IONA uses Operating integrated with Pipedrive CRM for predictive sales and hiring decisions.

IONA is a digital commerce agency that has quickly earned its reputation as one of the most capable in in its niche Europe-wide. Building state-of-the-art commerce solutions for companies like Alamy and HMD Global involves teams of multi-disciplinary experts working intensively with constantly changing allocations over time – resulting in a lot of planning.

As many competing deals are constantly in the sales pipeline and the growing team is working on different projects, IONA needed a bulletproof way to be able to predict their future capacity to make the right hiring and sales decisions at the right time. This is where Operating steps in.

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Problem

IONA has grown to fifty consultants with people working over different time zones in three countries to deliver successful projects. The current operations setup had been built upon Harvest’s time tracking and Forecast applications. The simplicity of the setup had worked for a period of time, but over time a dozen or so Excel sheets had accumulated to support decision-making. This made running the operations cumbersome.

IONA needed a better way to understand their potential futures: when do bottlenecks and possible moments of underutilisation occur, and what can be learned from the current and past data to mitigate it.

Additionally, the complex technology environment with very specific client needs makes having a key skill in the team might make or break a client case. IONA’s skill data lived in a complex Excel sheet making it hard to be on top of “what do our consultants know.”Needless to say, something had to be done.

Solution

Operating helps IONA:

• Predict future work capacity to know when to make hiring decisions, and which technologies to push for in sales
• Connect Pipedrive CRM with Operating in order to understand how different scenarios would affect the work situation
• Ditch competency Excels and give every consultant the possibility to update their skills & preferences to Operating
• Get a tight grasp on the whole team’s utilization in real-time by connecting Harvest time tracking to Operating

“It’s effortless to know we’re on the right track to hit our monthly targets with Operating.”

      MIKKO MANTILA
       CEO & Founder   

Approach

Operating was first piloted by the operations team. After a period of close collaboration, necessary features were improved according to IONA’s wishes. Soon afterwards, the whole team was onboarded at once.

Results

• Improvements in time tracking practices: even before the shift to Operating, we were able to improve the way time tracking and time off was handled – resulting in more reliable business metrics.
• Clarity in project staffing: Iona’s staffing meetings are now more efficient as the upcoming project data is visible, and consultants can be filtered based on their roles, skills, and organization.
• Better view to the future: IONA now has a robust capacity prediction view produced automatically. Better visibility, no human errors.
• Upcoming work can be planned: Previously, Iona lacked the capability to properly plan upcoming projects. Now scenario planning is possible, so it’s possible to see, who’s been promised to which deal.
• Utilization improvements: Consultants and the management now have a view to their real-time utilization, so everyone can have their finger on the pulse and ensure the team works towards the common goals

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If you got interested on how Operating can help you run a consulting operation efficiently with satisfied and motivated consultants, book a time to discuss here or send us a message to hello@operating.app.