The Professional Services Pursuit

We are excited to bring you another episode of Professional Services Pursuit! This time, Christine Dunham, Senior Director of People Development and Culture at Kantata, joins us to talk enthusiastically about managing company culture, what has been lost and gained in moving to remote work, how to create a collective culture and tools that company leaders can utilize to enhance employee experience.

Other topics include:

• Christine’s background and how she ended up in people development
• Some of the most critical elements we have lost in a remote work environment
• The importance of a “north star” (shared vision and goals) and how to guide your organization in a remote environment
• Tools leaders can use to drive employee engagement
• How to drive growth and development initiatives
• Developing a culture of feedback

Find out more information by visiting us at https://www.kantata.com/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode Brent is joined by the ‘Father of PSA’ and Managing Director at Service Performance Insight (SPI), Dave Hofferberth. They dive into some of the professional services performance trends uncovered by the SPI PS Maturity Benchmark survey and PS End User survey and how organizations can use this research to improve their business. 

Other topics covered include:

• The dimensions of SPI’s research
• How to determine where to focus to see the biggest returns 
• Labor and revenue metrics
• The impact of involuntary attrition 
• The remote service delivery trend and how to streamline the hiring process
• How technology impacts your people, process and bottom line

For more information on the surveys visit the SPI website. The 2023 Maturity Benchmark survey will be released on February 8th. 

Click here to download the 2022 Professional Services End User Survey

Click here to download the 2022 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joining us on this week's podcast is Marc Lacroix from RTM Consulting. Banoo and Marc dive into some of the biggest issues holding companies back from effective forecasting, skills management and the root cause of ineffective data? Find out more on this episode of Professional Services Pursuit!

The key topics covered include:

• The biggest factors holding companies back from doing effective forecasting
• How to set PM’s up for success with improved data quality
• The importance of a skills databases that ties to your sales process
• Marc’s do’s and don'ts for maintaining an effective skills database
• Macro trends in resource management
• Moving less from custom services to more packaged and templated services
• Key results of the 2023 RMI Forecasting survey

The Resource Management Institute's first research survey on forecasting can be found at www.resourcemanagementinstitute.com. To access it for free, you just have to register to be part of the RMI community which provides  newsletters, research, events and more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of The Professional Services Pursuit, we celebrate the one year anniversary of Kantata by having our CEO, Michael Speranza, back on the show. Brent and Michael discuss his experiences over the past year, the challenges he's seen the industry face and the trends and predictions he's seeing moving into 2023.

Other topics include:

• Insight into what clients are struggling with on a daily basis
• Some assumptions Michael had going into the role of CEO about the industry and market that were either confirmed or surprised him 
• The opposing forces, challenges and trends Michael predicts for 2023
• The critical changes to business fundamentals that will lead to success in 2023
• Rebalancing and refocusing revenue vs. cost
• Michaels top 3 tips to leading an organization during challenging times

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• How to create an excellent journey and why relying on “hero’s” is not sustainable 
• The importance of flexibility within repeatable processes 
• Considerations in designing processes and methodologies
• The formula for customer success and the importance of recognition within your team
• How to use NPS in effective, proactive ways 
• Solving measurement and change management challenges in customer success
• Customer success lessons to live by

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• Lindsey’s journey and founding of Sunday Dinner
• The power of great work and trends happening in the industry 
• How to model your agency and practices to be an essential partner in the future
• How to market your agency and sell yourself successfully 
• Pitch fundamentals
• 2023 / 2024 necessities - creative production tools
• The most in-demand skills and where to go to upskill 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• Peter’s journey to his current role and the most compelling reason why he joined a customer success company
• Some of Gainsight’s best practices for customer success
• Aligning teams with the customer journey for a more cohesive experience
• The importance of the sales to service handoff 
• What KPI’s Gainsight is measuring their services and deliveries by
• The professional services onboarding process at Gainsight

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to another episode of the Professional Services Pursuit Podcast! In this episode we welcome Bruno Gralpois to the show. Bruno is an author and the industry expert on optimizing agency/client relationships and bringing these best practices to life through technology. Bruno and Brent discuss the evolution of his business, Agency Mania Solutions, and some critical tactics agencies and clients can implement to enhance their relationships and collaborate better. 

Other topics covered include:

• Bruno’s journey to an agency relations role and how it led to him writing his book, Agency Mania 
• The importance of clarity, partnership principles and cultural alignment
• The key inflection points that drove the need for better management of agency/client relationships
• Simple tactics to help get optimal value from the agency/client relationship

Be sure to stick around to the end of the episode for a special giveaway just for our listeners! Email us at [email protected] to enter.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of the Professional Services Pursuit Podcast, we invite back the Head of Strategy and Managing Partner at Magnetic Customer Experience, Jessica Noble! In this continuation of our conversation with Jessica, Banoo dives into Jessica's book, 'The Five Customer Experience Mistakes you don't know you're making that are causing profit erosion.' 

Other topics covered include:

• The five critical mistakes that are made by high-growth companies
• Tactics and strategies to expand your customer base in a healthy way
• Analyzing the  impact and solution for each customer experience mistake
• The importance of action and continuous improvement

Be sure to stick around to the end of the episode for a special giveaway just for our listeners! Email us at [email protected] to enter. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

• Understanding the mechanics of good customer experience
• How to maintain your margins in an inflationary market 
• The PAIR methodology and how it drives both customer and employee experience 
• Incentivizing teams to help reduce waste through programs and think tanks
• How customer experience, employee experience and operational excellence are all inextricably linked
• Waste management, identifying margin leaks and the most efficient ways to take action 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.