Kainjoo Increases Billable Utilization by 85% with Mavenlink
Transcript of Kainjoo Increases Billable Utilization by 85% with Mavenlink
T H E K A I N J O O S T O R Y
Crafting Brands Through Innovation
Kainjoo is a global consulting firm with extensive experience in
complex industries including pharmaceuticals and banking. Kainjoo
means ‘emotion through continuous progress’ in Japanese and the
firm describes itself as having a heart rooted in the Kaizen mindset
— a philosophy of continuous improvement of business practices
and efficiency — combined with a pragmatic Swiss brain and creative
French soul. Its clients are traditional, regulated entities that want to
disrupt themselves by shaking up old ways of thinking and refreshing
their brands with new life while remaining true to legacies of success.
Founded two years ago, Kainjoo set about to launch a new type of
consulting firm that is focused on instituting systems that will
scale up quickly and improve client profitability. Everything they do
melds the collective talents of the firm with a proven methodology
to produce a powerful engine for the “big think” of strategic brand
development. Kainjoo delivers on its consultative ideas and strategies
with a full-service creative team that provides outside-the-box digital
services, video production, advertising and web development, as well
as marketing campaigns.
S U C C E S S S T O R Y
Kainjoo Increases Billable Utilization by 85% with Mavenlink
I N D U S T R Y
Consulting
C O M P A N Y
Kainjoo Consulting Group
S I Z E
11-50 employees
W H A T M A V E N L I N K R E P L A C E D
Asana, Gmail, Dropbox, Harvest and Odoo
B E N E F I T S
• 85% increase in billable utilization
• 25% savings on business development costs
• 50% increase in profit margin
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T H E C H A L L E N G E
It’s Easy to Make Mistakes When Data is Not Accessible
Service firms often have a reputation of flying by the seat of their
pants. While the ethos at Kainjoo couldn’t be more different, they were
constrained by the tools they were using. Prior to rolling out Mavenlink,
Kainjoo was tracking resource usage and customer projects with various
time-entry tools, task lists and even old fashioned email.
When the firm merged its consulting team with its delivery services team,
they needed a unified way to track and optimize time across the entire
lifecycle of each customer account from pre-sale activity to program
implementation. Merging data from multiple sources was a particular
challenge, as the firm found that its existing processes weren’t structured
enough to allow for the assimilation of reports and measurement necessary
to make smart business decisions. This was complicated by the fact that each
team was often using their own manual processes. When they hired a project
manager to keep track of things, they became acutely aware that there was a
problem and began looking for a common project framework.
Kainjoo recognized that what they really needed was a solution that
made it possible to zero-in on wasted time, including time spent on
new business pursuits. The time spent on bringing on new customers
represented 80 percent of lost hours across the firm, while the other 20
percent was due to productivity losses. Moreover, half of the company’s
margin was being eaten due to poor planning that resulted from deficient
time-management procedures.
F R O M T H E S O U R C E
“Mavenlink is the
uncomplicated way to drive
better results and achieve
a halo of trust with our
customers. It brings them
in as a part of the team and
creates momentum. In the
end, our customers feel we
are being more transparent.”
– Haider Alleg Managing Director, Kainjoo
DE
CF A V O R I T E M A V E N L I N K F E AT U R E
Dashboards, Reports & Metrics
Kainjoo finds immense value in the dashboards, reports and metrics
that provide heads of departments and executives with budget-focused
insights. Kainjoo uses Mavenlink to track three interrelated aspects of
productivity: billable hours, non-billable hours, and skillset match to existing
and potential work. This has revealed new avenues around cost of delivery,
aided in hiring decisions, and unmasked true profit.
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T H E S W I T C H T O M A V E N L I N K
Speaking a Common Language Yields Uncommon Results
True to the firm’s Kaizen mindset, Kainjoo understood that even while
the firm was doing little things well, its ad hoc approach was not
achieving a good alignment of work between different departments
from consultant to engineer to marketer. Mavenlink helps Kainjoo
speak a common, actionable language that allows both consultants and
customers to see the world through the same eyes and continuously
make better decisions.
