Is it time to start talking about PSO tech?

The legal tech community is vibrant and diverse, encompassing a wide range of professionals such as lawyers, law firm executives, tech evangelists, tech vendors, systems integrators, and thought leaders. It is a dynamic and curious network that is constantly buzzing with activity. From Linkedin and virtual conferences to in-person gatherings, there are numerous opportunities to engage with this community, and finding people interested in engaging and participating is easy.

In contrast, the wider Professional Services Organisations (PSOs) sector lacks a comparable community. While there are certainly tech vendors who cater to this segment and a few thought leaders specialising in technology for PSOs, a dynamic and active community is yet to emerge.

Now, you might be thinking, "Does this truly matter? Do we really need to invest our time and effort in learning and using yet another term, buzzword, or hashtag?" Alternatively, you might perceive this as unnecessary since we already have existing terms, hashtags and communities for professionals and organisations interested in how to use tech to plan, manage, control, and evaluate projects, project portfolios and project programs.

Well, I believe there are compelling reasons why this matters, as it can effectively address challenges faced by PSOs and their decision-makers related to technology and digital transformation initiatives:

1. Decision makers and evaluation teams often struggle to compare the available options in the marketplace, including the distinction between technology purpose-built for PSOs and generic solutions.
2. Many decision makers and evaluation teams remain unaware of the extensive range of PSO tech available. Consequently, they either persist with their current semi-manual processes (typically reliant on emails, spreadsheets like Excel, and modern platforms like Teams or Slack), develop their own solutions, or opt for generic alternatives that isn't really fit for purpose.
3. Fostering a thriving PSO tech community would yield several benefits, including accelerated innovation, enhanced collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and fruitful cross-pollination among PSO executives, tech vendors, systems integrators, and thought leaders.

When comparing it to the already established and relatively thriving "project tech community," it becomes apparent that the PSO landscape is inherently distinct. PSOs deliver a diverse array of services and engagements, where the prevalence of projects varies across industries. Furthermore, the project tech community is dominated by Program and Project Management professionals, with a significant portion specialising in construction or infrastructure projects or working within the research and development or IT departments of large corporations, rather than being directly affiliated with PSOs.

Overview of the Nordic PSO tech solution landscape

To facilitate a discussion on PSO tech, I have compiled an initial draft overview of the Nordic PSO tech solution landscape. This is obviously a non-exhaustive list, which I anticipate will benefit from your valuable input, comments, and suggestions for improvement. It is important to note that this list will be regularly updated with relevant additions based on the inclusion/exclusion criteria outlined below.

Draft definition of PSO tech: technology and software used to support the PSO and help provide professional services to internal or external clients.

General exclusion criteria:

1. I have excluded generic/horisontal vendors and solutions that aren't purpose-built for PSOs. While these technologies may be utilised by numerous Nordic PSOs, their broad applicability does not qualify them as PSO tech.
2. I have excluded vendors/solutions that cater exclusively to one Nordic market. This is primarily a practical criteria as there are a lot of local solutions out there that are used by PSOs in one specific Nordic country.
3. I have excluded vendors/solutions that are first and foremost legal tech.
4. I have omitted certain legacy vendors/solutions that in my opinion aren't suitable for PSOs looking for modern and future-proof technology.

ERP

Let's kick off with the ERP space. Here are a couple of solutions that I categorise as PSO tech: Deltek Maconomy, Deltek WorkBook , and Rexor - aff?rssystemet f?r konsulter .

And yes, I am afraid 微软 , NetSuite , SAP , Unit4 , Workday , Xledger Norge and many others are excluded based on the criteria specified above.

PSA (Professional Services Automation)

PSA solutions help PSOs manage their front-office activities and typically offer capabilities related to client management, project/engagement management and resource management. The ERP solutions mentioned above include PSA capabilities, but also offer support for back-office activities - in contrast, PSA solutions are integrated to an external accounting solution.

There are a lot of local and/or legacy solutions available in the broader PSA segment. Based on the criteria specified above I however believe these are some of the solutions worth mentioning: CMap , Harvest , Milient , TimeLog and Visma PM (fka Visma Severa).

Travel and Expense Management

Travel and Expense Management is important for many PSOs, and they have some specific requirements that differ from other industries (e.g., managing billable/non-billable travel and expenses), but the solutions used in the Nordics are typically either a part of the ERP/PSA solution or horisontal.

