In all kinds of business, the goal of answering and meeting customer needs is immediate. In strategic consulting, which has the function of helping different profiles of companies to solve major challenges, reconciling this goal with an adaptation of the forms of work according to the style of each client makes the routine of the consultant nothing trivial. Therefore, the mapping of activities, the estimation of deadlines, cost measurement and the anticipation of risks involved are essential in the development of any consulting project. But to perform all this with agility, you need to rely on the right tools. That’s what Sapiens Conseils did when it crossed paths with Nutcache.
Specialized in management and mobilization of knowledge, the consulting firm founded in 2016 in Montreal, Canada, has the mission of bringing out collective knowledge in the organizational environment, acting as a booster of innovation, productivity and overcoming corporate challenges. Providing guidance to leaders and employees, Sapiens Conseils helps its clients to work with inter-organizational knowledge transfer, implement professional expertise networks, optimize time to empower a new employee or a team to perform better, accelerate learning in the workplace, streamline the search for relevant information and avoid loss of key knowledge.
And it is in these daily operations that Nutcache software helps consultants manage projects and tasks from start to finish. With adequate tools for planning workflows and activities, time and expense tracking, in addition to client billing, Nutcache guarantees Sapiens Conseils the use of a single platform to control all its operations with any customer.
The intuitive interface of the platform for project monitoring and its easy time tracking feature are for Luc Dancause the main advantages of using Nutcache that led him to incorporate the software into his daily life before he even founded Sapiens Conseils. Mr. Dancause believes that a consultant’s objective is to spend as many hours as possible at the service of his or her clients in order to solve their difficulties and help them progress. “Having a solution that helps me spend less time managing my operational processes helps a lot,” Dancause explains.
A tool that works for you
Nutcache is widely used at Sapiens Conseils to ensure a clear view of projects divided into stages and in sync with their respective deadlines.
When creating a calendar and personalized work processes divided into sections that facilitate management through task prioritization and the allocation of them to different members in the team, consultants can improve productivity by concentrating on what really matters and still can account with accuracy the daily time dedicated to each client’s activities. In addition to being intuitive, this further allows an overview and instantaneous view of billable time per consultant or by the project.
The same simplicity and ease of use that Sapiens Conseils benefits from with time tracking also exist when it comes to control expenses related to certain periods or projects. After all, Nutcache’s financial tools help track and proactively manage costs and respect previously defined budgets. Even automatic alerts and KPIs present on the platform work as perfect allies to ensure a better control.
But when it comes to point one feature Mr. Dancause can’t go without, his answer comes with no hesitation: “The billing and invoicing feature I absolutely can not go without!”, he says. With a quality billing experience in Nutcache, Sapiens Conseils creates and sends an unlimited number of invoices with professional and customizable designs offered in six compatible formats. Through the platform, one can also set recurring invoices, identify overdue invoices, and get paid online.
How to evolve in business management
Among the goals of Sapiens Conseils to further enhance the management of projects in its consulting activity and, consequently, evolving the business, is the use of Kanban boards available in Nutcache.
With the Kanban method, the task flow is documented by a control board divided into columns that represent the accompanying stream of the task in development (the steps for which it will go through to be fully performed). The number of tasks that may be present in each column must be realistic and doable to ensure that the team’s production capacity is never excelled and that the distribution of activities is balanced and transparent.
With this visual stream, it is easier to plan and track tasks, engage the team in what needs to be normally completed, see if something is blocked and identify what needs additional time to complete.
Considering all the benefits mentioned above, when asked if he would recommend the software to others, Mr. Dancause answers without any hesitation: Absolutely!