Tracking the Costs of Business Development
Kainjoo discovered that a project’s success is measured not only when
the deal is closed, but also includes the effort of capturing and closing
the deal. For instance, before utilizing Mavenlink it was common to
invest significant hours on winning new business. Yet all too frequently,
the resources spent on deal flow outweighed the financial benefit of
winning the project itself. Utilizing Mavenlink to reveal overall time
spent even before a contract is signed means the firm is able to make
better decisions about how and when to reinvest resources elsewhere.
F R O M T H E S O U R C E
“Mavenlink has completely
transformed our business.
We're more nimble,
collaborative, and financially
sound than ever.”
– Haider Alleg Managing Director, Kainjoo
Now we can focus on things that are more important.
With Mavenlink, risk on projects is lower because people feel safer. Tracking time accurately allows us to not only streamline and allocate budgets better, but we also know when and where to hire to ensure our customers and our consultants get the best.
“
“
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Radical Transparency Invites Customers Inside
Mavenlink opened up new ways to bring Kainjoo’s customers into the process
of resource planning, budgeting and staff allocation. Before, the firm often
found that its customers were inadvertently delaying project fulfillment and
diminishing returns due to a poor understanding of deadlines, expectations
and requirements. Mavenlink makes it possible for Kainjoo to produce Gantt
charts and task trackers that not only give greater insight into how each
customer’s budget is being utilized, but these tools foster radical transparency
and trust as both sides collaborate. According to Haider Alleg at Kainjoo,
Mavenlink has also helped the firm speed client decisions and yield more
powerful results: “Our clients move so fast, and with Mavenlink we’ve
become more agile and responsive.”
Resource Planning is Earning Power
Knowing when and how to appropriately apportion time to meet budget
parameters and maximize output has been made easier with Mavenlink.
While tracking time to improve the cost of delivery is the most obvious result,
Kainjoo also found that it is better able to know when to hire. For example, if a
consultant is working at more than 20 percent over their target capacity, it is
time to recruit someone. This makes for not only happier team members and
customers, but also extends the firm’s revenue with additional billable hours
that are directly tied to SOWs. “Using the right tools creates a great work
environment, and this in turn has allowed us to attract the kind of people who
deliver time and time again,” said Kainjoo’s Haider Alleg. He believes that
Mavenlink reveals trends and details that help the firm understand if they
have the right consultants assigned to the right customers.
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Before Mavenlink, we weren’t able to effectively
track KPIs around profit margins, billable hours and
team allocation. Now we’re a well-oiled machine.
“ “
www.mavenlink.com • @mavenlink 6501 Irvine Center Dr. Suite 250 • Irvine, CA 92618
©2016 Mavenlink • Rev. 9/16
The Results
Improved profit margin by 50% due to better resource planning
Previously, half of Kainjoo’s margin was eaten by not planning resources well.
Once the solution was implemented, a better balance was achieved between
staff time, matching consultants to projects, and working directly with
customers to determine the best way to deploy resources and achieve results.
Billable hours have increased by 30% in just one year
Mavenlink has revealed paths to increased billability across the board,
resulting in a dramatic rise in the number of hours billed to customers that
were previously lost due to hidden tasks which the firm was not aware of.
Kainjoo went from an average 35-40 percent utilization per consultant to 65
percent, an increase in billable utilization of 85 percent. And the sky’s the
limit—the firm aims to reach 80 percent billability using Mavenlink.
Achieved 25% savings on business development costs
Identification of lost time spent in the pre-sales cycle has allowed Kainjoo to
reinvest these dollars to better focus on the needs of clients. The result has
been a savings of 25 percent, and consequently the ability to make smarter
business-driven decisions about how and when to pursue new customers.