Work management industry’s most robust suite of capabilities for client service delivery workflows enables accelerated, intelligent decision making and drives revenue, profit, and customer delight
Wrike, the most intelligent work management platform, announced new features that enable work to flow seamlessly for professional services teams, including marketing consultants and agencies, management consulting, IT Services, and architecture, engineering, and construction firms. Wrike for Professional Services now offers sweeping updates that power each stage of the client service delivery (CSD) workflow, including advanced capacity and resource planning, timesheet approvals, dashboard templates for reporting, and ERP integrations to streamline billing. These updates make Wrike the only work management platform with the versatility to support all contract types, billing models, and delivery methods. Together, Wrike is streamlining efficiency for professional services teams by consolidating resource management, time tracking, and project execution into one cohesive platform.
Work can’t be compartmentalized. It needs freedom to flow. We now completely streamline the entire client service delivery workflow, from project scoping to billing.
“When we were reassessing our CSD capabilities, we talked to a number of professional services teams about their biggest pain points, and it always came down to workflow inefficiencies that were eating into their margins and inhibiting growth,” says Thomas Scott, CEO, Wrike. “Teams are still spread thin across disparate tools and systems, which creates barriers and makes work complex and time consuming. Work can’t be compartmentalized. It needs freedom to flow. We now completely streamline the entire client service delivery workflow, from project scoping to billing. Our customers are excited about the new features we’re rolling out.”
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Professional services teams are struggling with a lack of pipeline visibility, difficulties with estimations, unpredictable capacity planning, challenging resource management, poor or delayed insight into project health/progress/financials, and even employee morale. Work is often fragmented across multiple teams and systems, wasting time and resources, disrupting decision making, and reducing high-ROI outcomes. Wrike research found that nearly 60% of professional services workers would like to use fewer software applications to do their jobs, and 83% say that a single source of truth will help them achieve results.
To address these challenges, Wrike is introducing new features that bring all stages of the CSD workflow into Wrike, allowing teams to focus on the most impactful work, increase utilization, grow revenue, increase profit, and improve staff and client satisfaction. Capabilities include:
Intelligent skills management and advanced resource planning
Available now to all Pinnacle customers, this functionality enables users to plan capacity and manage resources based on skills, location, language, and other attributes. With insights provided in customized user fields, Wrike will suggest the best assignee based on matching skills and availability. Professional services leaders can then effectively staff projects and reduce burnout by assigning the right task to the right team member at the right time. Leaders can also identify and address skills gaps and training needs to build out their team’s abilities.
Timesheet approvals
Available now in Wrike Labs, timesheet approvals was one of the most requested features from Wrike’s professional services customers. Users get an all-in-one overview of their team’s timesheets and can review, approve, and lock timesheets to prepare for monthly billing or payroll. Timesheet approvals is designed to drive time-tracking accountability and compliance by preventing unexpected changes and preserving data for accurate reporting and financial tracking.
Dashboard templates for professional services teams
Recently released dashboard templates help professional services teams quickly and easily visualize their data and project metrics so they can optimize performance based on multi-dimensional, real-time insights. New quick-start templates include utilization, client and project profitability, and team productivity reporting.
ERP integrations
To synchronize projects and accounting and streamline CSD workflows across multiple systems, Wrike is rolling out three new enterprise resource planning integrations, including Intuit QuickBooks, Oracle NetSuite, and Microsoft Dynamics 365. The Intuit QuickBooks integration, available now, simplifies the synchronization of time entries in Wrike with financial data in Intuit QuickBooks for invoicing and financial reporting. Additional ERP integrations help scale operations and ensure data accuracy by integrating Wrike with popular systems used by professional services teams.
“The powerful combination of these new features is a complete game changer for services providers,” continues Scott. “Wrike helps teams smooth out the kinks in their workflows and eliminate friction, which will increase profits, free up resources for more impactful work, improve the client experience, accelerate time to value, and provide a competitive edge through efficiency.”
Hear from our customers:
“Wrike improves our time to value and customer satisfaction by creating greater efficiency with the project manager, which makes them more effective with their customers.” – Neal McCoy, Senior Director Professional Services, BigCommerce
“We struggled to see capacity and forecast when we needed to bring in extra resources. Wrike has allowed us to manage the team in a very simplified way.” – G2 Crowd review
“With greater clarity, speed, and accountability in managing our projects, we can easily reallocate resources to work on different projects that are critical to the success of our organizations. Being able to optimize project time, we save on average ~20% per project. A significant cost reduction when multiplied by 50 projects each year.” – Kelly Maier, Project Manager, R&D and Continuous Innovation, Arvig
“We’ve eliminated so many manual, paper tasks and processes with Wrike.” – Cassidy Pillow, Senior Manager, Client Services Operations, Granicus
“The ability to set up custom dashboards so that employees know what to work on that day, with tasks grouped into widgets customized for our processes and workflows keeps us running efficiently.” – G2 Crowd review
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