To increase productivity and accelerate decision-making, professional services firms constantly look for ways to improve workflow efficiencies and gain greater access to business insights. In the search for applications that enable these capabilities, it’s important to consider how technologies like the cloud and artificial intelligence change the way software functions.

This was the topic at a recent Velosio Executive Roundtable, hosted by Joe Longo, a Co-Founder of Velosio. Panelists included Cecilia Flombaum, CTO for Microsoft Office and business applications, and Sam Dharmasiri, CEO of Seer 365, which works with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft ISV partners to streamline implementations and integrations. Also appearing on the board was Robbie Morrison, CEO of Velosio.

The panel discussed how technology plays a bigger and bigger role for businesses to compete and outpace their peers. Today’s modern business applications give companies a whole new level of access to data to drive decision-making.

“The cloud enables greater predictive analytics and has allowed generative AI to flourish,” said Morrison. “It is now more affordable than in the past—even for small businesses.”

Morrison also pointed out how a data lake, such as Dynamics 365 Fabric, allows for better access and unification of data across different systems. This includes industry solutions that provide a wider knowledge of how an industry functions and the key KPIs in those industries. “In addition, Fabric allows applications to look at data across multiple organizations in a secure way to provide insights we couldn’t get in the past,” Morrison added.

Macro Analysis and KPI Dashboards for Consultants

The panel also discussed how industry solutions, such as those designed for professional services firms, allow consultants to go a layer deeper into data to make decisions. It’s not just generic financial analysis; it’s industry macro analysis and KPI dashboards that management teams need. In the past, this required a lot of time and effort to develop specific businesses. It’s now becoming more standard and can scale across consulting solutions.

The scale to do this wasn’t there in the past because of the differences in the underpinnings of the data layer. Building a semantic layer across multiple data underpinnings was cost prohibitive. However, this is now cost-effective with modern cloud platforms. Firms can deploy AI models across multiple businesses that provide deep insights across the consulting industry.

To this point, Flombaum discussed how Microsoft is the only company that offers the platform layer, the data layer, the productivity layer, and the application layer, which streamlines workflows. “With the adoption of AI, every time a customer starts a chat or runs a query, we process generic data,” said Flombaum. “We continually invest billions in our infrastructure to sustain the necessary processing power for all the data activity around the globe.”

Security Just as Critical as Scalability and Performance

Just as important as scalability and performance, business leaders are concerned about data governance and maintaining strong security controls. “To protect sensitive data, we control our AI models,” said Flombaum. “Customer data is always their data and is never used to train AI models or give answers to other people.”

In addition, Microsoft augments applications with AI to automate business functions and save time for users by eliminating manual steps. This cuts costs by increasing the productivity and efficiency of business processes. AI can automate repetitive tasks that humans don’t always realize they do over and over.

“Consider a sales pipeline or opportunity management scenario,” said Flombaum. “Sellers spend time creating opportunities, moving them forward, and adding tools to manage opportunities. These are not value-add activities. To enable sellers to spend more time with customers and uncover opportunities, we want to eliminate their data-entry work. AI automates data entry, so sellers just need to review and approve—which takes seconds compared to data entry.”

All the Fun Starts with Automated Tasks

The fun stuff starts when customers use AI Agents that Microsoft Partners create to automate repetitive tasks no one wants to do. This enables productivity gains and accelerates processes. Microsoft pre-builds the common automation scenarios into Dynamics 365 solutions, and Partners extend automation for specific industry processes using the Copilot Agent technology platform.

“Working with Microsoft Partners, customers now can automate tasks that in the past would require custom code development,” said Morrison. “Automated processes can now be created in minutes and scaled across an organization. This allows customers to execute functions instantly that in the past took each user minutes—repetitively.”

Morrison compares AI to how the Industrial Revolution made manual laborers more productive. Generative AI is another revolution, exponentially increasing the productivity of knowledge workers. “The Microsoft ecosystem is just scratching the surface of what AI is capable of as Agents make intelligent decisions and don’t have to be programmed for every possible decision that might come up,” Morrison said.

Essential Guide for the Modern Professional Services Firm

Making It Easier to Choose the Right Software Solution

The panel agreed that the starting point for helping professional services firms select the right software solution is making sure the customer is set up for success. “This means understanding what’s important for their business and how technology can support that,” said Dharmasiri. “It used to be easy to pick one or two apps and perform discovery. But when looking at integrated solutions and factoring in security, AI, and the core business requirements, that’s a lot for somebody to know, and it’s almost impossible.”

The key is for Microsoft Partners to capture customer needs to improve their business. This includes identifying the KPIs and the transformation goals and then showing how to deliver that capability in a repeatable mode. Using information and data across thousands of other customers in the consulting industry, partners can present data to customers upfront so they can make informed decisions quickly.

For migrations to Dynamics 365 solutions, Seer 365 uses a combination of Microsoft Copilot Agents and a custom agent to understand how customers use their current ERP and CRM systems. The firm also relies on a survey process to ingest this information and AI to generate results showing which features customers must have, which are optional, and which features they don’t need.

“We also record conversations with customers in Teams so Copilot can transcribe them and then run them through our custom AI engine to recommend KPIs,” Dharmasiri added. We know all the components we need within minutes and send customers a proposal with a solution architecture, software pricing, implementation costs, and an implementation plan so customers can migrate quickly.

Pre-Configured Industry Templates Speed Up Reduce Time to Value

With modern implementation templates in Dynamics 365 solutions, professional services firms can customize and fine-tune processes to meet specific business needs—working in their special sauce. “For reporting and KPI templates, most verticals are standardized on what they need to see,” said Morrison. Examples of standard KPIs critical to the management of professional services firms are: Billable Utilization Rate, Client Satisfaction (CSAT) Score, Client Retention Rate, New Business Acquisition Rate. Resource Allocation Efficiency, Employee Satisfaction and Engagement.

Added Dharmasiri, for Dynamics 365 solutions, we use AI to conduct rapid analysis, design, and automated builds. We also configure applications automatically. It used to take ERP and CRM projects years, but today, customers can go live fast and generate value instantaneously.”

More Time for Partners and Customers to Collaborate

The cloud lets professional services firms go live faster and take advantage of new features sooner compared to the on-premises world. The cloud also enables continuous deployment of new features.

Combining these capabilities with AI, Microsoft partners can now spend more time helping customers decide what’s important and collaborating on implementation planning. And that will better ensure implementation success.

To hear more from this panel of technology experts, check out the complete Velosio Executive Roundtable. Velosio is also here to help you find the right software so your professional services firm can accelerate business processes and gain instant access to KPIs. Contact us today to start your journey.

How Cloud and AI Help Professional Services Work Faster and Smarter