CRM/Sales Technology

Most CRM/Sales technology is obviously horisontal, but here are a couple of solutions that I categorise as PSO tech: Cinode , Flowcase (formerly CV Partner) and SCOPE Better . Pitchly is an interesting solution as well, but they are not PSO-specific and currently lack data centres in Europe.

Client and Engagement Intake

Whereas e.g., law firms, accounting and audit/tax firms must comply with specific KYC/AML regulation, other PSOs don't have the same requirement. As a result of this, client and matter intake solutions are typically focused on the legal space, and onboarding new clients and engagements in other PSOs is primarily managed in the CRM and/or ERP/PSA solution.

Resource and Capacity Planning

Cohesive and flexible resource and capacity planning is instrumental for many PSOs. Some of the solutions already mentioned (e.g., Cinode, Deltek Maconomy, and Deltek Workbook) include these capabilities as well, but some specialised solutions worth mentioning are Dayshape , Forecast , and Silverbucket .

Time Tracking

Time tracking (or Time capture) is of course super important for many PSOs. However, whereas it is common in the legal space to use solutions purpose-built for automated/smart/passive time tracking, Nordic PSOs still rely on traditional manual time tracking. Boost from Silversoft is one of the few specialised solutions I have seen that target the broader PSO market.

HR/HCM/Talent Management

I have not identified any HR/HCM/Talent Management solutions that can be categorised as PSO tech. If you have any suggestions, let me know in the comments. Both PSOs in general and partnership owned firms in particular, have specific requirements related to managing HR and Talent information, but my experience is that this is typically managed through configuring or extending a horisontal solution, alternatively handled manually or semi-manually outside the systems.

Document/Email/Knowledge Management

This segment is also dominated by horisontal vendors/solutions. One PSO-specific solution that does come to mind is Deltek PIM, but that is a solution that has a very limited presence in the Nordics.

Other solution areas

Some other solution areas I have considered, but where it is difficult to identify any vendors/solutions that meet my PSO tech criteria (which of course doesn't mean there isn't great potential in implementing these kind of solutions) are:

• Project/Program Management
• Financial Management/Accounting
• Payroll
• xP&A/FP&A and Group Consolidation
• Business Intelligence and Analytics
• Collaboration and Communication
• Workflow Automation and RPA
• Risk, Governance and Compliance

Best-of-breed/Composable strategy and Integrations

Finally, as PSOs continue to expand their tech stack, and 'best-of-breed'/'composable' technology strategies being the new black, there is one piece missing to support and enable such strategies, and I am of course talking about an integration platform.

Application and services integrations comes in many shapes or forms, but the good news is that modern cloud-based solutions and standardised integration technology (REST, GraphQL, Microsoft Graph, webhooks etc.) have made integrations easier than ever (at least from a pure technical perspective, e.g., business rules/logic and master data management considerations still pose challenges in most scenarios).

On one hand, traditional point-to-point integrations and 'spaghetti architecture' is becoming a lot less common in PSOs. On the other hand, off-the-shelf/preconfigured 1:1 integrations, robotic process automation (RPA) and 'citizen integrator' platforms can create a less cohesive, manageable, and transparent integration landscape.

The vast majority of the cloud-based integration platforms are not purpose-built for any specific industry - they offer a library of standard connectors to commonly used applications and services (mostly horisontal, and often a US-centric selection), combined with flexible capabilities to create customer-specific connectors to any solution/service that supports modern integration technology. Unfortunately, it is challenging for small- and mid-sized PSOs to use these integration platforms in a viable way as they need to either build up internal know-how and integration capability, or engage external consultants to build, support and maintain the integrations.

Well, it probably doesn't come as a surprise that I believe there is a better way forward. PSAs Custodian platform is purpose-built to help automate and integrate processes and data inside and outside the organisation. We have a library of more than 40 connectors to applications and services commonly used by Nordics PSOs, and the "integration as a service" model means that PSOs of all sizes can deploy enterprise-grade integrations without any significant start-up costs, enjoy trouble-free and future-proof integration services, and pay a predictable 'all inclusive' subscription fee. Custodian iPaaS is the PSO tech that connects the firm's entire stack of PSO tech and services.

Let's discuss!

As I mentioned above, this article provides nothing more than a draft overview. I look forward to lively discussions and suggestions in the comments. And personally, I absolutely believe there is great value in start talking about PSO tech. Provider of PSO tech solutions deserve better visibility and a dynamic community, and PSOs most definitely deserve better technology.