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Now you are growing, now you don’t!
Managing a professional services team within a SaaS company involves navigating a shifting priorities. A significant turning point occurs when management determines that the PS department has reached its optimal or required size, halting further expansion. This decision, while strategic for the company, can be unsettling for the PS team. The company focus pivots towards…
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The power of failure and the failure of power
The software industry loves its dogma, and few mantras have been more transformative, or more overused, than “fail fast and adapt”. Agile methodologies have quite rightly revolutionised how we develop products, empowering teams to iterate, learn from mistakes, and respond swiftly to the shifting sands of the market. For product development, it’s instrumental; a failure…
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I feel hollow – This year’s not recurring annual recurring revenue
ARR, or Annual Recurring Revenue, is a financial metric that represents the predictable revenue a company expects to generate from its active customer subscriptions and contracts over a 12-month period. It is a key performance indicator, especially for software-as-a-service (SaaS) and other subscription-based businesses, as it provides a clear view of stable, recurring income to assess…
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Captain’s log, stardate 28732
Time cards are a necessary, yet often begrudgingly completed task for consultants after long workdays or busy weeks. They play a crucial role in driving billing cycles and the ability to justify time spend. For smaller projects, where consultants operate without the constant involvement of a project manager, time cards also help in tracking scope,…
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Has Freud’s iceberg come full circle?
The iceberg metaphor is one of business’s greatest hits, a classic analogy used to remind us that what we see is rarely what we get. Across psychology, systems thinking, and now Generative AI (GenAI), it perfectly illustrates that valuable outcomes—the visible 10% tip—are utterly dependent on a vast, invisible foundation—the 90% mass below the waterline….
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5 steps to make PS great (again)
After 30 years in the industry, I remain baffled by how many companies still struggle with defining the right role for PS in their GTM strategy. I summarised my experience into a simple five-step programme to make your PS great (again).
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Thou shalt not use AI
The Newest “Boogeyman” Clause in Professional Services Contracts has arrived … and it is about … surprise … GenAI.
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The ARR trap and the zero-sum fallacy
On planet Saas, Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is typically treated as the ultimate metric. It’s the north star for investors, the fuel for growth, and the measure of a company’s health. But when your VCs are breathing down your neck, maximising ARR can become a dangerous trap.
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Stop calling Professional Services an “Insurance Policy”
Imagine a customer embarking on a journey. Do they want an “insurance policy” and fixer in case they crash, or do they want a Seasoned Guide and a High-Performance Engine to ensure they reach their destination swiftly and successfully?
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When your PS team is not billing …
“When your consultants are not billing!” Scary title, no? But only for the professional services leaders, who see non-billable time as a problem to be solved, and bench time as something that has to be minimised at all cost. In my experience, that way of thinking is a mistake and a fundamentally flawed way of…
kJube covers professional services and customers success in enterprise software startups.