MGT Consulting Increases Margins by 50% With Kantata
Industry
Company
What Kantata Replaced
Headquarters
The Challenge
MGT Consulting Group provides consulting solutions across a wide variety of sectors, making business agility and flexibility paramount. The company previously used a custom-built solution that featured a number of separate applications used alongside one another. It began to show its age as rapid growth drove new technology and business demands on MGT. Project management and collaboration were managed in Excel and email, which created inefficient and time-consuming processes. The legacy solution posed a number of challenges:
Fractured Cash Cycle
Previously, the accounting team was unable to connect the dots from a book-to-bill perspective, and the mindset was to bill clients at the end of each month. This approach didn’t make sense, since most of MGT’s work consists of fixed-fee projects that become billable once specific milestones are hit.
Slow-Moving Processes
Time was one of the biggest reasons why MGT chose to move to Kantata. The previous solution — a custom-built intranet site — was both dated and slow. In addition, it could not be accessed from mobile devices, rendering employees unable to work and complete tasks on the go.
MGT Consulting Group is a nationwide management consulting firm that delivers a diverse range of services to a variety of public sector agencies and educational institutions. The company has a national reputation and impressive track record of business from repeat clients, thanks to its customized solutions, objective research, and creative recommendations from a team of experts that respond to each client’s unique needs and time requirements.
“One thing that comes to mind that we couldn’t quantify before Kantata was client acquisition cost. Now we use Kantata starting at the bid point of a project and have employees track their time to that workspace. With this process, we can quantify the time, effort and expenses invested prior to us winning an opportunity.”
VP Sales Operations, MGT Consulting
The Solution
MGT Consulting Group needed a modern solution within which they could track projects from the moment a proposal is initiated all the way until the final invoice is sent. Asana, Trello, QuickBase, OpenAir, Wrike, HourStack, Accelo and Producteev were among some of the options considered before Kantata was chosen. There were a number of specific needs MGT wanted its new system to address, including:
Out-of-the-box Flexibility
MGT wanted a system that could easily handle the unique needs of each of its clients. According to MGT, “Our decision ultimately came down to what we envisioned and the flexibility that Kantata allowed. There are other tools that are fairly flexible, but Kantata has both the flexibility and all the capabilities we were looking for.”
Cross-Platform Access
The availability of the Kantata platform from anywhere and on any device was a key driver in MGT’s decision. According to Kevin Jenkins, Director of Strategy & Corporate Development at MGT “Kantata is all-encompassing; we manage our entire project lifecycle in Kantata. From the day we decide to bid on a project all the way through the final invoice, all activity is managed in one place. That was a huge benefit for us.”
Ease of Use
While MGT wanted a robust suite of features, the company also wanted something easy for its employees to use. According to MGT, “With this system, not only will our people be more fully utilized, but we’ll also be able to easily resolve downtime and get the most out of our internal talent. This should improve collaboration across the organization and provide our clients with even more cost-effective public sector solutions.”
“Efficiency and productivity were the biggest factors in our decision to use Kantata. For us, people are everything, so ensuring they have a platform to be efficient and productive was essential. In addition, one of our values is to provide a world-class work environment, and this system helps us provide that.”
Director of Human Resources, MGT Consulting Group
Benefits
- Improved Forecasting Accuracy
- Saved Employees Countless Hours
Increased Sales, Revenue & Margins
Increased Utilization
The Results
In the first year alone, MGT migrated thousands of projects to Kantata and launched an enterprise-wide training program. It has since become second nature for employees. “People don’t even ask twice about basic Kantata operations. We’re at 100 percent adoption — the foundation has been laid, so it’s now time to get higher-level value.”
Integrated Accounting and Billing
The majority of MGT’s projects are fixed-fee, creating the need for the company to bill clients when milestones are met, as opposed to monthly, as was previously done. Kantata has helped MGT handle invoicing in a way that directly correlates to work plans, increasing both cash flow and profitability. “We have billed half of our months’ billing goals in the first 10 days, and historically that number would have been zero.”
Improved Tracking of Customer Satisfaction Indicators
Kantata also delivered new insights into the team’s customer relationships. “One interesting metric we previously had insufficient insight into what percentage of milestones completed on time as an enterprise, because we’d never had a tool that managed and monitored our work plans. On-time milestone completion is a key indicator of customer satisfaction, so that information is critical for us.”
Improved Financial Forecasting
Since implementing Kantata, MGT saw sales, revenue, and margins increase by 50 percent. “Our financial forecasting has gotten much better. We now have a clearly defined workflow. We’re able to forecast the next 12 months out, sometimes even further, and with accuracy.”
Time Saved Across the Organization
MGT views people as its biggest asset, meaning each employee’s time is extremely valuable. Kantata’s ability to help its teams save time was one of the biggest factors that influenced MGT to invest in the product. “We have ended up saving so much in time, it ends up paying for itself. We are very pleased with the return on investment with Kantata. At MGT, our people are paramount, which means the more engaged and productive they can be, the more they enjoy their work, creating more value for our clients.”
“What excites us about Kantata is the ability to have a world-class project management platform that elevates the quality for our client work and company mission—to skillfully, efficiently and objectively create solutions that power the work of the public professional in order to advance the lives of the citizens they serve.”
CEO, MGT Consulting Group