Premier Consulting & Integration, LLC

Your Partner In Success

Value Added

8 Ways Project-Based Business Can Be More Successful In 2023

From mitigating the challenges of attracting and retaining top talent to aiding customers on their digital transformation journey, enterprise resource planning (ERP), human capital management (HCM), project management and project execution solutions are front and center within project-based businesses.

Now more than ever, firms in every industry are recognizing the pervasiveness of technology and how it can drive profitability, competitive differentiation, operational optimization and new revenue streams.

How to Get Ahead

As we kick off this year and focus on future success, here are eight ways business applications and technology can benefit your project-based businesses in 2023 and beyond:

1. STAY COMPETITIVE FOR TOP TALENT

The modern project-based workforce’s attributes have continued to evolve, and employers who have not evolved with them are finding it quite challenging to compete for talent and grow their businesses. Part of that evolution is leveraging the right tools and systems to recruit, onboard, develop and manage the people within an organization and provide the right technology to those people so they can most efficiently, effectively and intuitively perform their job.

2. CONNECT DISPARATE SYSTEMS TOGETHER  

As organizations continue to identify point solutions to meet their specific company or industry needs, the necessity to connect those solutions to other operational business applications is imperative. It’s essential for those systems to continue to offer expansive integration capabilities for key players and businesses to communicate with each other effectively.

3. .TRANSITION ON-PREMISES SOLUTIONS TO THE CLOUD

While this is a perennial trend that the pandemic has further fueled, it remains very relevant across every industry, regardless of size. Businesses continue their transition from on-premises to primarily cloud-based solutions and ERP products to save money and increase their accessibility, security and business continuity posture.

4. CREATE A BETTER UX/UI

Broad user adoption significantly drives the value yielded from an organization’s business applications. An intuitive user experience (UX) and an engaging, modern, accessible and visually appealing user interface (UI) can go a long way to drive user adoption. In addition, a modern and fresh user interface is another means to attract and retain talent from generations entering the workforce with technology prevalent in all aspects of their lives.

5. MAKE CYBERSECURITY A TOP PRIORITY

With attacks on businesses increasing every day, it is more important than ever for all organizations to take cybersecurity seriously in business continuity and data privacy. Organizations should no longer grow complacent by the assumption that it will never happen to them; it is no longer a matter of if and is instead a matter of when and how severe.

6. ENHANCE TECHNOLOGY OFFERINGS TO CLIENTS

Growing competitive pressure, economic uncertainty and the ongoing evolution of project-focused businesses have prompted the exploration of new service offerings and revenue streams. Technology is front and center in this exploration as companies that have historically focused on vertically oriented, industry-specific services are beginning to offer technology-based products and apps or technology-based consulting. This evolution is critical for businesses to diversify and identify new growth opportunities.

7. FOCUS ON PROJECT MANAGERS & THEIR TOOLS

There is an amplified focus on project management tools and the discipline itself. The process begins with competent project managers and equipping them with the right tools and technology. Project management, project planning, and resource management tools are more and more accessible, and the combination of these tools with project management best practices leads to profitable projects and the ultimate goal of satisfying customers.

8. BUILD ESG AWARENESS

Awareness around Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is becoming increasingly critical for all organizations. A strong ESG proposition can create value and differentiation. Companies that demonstrate corporate responsibility are more likely to be trusted and, as a result, can tap new markets and opportunities. In addition, focusing on ESG can be another way to attract and retain talent and, as mentioned previously, anything that can differentiate an organization within the war for talent is beneficial in today’s employment market. Business systems and applications can enable ESG reporting and visibility to inform organizations and identify areas of improvement.

PRIME: Your Winning Business Development Strategy

Do you struggle to find new business opportunities? Do you question the effectiveness of your BD staff or are you thinking about starting a BD team in your organization? Or do you simply want to get more results out of their efforts?

If you struggle with taking your organization skills and talents and turning them into an actionable pipeline of opportunities to grow your organization, PRIME is designed for you.

PRIME allows us to use calculated intelligence, derived from data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, to evaluate your current business base, and provide you with varying levels of service based upon your needs. Whether you are simply looking for an actionable list of opportunities to chase, or you need help with a full Five Quarter Strategic growth plan, PRIME can help!

Using your existing business and relationships PRIME can identify new business opportunities that most represent you core competencies.

Outsourced Business Development

The Government procurement cycle is a long one. Far too many Business Development professionals promise results that come with high price tags and long lead times with a complexity of how to measure success.

