Consulting firms: What are the challenges of resource planning ? (2022)

The challenges of resource planning in consulting firms

The resource planning is at the heart of the partners' concerns. Since we sell grey matter time, it is essential to manage availability and skills to optimize the availability of consultants. Here is a brief overview of the challenges and the responses that firms provide to these issues.

The stakes:

The resource planning is a particularly critical subject, as it is key to the profitability of the firm and can be very complex to carry out well. Here are all the parameters to take into account:  

The pipe and the workload to be managed

To know who to staff, you first need to know the needs. In one way or another, it is necessary to have a complete vision of the needs of the missions in progress. That is: the recent proposals won and those that have been presented to prospects and their chances of success. And for each of these projects, it is necessary to identify the needs (number of days, seniority, particular expertise, etc.)

Pipe in Stafiz

Availability of consultants

This is obviously the major point. First of all, you have to have the information: who is available today to work on a "propale"? Which junior will be available for 3 months starting next week to work on the assignment we just sold? It is necessary to collect the most up-to-date and reliable information to know the safe and anticipated availability (a mission sold at 70% for example) of each other.

Employee availability in Stafiz

The skills required

On certain missions, special expertise is needed. An Excel crack to do a financial mission, a rail expert to work at the SNCF, etc. Remembering all the tasks and skills of everyone in the firm is not always easy, especially if you have a lot of colleagues. But you have to do your best to find the person who will best convince your prospect to choose your firm, and who will carry out the project with the most efficiency.

Candidates' skills

Priority missions

Some missions must be able to take precedence over others, and for several possible reasons. For example, an assignment can be strategic for the firm, because if it is small or has been poorly sold, it can open the doors to a second, much larger and more profitable assignment. The missions for which the ADR are higher can also be prioritized for example.  

The desires of consultants and the management of their careers

The last two elements to take into account are first of all the desire of the consultants (so-and-so who spent 4 years in Brest at Orange may want a change of scenery), and the management of their skills. To prepare young people to be managers, they must have seen a certain number of different types of assignments, and they must have been able to handle presentations and Excel, short assignments and long assignments, etc. Following the history of each person and the gaps to be filled in a course allows you to adapt the resource planning in this sense.  

The processes generally put in place

Consulting firms have implemented different models of resource planning. They are supported by ongoing processes and key moments of resource planning as the aptly named weekly meeting "of resource planning ». Here are the practices identified by Stafiz:  

Centralized:

In this case, a limited number of people, usually the managing director or the 2 or 3 partners of a firm, make the decision on assignments. These people must therefore know each employee well.  

Decentralized:

All the partners and managers of a firm can staff someone on an assignment. If a consultant is available, it is possible to staff him directly without validation. The resource planning is accelerated, but it comes with risks: overvalued workloads, unsold propositions, etc. In some firms, the consultants themselves have control over their resource planning. This accountability does not exclude control, which the partners can carry out on a permanent basis by consulting the ERP data.  

Needs sheets:

In a centralized process, it is possible to write sheets expressing the needs of resource planning. Created at the start of a mission, or when a redesign needs to be made, they include the basic information of the request. This information is: seniority, profiles, dates, load, specific skills. These sheets are then reconciled to coordinate needs and availability and find the best combination  

The meetings of resource planning :

Most firms hold meetings (weekly or bi-monthly) to discuss the resource planning. These meetings usually begin with a summary of the pipe and the proposals won and last one to two hours depending on the arbitrations to be made.  

The contribution of software:

Most consulting firms still use Excel to manage their resource planning. However, new technologies bring undeniable advantages:

• Collaboration: everyone can, depending on the authorisations they have been given, see and modify the information that interests them. For example, a junior will only be able to access the visualization of his or her own resource planning, while the partners will be able to modify the resource planning of everyone.

• Reliability of information: Data can be changed 24/7, and anyone can change the data they have access to. This army of contributors allows us to have a resource planning reliable on a day-to-day basis. If a resource planning is not up to date, several elements will somehow force the manager to update it: for example, it may be his partner who asks him, because he himself needs to take stock of the activity. The partner can also change the resource planning to keep it up to date. Juniors can also see that their resource planning and request an update if necessary. Finally, the manager himself is alerted, if his resource planning forecast is incomplete. Its margin rate will be false and its management of the mission will be degraded; It will therefore be encouraged to update the data.

• Real-time: no need to call all your colleagues, or run in the corridors to find out the latest information, just connect (on your mobile for example) to have the resource planning live.

Other article: Why Use a resource planning ? Video on the management of the resource planning   

Stafiz is a software resource planning that helps you manage your resources and manage your projects. Gain real-time visibility into your employees' workload and schedule. Find and assign your resources to your jobs with greater ease. Optimize your employees' workload to ensure their retention! 

To learn more about the Stafiz platform, visit the dedicated page.

Functionality resource planning in Stafiz