Customer Case Study: Professional Services Firm Builds Digital Practice with the Informat Platform

Professional services organizations — consulting, legal, accounting, engineering, architecture — face unique digital transformation dynamics: their primary assets are their people and their expertise, their work is project-based and often custom for each client, and their technology needs span internal operations, client delivery, and practice management. This case study examines how a mid-size management consulting firm — referred to here as "Apex Consulting Group" (ACG) — used the Informat low-code platform to transform its internal operations, client delivery capabilities, and practice management, achieving measurable improvements in consultant productivity, project profitability, and client satisfaction.

ACG employs approximately 800 consultants across 12 offices, serving clients in strategy, operations, and technology practices. The firm's technology environment was typical of professional services organizations: a financial system for billing and accounting, a CRM for business development, spreadsheets for project management and resource planning, and a patchwork of document management, time tracking, and expense tools that had been adopted organically over years. Consultants spent an estimated 20% of their time on administrative work — time entry, expense reporting, project status reporting, resource scheduling, knowledge management — that neither served clients nor developed consultant skills. Project managers maintained project plans in spreadsheets that were inconsistently updated and provided limited visibility to firm leadership. Business development activity was managed through the CRM but disconnected from the delivery and financial systems that tracked the outcomes of sold work. And the IT team of 12 spent most of its time maintaining existing systems and supporting consultants, with minimal capacity for innovation.

The Solution: Integrated Digital Practice on Informat

ACG selected the Informat platform to build an integrated digital practice management environment that connected business development, project delivery, resource management, and financial management — the core systems of a professional services firm. The phased approach delivered measurable value at each stage.

Phase 1 — Consultant Productivity (8 weeks): New applications automated the administrative work that consumed consultant time: integrated time and expense entry with mobile-first design, automated project status reporting (pulling data from time, expense, and financial systems), and knowledge management with AI-powered search across project deliverables and consultant profiles. Consultant administrative time decreased by an estimated 35%, representing significant capacity freed for client work and business development. Consultant satisfaction with internal tools improved markedly.

Phase 2 — Project and Resource Management (12 weeks): New applications replaced spreadsheet-based project and resource management: project planning and tracking integrated with time, financial, and CRM data; resource management and staffing with AI-powered matching of consultant skills to project requirements; and real-time project profitability dashboards. Project manager administrative time decreased, resource utilization improved by 8%, and real-time profitability visibility enabled earlier intervention on at-risk projects.

Phase 3 — Client Delivery and Business Development (10 weeks): New applications enhanced client delivery and business development: client portals for project collaboration, deliverable sharing, and status visibility; automated proposal generation from opportunity data, consultant profiles, and past project references; and integrated pipeline-to-delivery visibility. Proposal generation time decreased by 50%, and the integrated view of pipeline and resourcing improved the firm's ability to plan for upcoming work.

Conclusion

Apex Consulting Group's transformation demonstrates that professional services firms can achieve meaningful digital transformation with lean IT teams and constrained budgets. By building integrated digital practice management on the Informat platform — connecting the business development, delivery, resource, and financial systems that had been disconnected — ACG improved consultant productivity, project profitability, and client experience while operating within the resource constraints of a mid-size professional services firm. The transformation positioned ACG to compete effectively in an industry where digital delivery capability increasingly differentiates winning firms.