The PRIME outsourced Business Development offerings give you the flexibility to get a high level of BD acumen for a fraction of the price of a full-time resource. From simple industry analysis to full scale strategic planning and proposal support, PRIME lets you customize the offering to meet your business goals.

PRIME can fill your pipeline with a list of well evaluated real opportunities that will allow your organization to grow.

Learn more about our PRIME solution here.

Make Better Decisions With WorkBook Intelligence Dashboards

Being the decision maker for your business isn’t always the most comfortable role. But for agencies who want to grow or mature as a business, whether that be for acquisition or not, the kinds of decisions that need to be made are of greater importance and have a significant impact. For these agencies, it is crucial they take their business intelligence (BI) reporting to the next level. To accomplish this enhanced level of analytics, decision makers sometimes turn to out-of-the-box BI tools to translate large volumes of data into generic insights, but too often they must spend additional effort translating that into what works for their agency’s specific needs.

But with Deltek WorkBook Intelligence, decision makers can improve reporting with customizable dashboards that fit their agency’s specific needs without the hassle of gathering and translating gobs of data into something useable. WorkBook Intelligence makes it easier to discover actionable insights that lead to better decisions for growth.

As part of the total agency management solution, WorkBook Intelligence includes several standard dashboards that provide valuable analysis of agency KPIs.

Client Analysis Dashboard

The Client Analysis dashboard is useful for comparing the relative performance of clients and the margin that each client is delivering.

This dashboard provides an overview of the sales and profit attributed to clients based on the jobs contained within that client record. The available filters allow you to refine the specific client or group of clients on which you want to get analysis. The analysis provided shows the sales values of costs incurred and the associated profit of those costs.

Jobs Analysis Dashboard

The Jobs Analysis dashboard is best used to compare the relative performance of multiple jobs to identify anomalies or outliers and, once identified, to drill down into the specific detail of those jobs to the transaction level to pinpoint potential problems or issues that require action.

This dashboard provides an overview of the sales and profit attributed to jobs and enables you to compare the performance of jobs relative to each other, either across the entire Company or within a selected client or clients, depending on the filters that you apply. The available filters allow you to further refine the nature of data to analyze, based on the status of the jobs or the approval status of the transactions within them. The widgets on the dashboard show the sales values of costs incurred and the associated profit of those costs.

Finance – All Years Dashboard

The Finance – All Years dashboard is useful for agencies that are part of a network with different offices or companies sharing the same WorkBook solution. It shows an overview of the financial results of a single selected Company across all finance years in your WorkBook system, as it enables you to filter one Company at a time. It displays numeric data in the Company currency of that selected Company.

Finance – Single Year Dashboard

The Finance – Single Year dashboard is similar in that it is meant to show the financial data of a single company within a network of agencies. This dashboard shows an overview of the financial results of a single selected Company for a single selected financial year. Again, it displays numeric data in the Company currency of that selected Company.

CRM Dashboard

The CRM dashboard provides an overview of the value of pipelines on clients and prospects within your WorkBook system. An extensive range of filters gives you the ability to remove unwanted detail and focus on pipelines for specific clients, time periods, statuses, and levels of progression.

Data is shown both in a “full value” state and with the consideration of any probability that might have been applied, which means you can see a weighted total of pipelines, based on their respective probabilities which has an impact on expected revenue. All values are displayed in the Company currency of the selected Company.

Resourcing Dashboard

You can use the Resourcing dashboard to identify individuals, or groups of employees—for example, in departments—who have limited available capacity relative to the scheduled bookings made against them, or who have outstanding timesheets relative to their total capacity. For this dashboard, a large number of filters are available, including the ability to filter on more than a single Company, by department, or by employment type.

Create your own WorkBook Intelligence Dashboards with a Designer License

For agencies that are ready to elevate their business intelligence and need dashboards that provide insights not found in the standard offering, a Designer License allows you to create your own WorkBook Intelligence dashboards using the predefined data models provided.

With a Designer license you can:

  • Create a dashboard on the Analytics tab of the WorkBook Intelligence Design page.
  • Create and edit dashboard controls in the header ribbon when a dashboard is in Design mode.
  • Customize a dashboard’s layout by rearranging the widgets that are part of the dashboard.
  • Create nested dashboards that are suitable for drilling down into the detail of widgets on a dashboard.
  • Use filters to show only the data you want to be shown.
  • Copy, export, import, and delete dashboards.

6 Reasons to Attend Deltek ProjectCon

Deltek ProjectCon, formerly known as Deltek Insight, is the destination for project-based business professionals to gather for inspiration, education and collaboration.

