When a "pay restroom" 100 miles from the nearest major city accepts frictionless mobile payments, stores that force buyers to wait a minute for a chip-and-PIN transaction seem dated, and cash-only transactions are inconvenient.
All tagged finance
How An Identity and Access Management Program Saved a Retailer $100k+ In Fraud Annually
Gartner estimates that 63% of all IAM products will be thrown out in the next two years as the ‘requirements have changed’ since the date of original purchase. The challenge for new and existing IAM programs is to establish and maintain a strong justification for the program’s continued existence. One retail client recognized this potential risk to their IAM program and took a novel approach to clearly illustrating the benefits of an IAM program.
Five lessons learned about paying consultants for Net Promoter Scores
Since our initial deployment of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) for variable compensation at my Professional Services Organization (PSO) two years ago, there are five lessons learned that are broadly applicable for other PSOs that are considering adding NPS to the mix. We chose to deploy NPS because consultants can strongly influence the outcome and benefit from the results. NPS measures whether or not your consultants are creating advocates or adversaries for your brand, which is critical to landing add-on sales at existing clients as well as new customers.
How to encourage clients to take delivery of professional services contracts...with one simple change!
A manager or purchasing person is far less likely to sign a contract if they believe the work is unlikely to be delivered. Especially if they need to put up half the estimated cost of the project at the start.
The Dark Art of Forecasting Consulting Income
Here's how to make sure you're not pranking your CFO on April Fool's Day. You can reliably forecast your consulting revenue for the coming quarter by following these easy steps.
A question from the Quote to Cash Webinar: why isn’t Excel a real PSA?
Many small Professional Services Organizations (PSO) get started with Excel because it looks like a perfectly fine accounting system. However, the problems of using it instead of a good PSA quickly come clear as soon as there’s a second person who needs to use it.
Going under the couch cushions, my favorite audience question from the Vancouver IEEE Consultants Network
Last night, I gave a presentation on the quote to cash process at the IEEE Consultants Network in Vancouver, Canada. My favorite audience question was, “how would you recommend a firm start encouraging our professional services managers to look under the couch cushions?”
“Going under the couch cushions” is my semi-joking name for a strategic backlog review. I have children, and there are only two things I find under my couch cushions: spare change, and messes that need cleaning up.
In professional services, the spare change you find in the backlog comes from those customers with an odd number of hours left and an open Statement of Work