risk. The study finds that a 5,000 employee composite organization — representative of the six Kimble customers that Forrester interviewed — experiences benefits of $24.7 million against costs of $4.2 million over a three year period. This correlates to a net present value (NPV) of $20.5 million and 489% return on investment (ROI). The framework also projects a payback period of less than six months from the launch of Kimble.
Kimble CEO Sean Hoban said,
“The findings in the Total Economic Impact of Kimble study will be invaluable for organizations looking to optimize their end-to-end project delivery journeys. We’ve been hearing from our customers how essential Kimble has been to their success and growth, and that has been reflected in leading results on peer-to-peer review sites like G2. The ability to easily quantify the benefit Kimble is delivering to customers, as well as the value it is able to drive for businesses, means professional services leaders will be able to more effectively build the case for investing in a PSA solution to help them overcome the challenges that hinder profitability, scalability, and client success.”
In the study, Forrester highlights the key challenges services organizations face before adopting Kimble, including:
- Limited visibility in resourcing and revenue forecasting
- Inconsistent and time-consuming time entry for billable consultants
- Disintegrated operational systems that were not easy to scale
One interviewee, a Director of Business Operations at an education technology business reported: “The previous system we had was cumbersome to use. In addition, it required multiple people to manage and maintain the system.”
Interviewed customers indicated that Kimble PSA replaces several disintegrated systems, enabling the business to redeploy three admin resources onto other IT priorities and recognize nearly $1.94 million in savings from decommissioned systems. A Senior Director of Services Operations at a technology business told the Forrester Consulting team:
“With Kimble, we don’t have to administer several other systems, so we can keep the same size of operational team but double the delivery team.”
In determining the Net Present Value and ROI of Kimble PSA, Forrester focused on four quantified benefits, including the savings from decommissioned systems. Other quantified benefits attributable to Kimble over a three-year period are:
- Billable utilization improvement worth $12.3M
- Project margin improvement worth $4.1M
- Operational efficiency gains worth $6.4M
Kimble customers interviewed by Forrester reported that they had improved the efficiency of financial cycle closing by 50% after adopting the solution. The efficiency of consultant administrative tasks like time and expense entry improved by 75%. And the businesses were able to improve billable utilization of resources by 10% and increase overall project margins by 8%.
According to the study,
“After the investment in Kimble and other change management initiatives, customers experienced better visibility into revenue and resources to achieve higher project margins and billable resource utilization. The streamlined processes and user-friendly interface increased operational efficiency for billable and non-billable resources.”
When asked why they chose to adopt Kimble, one common response among interviewees was the solution’s ability to integrate with Salesforce.
“Kimble is not just an operational service, but a fully connected workflow from opportunity management, straight through project resolution”reported a Head of Service Delivery at an IT Consulting business who was interviewed for the study.
Kimble is built natively on the Salesforce platform, and the Total Economic Impact study from Forrester can better help businesses understand the benefits of adopting a Salesforce-native PSA solution.
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