This year’s Deltek ProjectCon will take place on November 15-18th at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, TN! PCI is excited to participate as a Platinum sponsor at this year’s event!

Check out these six reasons to register for DeltekProjectCon:

  1. Deepen your Product Knowledge – This conference offers hundreds of product educational sessions teaching new skills, tips, and tricks. PCI will be hosting three sessions, listed below. Be sure to add them to your agenda!

CPSPON-13: How to use the MS Word reporting tool in Costpoint

CPSPON-14: Offers and Decisions

CPSPON-15: Do your contracts have CLINs/SLINs/ACRNs? Do your employees complain because they have too many project codes? See how ACRN billing will fix all your problems.   

  • Networking! – Connect with thousands of attendees, Deltek leaders and visit with the PCI team in the Xpo Hall!

  • Ignite Innovation – Hear how companies like yours are leveraging Deltek’s solutions!

  • Certifications – Be sure to take advantage of the complimentary Deltek University certification exams while on-site!

  • Meet 1:1 with Experts – Meet 1:1 with the PCI team, Deltek Customer Care, Solutions Engineering team and more!

  • Enjoy your time! – There are a ton of fun activities planned throughout the conference such as philanthropic activities, special networking events and a customer appreciation party!

We hope to see you there! Register now to attend!

Introduction to FAR & CAS

If you’re a federal contractor, at some point you will be faced with understanding—and complying with—federal regulations regarding acquisitions and accounting: FAR and CAS.

FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION (FAR)

According to the government, FAR is “the primary regulation for use by all Federal Executive agencies in their acquisition of supplies and services with appropriated funds.” The purpose of FAR is to provide a set of consistent, uniform policies and procedures within the federal acquisition process.

COST ACCOUNTING STANDARDS (CAS)

A set of standards and rules established by the federal government to help achieve uniformity and consistency in the cost accounting principles within federal contracting. CAS also sets forth regulations that require contractors to disclose their cost accounting practices, to follow the disclosed practices consistently, and to comply with specified standards.

Learn more around the basics of FAR & CAS and why it’s important for GovCons to understand, in our upcoming webinar – Register Now.

Powering Your Project Lifecycle With Deltek

Deltek delivers software and information solutions that enable superior levels of project intelligence, management, and collaboration. Their industry-focused expertise makes your projects successful and helps you achieve performance that maximizes productivity at every stage of the project lifecycle that fuels your business.

Win – Firms want to identify clients early and pinpoint projects worth bidding for and create effective proposals that position them to win new business. In this space, firms need business analytics and relevant marketing intelligence in order to find the perfect fit and win deals. Deltek GovWin IQ can help you win more business.

Manage – After winning a project, organizations need a good plan to optimize resources, manage costs and risks, and stay on time and budget. With a full team engaged on required work, project management goes beyond a simple checklist. Companies needs to have an optimal schedule across all of their projects, as well as understanding the granular requirements to drive maximum profitability. Learn more about how Costpoint Contract Management can help manage your contract needs.

Develop – A good plan helps to deliver a great project but developing your talent and having the right people in place, truly powers project success. Project based businesses need a modern, integrated, HR and talent management approach to truly track and predict labor costs, forecast recruiting needs as well as develop and monitor employee engagement as part of your comprehensive retention strategy.

Deliver – Project based companies strive to deliver efficiently on their contract obligations while running a smooth and profitable operation. To do this, firms need the capabilities to connect resources and materials back to projects, track cost breakdown, and manage project documentation and assets in a single location. This is where Deltek Costpoint can help you succeed.

Measure – Project based businesses seek to measure both specific project profitability and analyze company level performance in terms of cash flow, people utilization, compliance, and profitability. These KPIs help ensure overall company financial health and shape future pursuits. Companies can look at trends to a more efficient, productive, and profitable company. PCI’s Business Intelligence team can assist you in personalized reports for your business.

The stages of the project lifecycle represent the fundamental workflow of project-based businesses. Helping businesses gain a competitive advantage, automating processes across the project lifecycle.

If you are interested in learning more about how Deltek’s Project Lifecycle can help your business, contact us today.

Grow Your Agency in 2022

What Industry Leaders Predict

Hitting just about the mid-point of 2022, it’s a good time to reflect on how agencies have been performing through the first quarter, and what they should be prepared to face for the rest of the year. Deltek’s recently released 2022 Outlook: Marketing Agency Leadership Report amalgamated the experiences and expertise of hundreds of agency leaders worldwide, capturing their top concerns and noting the priority challenges they expect to face through the remainder of the year.

