KIMBLE CUSTOMER STORIES
West Monroe Uses Kimble to Forecast with Confidence
Leading digital consulting firm West Monroe began the search for PSA when the organization’s growth trajectory started to outpace the functionality of their home-grown system. While this custom solution initially met the team’s needs, it would not be able to keep up with plans to scale. Today, West Monroe leverages Kimble to build accurate forecasts and manage resources proactively. With Kimble, West Monroe has:
- Improved visibility, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of resourcing data
- Improved accuracy of resource and revenue forecasts
- Increased confidence to make proactive and strategic resourcing decisions
Challenge: Scale Outpaces Home-Grown Solution at West Monroe
West Monroe is an award-winning, US-based, technology consulting firm focused on helping businesses through digital transformations. West Monroe is committed to delivering strategic solutions that drive client profitability and progress.
Before Kimble, West Monroe was using a home-grown PSA to manage and track resources. While the system met the team’s needs when initially built 15 years ago, it was quickly being outpaced by steady growth, increased demand, and increasing project complexities.
There was an overall lack of visibility into resourcing data — which impacted consultants trying to enter time against engagements and managers trying to proactively schedule resources. Additionally, the business recognized they needed a tool that would improve the accuracy of their resource forecasts and confidence in data — they wanted to make strategic business decisions based on up-to-date, accurate, and comprehensive information.
Solution: Kimble PSA Drives Decisions Rooted in Data
West Monroe was already using Salesforce for all sales, engagement, and CRM data, so adopting a PSA that could easily integrate with Salesforce was critical. The fact that Kimble was built on the Salesforce platform and all sales and delivery data could be integrated with ease made Kimble the clear choice for PSA. With Kimble, West Monroe could be sure all data was comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date.
West Monroe began using Kimble PSA in 2018, and have reported significant improvements across key metrics such as utilization, margin, and project profitability. One key impact Kimble has had for West Monroe is improved confidence to make strategic business decisions that are rooted in data. With Kimble, West Monroe was able to successfully scale and optimize their entire resource management process all while improving margin and utilization and growing revenue.
Best Practices Embedded in PSA
Today, West Monroe uses Kimble to enable and encourage project delivery best practices across the entire organization. All 2,000 employees at West Monroe use Kimble for their day-to-day operations. Kimble provides guidance across every step of the project lifecycle — enabling consultants to easily enter time and expenses, project managers to quickly make adjustments, and resource managers to get the best-fit resources onto projects.
Kimble guides users towards the next best step and helps create visibility and accountability throughout the organization. For example, projects that are departing from the plan are highlighted at an early stage and time can only be logged against projects that have actually been assigned to a resource.
Jill Novosel, Director, West Monroe
Complete Visibility into Resource Utilization
With Kimble, West Monroe has complete access to all resourcing data and keeps a close eye on utilization. Detailed visibility into resourcing details such as skills, cost, and location enables West Monroe to quickly make adjustments to improve billable utilization — which has a significant and direct impact on overall revenue.
Kimble makes it simple to get the right resource on the right project, as resource managers have a complete view of who’s on the bench, who’s available, and who would be most likely to deliver a successful project to a satisfied customer — all at the optimal margin. Assigning resources to projects is approached proactively, with two key metrics in mind: utilization and profitability. With Kimble, West Monroe has a complete picture of both sides of the supply and demand equation, setting them up for success when it comes to getting the right resources onto projects.
Jill Novosel, Director, West Monroe
Increased Forecast Accuracy
One of the biggest efficiency gains Kimble has delivered to West Monroe is in resource and revenue forecasting accuracy. With Kimble, decision-makers can be confident that the data fueling these forecasts is accurate and up-to-date.
Kimble makes it easy to see what type of resources will be in demand according to the sales pipeline, and to compare that to the resource forecast to see where there may be gaps. If there are not enough resources to tackle projects, or potentially too many resources for incoming demand, West Monroe is able to manage staffing balance before it’s too late. By approaching these challenges proactively, the team is able to positively impact utilization and profitability.
Jill Novosel, Director, West Monroe
Salesforce-Native Solution
When West Monroe began looking for an enterprise PSA, they wanted to find one that was native to Salesforce. Having already adopted Salesforce as the business’s CRM platform, they wanted to be able to share the data seamlessly in the PSA. Ease of integration between the two platforms was a priority and Kimble being embedded in the Salesforce platform was a key factor in the business’s decision to adopt Kimble PSA. With Kimble, West Monroe is able to seamlessly leverage all existing Salesforce data, providing a complete picture of engagements all the way from sales to reporting.
Jill Novosel, Director, West Monroe
Results
- Optimization of resource management processes
- Comprehensive visibility of resourcing data from the sales pipeline to delivery
- Improved accuracy of resource and revenue forecasts
- Increased confidence to make proactive and strategic resourcing decisions
- Widespread adoption of Kimble best practices as they are baked directly into the product