Agency Leaders Share Optimism for 2022

The good news is that the collective attitude of these agency leaders, including CEOs, owners, and department heads, is essentially optimistic. The market recovery means demand for agency services (and, accordingly, budgets!) continues to rebound. In many ways, the year ahead has potential for more performance and profit than pre-pandemic times. This can be ascribed to a kind of “great awakening” we all experienced during the past few years. We collectively realized that operational efficiency and internal systems improvement had big bottom-line impact.

Increase Investment in Technology

The takeaway from that realization, applied going forward by savvy agencies, is the importance of investing in project management systems, software and tools that make your staff as productive as possible. This might seem challenging at a time when the fight to attract and retain top talent is at the top of leadership priority lists of late, but survey respondents understand the long play here. These investments amplify the agency workflow process, efficiency and thus productivity of your talent. Furthermore, in the face of the inevitable talent churn impacting the industry, these systems and solutions keep intellectual property within an agency. Ultra-valuable information doesn’t walk out the door when there’s talent turnover.

2022 Outlook: Marketing Agency Leadership Report

Agency leaders reveal their predictions for 2022 including industry challenges, priorities and investments.

Download the Marketing Agency Leadership Report Now!

Focus on Professional Development

Stemming the tide of that turnover is another issue agency leadership is dialed into for 2022. This is driving a sharp focus on professional development, giving personnel access to training, education and certifications that make them increasingly valuable team members, and also build in some backup within teams themselves. Whether strengthening day-to-day abilities or introducing new skills that benefit clients, the agency can offer more competent, diverse services to clients while talent is incentivized to remain on board. It’s seen by enlightened leadership as a means to improving employee health and wellness as much as it is a way to better serve clients.

Emphasis on Profitable Growth

In terms of agency growth, the 2022 Outlook: Marketing Agency Leadership Report reflects a cautious optimism among industry leaders. More than 90 percent of respondents expect to realize more revenue in 2022. Interestingly, this won’t necessarily be the result of increased client expenditure. The report makes it clear that top-line and overall profits are growing, but not margin percentage. The reasons for this disparity include more detailed project scopes, better team/client communication, and meticulous review of current service agreements with key clients.

The 2022 Outlook: Marketing Agency Leadership Report is packed with revealing information and data on agency goals and challenges, and the strategies and tactics being deployed to address them. Give it a read and get a stronger sense of how your agency can move towards greater success in 2022.

Introduction to DCAA Compliance

As a Government Contractor it is extremely important to remain compliant with rules and regulations. This blog provides a quick snapshot of DCAA and what compliance should look like for your organization.

Introduction to DCAA

What DCAA Does

  • The Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) provides audit and financial advisory services to the Department of Defense (DOD) and other federal entities responsible for acquisition and contract administration.
  • DCAA provides recommendations to government officials on contractor cost assertions regarding specific products and services.
  • DCAA auditors examine contractor accounts, records, and business systems to evaluate whether contractor business practices and procedures are in compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), and other applicable government laws and regulations.
  • DCAA has the authority to establish final indirect rates.

What DCAA Does Not Do

  • DCAA audits only contractors; it has no internal audit responsibilities in DoD.
  • DCAA has no direct role in determining which companies are awarded defense contracts.
  • DCAA does not negotiate or settle costs directly with contractors.

DCAA has about 230 offices located throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.

  • Headquarters
    • Regional Offices/Field Detachment
    • Corporate Audit Directorates (CAD)
    • Branch Offices
    • Resident Offices

In FY 2020, DCAA had a staff of approximately 3,843 auditors.

What is Compliance?

  • Being compliant means being compliant with ALL contract requirements and applicable regulations (FAR, DFARS, CAS, etc.).
  • DCAA doesn’t certify or issue a formal statement that an organization is DCAA compliant.
  • DCAA doesn’t approve specific software tools as compliant.

Government Contract Rules & Regulations

  • FAR – Federal Acquisition Regulations
  • CAS – Cost Accounting Standards
  • Federal Agency Supplements
    • Example: DFARS – Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement
  • The Truthful Cost or Pricing Data Statute (formerly known as TINA – The Truth in Negotiations Act)

Pro Tip: The regulations in effect on the date of contract award generally will govern the contract regardless of its period of performance and despite the fact that a regulation might change during the course of the contract.

For more information on DCAA Compliance

Access our On Demand DCAA Compliance for Small to Mid-sized Contractor Webinar or

Contact us today for more information on how PCI can assist your organization.